GRIFFITH GLEANINGS AUGUST 2017

Whoever said learning the A-B-C is as easy as 1-2-3? When it comes to the Khmer letters and numerical system, the counting is actually significantly easier to learn than reading. The numbers are repeated when you reach the number five, except the tens so less than half as many numbers to learn as the English equivalent. We have increased our face-to face learning hours to 5 hours per day to facilitate an hour learning to read Khmer. The Khmer writing uses a different script to English and there are no spaces between words, so it will take us a while to learn to read. We know that we will still be learning for as many years as we are given the privilege to live here. We learnt this week that in the writing of the Khmer consonants they can have hair, body and legs. Learning a new culture and language reminds Deb of the “Tadpole Blues” song her second eldest child sang many years ago at a school assembly with great gusto at age 5 years. Here’s the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgM20r6WnHI The morphing of a tadpole to a frog involves many changes. In the song there is a subtle message about facing fears and finding things out for yourself. In the experience of traversing into a new cultural there can be a tension between what was (home culture) and the new identity (new culture).

The team Cambodia language facilitators Catherine and Janelle have worked hard to put things in place for the language nurturers, ourselves and those families preparing to join us here in Cambodia. Although we are the first Global Interaction team members in Cambodia to utilise the Growing Participatory Redemptive Approach (GRPA) to learning language, the model initially designed by the Greg and Angela Thomson a couple serving with WEC International at the time and has been used by many agencies around the world since the late 1970’s. Here’s the link for GRPA for those wanting to know more: https://growingparticipatorapproach.wordpress.com/six-phase-programme/ We are presently mid-way through Phase 3b. Later in the year there will be a meeting here in Siem Reap of representatives from most teams among the nine locations where Global Interaction are working to refresh training with the focus on this culture and learning approach. Deb hopes to join these sessions to glean from other cultural and linguistic insights.

Thank you for the many ways you support us to be here. Really it makes a difference to be sharing in this together. ‘We’ with ‘you’ are part of what God is doing here in Cambodia bringing his wholeness and wellbeing to the Khmer people. Now having lived in Siem Reap, Cambodia almost 8 months we are drawn to the country areas where we are able to watch the rice fields and other numerous crops be prepared, sown, grown, and harvested. The area in the North West of Cambodia where Global Interaction will be focused is rural areas that are home to mostly subsistence farmers. As we seek to learn more about the rural context for Khmer people, we are drawn to be looking for a home closer to where most Khmer live out of the city. Whilst our focus continues to be our cultural and language learning this requires a Siem Reap base, but we hope to partner our learning with building relationships with more rural Khmer people on the fringe of the city. We are thankful for a house-sit where we got a taste of this over the past few weeks.