It was a long and wonderful five and a half months. I met so many great people, Cambodian and foreigner. Kids and adults.

Everyone’s always smiling, always friendly. There are always exceptions, of course, and even some darker stories beneath the surfaces. But I can’t help but appreciate how this attitude just makes things better in a day.

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Immersion’s a cool way to teach a language. You spend time in an environment where everyone speaks the language, and you just have to figure out what’s going on. Unfortunately, PIO is no immersion environment. Nor is my one-hour-a-week speaking class. For the former, the kids still talk to each other in Khmer during my class;¹ for the latter, it’s just too little time.

So once you’re back to a multilingual environment and a more traditional teaching style, how much do you use the students’ first language?

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The most common form of personal transportation in Cambodia is the motorbike, or “moto”. As such, it’s pretty common to see three people on the back of one moto; we’ve done it ourselves. Heck, even four isn’t too uncommon. We’ve probably even seen five at one point, though only if you count kids as full people. But hey, this is how you get everywhere. Why stick to just people? We’ve seen…

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