An Incomplete Answer

When my Aunt Kathy visited back in December, she asked me what I needed to achieve to feel like I had been successful here in Cambodia. Although we’re constantly encouraged to collect data on our students and monitor our projects, this question was much more personal than an objective like “20% of 12^th grade students will improve their English speaking skills by 30% within the next 9 months.” I was caught off guard by the question, but in her wisdom my aunt told me that she didn’t even want to hear the answer until I had thought about it for at least a few days. In the end, I never gave my aunt an answer, at least not a complete one.

A great opportunity with a July 31^st deadline quickly changed my focus from my family and our deep conversations to the more immediate task of helping my students and co-teachers with an application to study in America. The US embassy in Phnom Penh would be sponsoring five students and one teacher from Kampong Speu province to attend a 3-week leadership conference in D.C. and Hawaii, and I knew it would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for my students and co-teachers to improve their English, strengthen their leadership skills, and see a part of the world they could only dream about.

While the application was free and open to anyone, I knew that I would only be able to support a limited number of applicants from my school, so I enlisted the help of two co-teachers to select the top 10 English students who met the age and graduation criteria (which ended up meaning the top 10 students from grade 11). I also suggested that two of my co-teachers apply for the one adult slot. After meeting with me to discuss the application process, the students set to work answering pages of daunting essay questions and biographical information. Not only was this the first application form most of them had completed, but it was completely in English, a language they had never used for such an important task before.

I took the application process as an opportunity to develop skills which the students and teachers would need for future learning or job opportunities. Each applicant met with me one-on-one to discuss their essay responses. They then edited them and turned them in to the embassy. Four students and two teachers from my school were selected for interviews, and again we set to work practicing skills for the present and for the future. We discussed how much appearance and confidence mattered in an interview and developed strategies to interview better such as thinking of possible questions in advance and holding ones hands together while resting them on the table to avoid nervous fidgeting.

While it was somewhat heartbreaking to inform my students and co-teachers that they were not selected in the end, I could only hope that the skills we practiced would boost their confidence when they apply for other opportunities in the future. For one student, though, the long and difficult application process resulted in ultimate happiness. Raksmey, the brightest and most creative student in my English club, impressed the judges with her answers and excellent English skills in the interview. She was the only student selected for the leadership conference who didn’t come from an elite English training program in another village.

As I told Raksmey that she was selected, tears formed in her eyes, and I finally felt the answer to my aunt’s question. I felt that my presence here had affected someone’s life in a concrete way, and I thought back to the many people in my life who have impacted me in the kind of way I had impacted Raksmey. I was not the one who offered the scholarship; I wasn’t the one who taught Raksmey all her English skills, and I wasn’t the one who wrote the essay responses and braved the interview, but I was the one who supported her and believed in her in a life-changing way. That was the purpose instilled in me by so many mentors in my own life, those who had provided scholarships to attend summer camps as a kid, those who had encouraged me to see a whole new world through study abroad, those who had believed in me and pointed me in the direction of a top-tier liberal arts college, and those who have loved me and kept me going throughout this Peace Corps experience.

With Raksmey’s concrete success, I realized the opaqueness of my efforts over the past year and a half, the near invisibility of my impact on so many others. Yet that’s what sustainable work should look like. My aunt told me several times during her visit that I’d never know what good would come from my being here and that that was for the better. What happens while I’m here to see it is important, but what happens after I’m separated by time and distance will be the true measure of my service. The skills, knowledge, and confidence that survives my departure from my community is what makes my two years in Peace Corps meaningful. While I’m fortunate to see Raksmey’s achievement, I’m more content with the realization that I don’t have to see the result of my labors to know that I’ve made a difference in at least the lives of a few dozen students,  a handful of teachers, and one loving host family.

 Raksmey

Showing off her school's beautiful garden

 

Raksmey studies in grade 11 while living away from her parents, brother, and sister in a state-run orphanage in Kampong Speu province. She has studied English for five years and plans to pursue an English literature degree in university. Eventually, she hopes to become an English teacher. In addition to studying English and information technology in her free time, Raksmey enjoys playing basketball, drawing, listening to music, and singing. She hopes her April study abroad in America will provide her with the opportunity to share her culture and learn about other cultures in addition to teaching her technical skills to develop her school and community upon her return.