This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.


“Madame, there are no flights available to Siem Riep and the Temples?
So, I can arrange something really good for you.
You take the bus, leaving this afternoon in an hour.
A.C. and comfortable.”
We wait for the lovely and friendly hotel manager, Sambath, to check on this.
She returns. “Bus has only 1 seat left. I have another idea.
A taxi with a driver. It is a 5 hour ride. A.C. of course,
and the driver speaks English. A little more expensive,
but then you go whenever you want and come back whenever you want.
Leave maybe 6 am and get there by noon. Then a tour guide for the temples.
And I have a boutique hotel for $44 US for the night.
Okay? It will be good. I will make arrangements for you?”
Khmer is her first language, French is her second.
We sit by the pool and wait.
“Yes, Madame et Monsieur, it is arranged for you.
And is it okay if I send along one of the young women
who works here with you. This is a new trip and I want her to
tell me how it goes. Is it okay?”

Thus begins one of the most memorable adventures of our lives…
“My name Chan,” says the driver.
“My name Reatrey (Re-try),” says our hotel companion
Chan is 25 and Reatrey is 22. She attends university and is studying
hospitality. She can speak good enough English that we can get along.
Chan has been studying English for a month or so at home with a CD.
When he has money, he takes a lesson.
He is shy to speak and when he does and we understand,
his smile lights up the whole car.
we learn two Khmer words: chup meaning stop, okun meaning thanks

Soon they are chattering away in Khmer in the front seat
with plenty of youthful energy
while we in the back seat
become totally absorbed in what we are seeing
5 hours each way of country life
for me, the scenes are compelling
I am taking thousands of eye photos

A mere 40 years ago, ALL the educated people in this area
were killed. Wearing glasses was enough of a sign.
The US laid down more bombs in Cambodia than in all of WW 2!
And today we Americans are treated with respect and warmth
The remains of war are invisible landmines and some bomb craters
that are now re-vegetated and look like water holes
And the people, the people carry on their lives
as they have for 1000s of years with a few upgrades
“My home is right up this road 40 kilometers.
I am going home on my motorbike next weekend for Khmer New Years.”
“What happens at Khmer New Years?”
“We clean out the house and wash the Buddha and make everything
clean for the new year. Everyone comes home to see family and for parties.
We give presents to grandmother and grandfather and parents.”
Chan adds, “If I have money, I give money. If I don’t have money,
I give a shirt or a dress.”
“And we visit the temple and leave a gift for the Buddha, and we drink and dance.”

Driving, as I now know it to be in developing countries,
is a combination of art, skill, luck, grace, and kindness of others.
Our driver is calm and steady and weaves in and out of other cars,
trucks, motorbikes, pedestrians, tuk tuks.
I try not to look, but hold my breath
as he moves around a truck head on into an oncoming car
that slows down just enough for a few feet of leeway
The a.c. doesn’t work very well in the back seat
It’s takes about an hour and a half before we get to a place
where we can get breakfast…thick coffee with condensed milk and noodle soup
in an open air market where we are the only white people in sight
Chan and Reatrey take good care of us.

From my window view of the passing world I see
a man with a big fat pig in a basket on the back of his motor bike
two orange-robed monks on a motorcycle
a man with an armload of palm sugar branches
ready to be juiced
a woman selling all kinds of exotic fruit
from her stand made of sticks lashed together
we stop and Reatrey buys a few things
we taste “lotus” (lowtuce, accent on the tuce) fruit…nutty
we don’t taste the crunchy black beetles that she loves
we pass a man balancing a ladder on his bicycle
a van with UN Human Rights painted on the side
a lexus
white Brahma cattle literally amble across the road
no one honks, they just slow down and let them pass
water buffalo are staked in the fields
Chan’s cell phone rings
men walk behind wooden plows in the fields
while Chan talks on the cell phone

During my 10 hours of viewing
I looked into thousands of little wooden homes
ranging from really, really poor with palm branch walls
to kind of middle-class
For a composite:
wooden posts in cement footings
hold up a square wooden structure
a story above the ground
there is a blue painted and decorated
stairway leading straight up to an open door
in the middle of the structure.
One small window on one side, open also
Walls are painted in a light blue
with the window frames a darker blue
a Buddhist orange cloth hangs at the top of the doorway
the roof is sheets of metal with 2 peaks to add length to the house
flowers are in pots at the base of the stairs
inside it is dark

“What is inside the house, Reatrey?
Are these like the house you grew up in?”
“Yes, just like this. Two rooms, no walls.
On one side we sleep. No, no beds.
We sleep on the floor. We have a pillow
made of cotton (cot-tone, accent on the tone) from a tree here.
No, no counters. In the kitchen we squat down and cook.
We cook with a fire. We make a fire with a lighter.
No, no grill. We have a piece of cement on the floor.
We put rubber on the cement. Yes, rubber from the rubber tree.
Then we light it and put little sticks on to make a fire
and then we put the rice in the pot on the fire.
No running water. Electricity for a black and white tv
comes from and old car battery (bat-tree, emphasis on tree).”

Underneath the house
is where most daily life happens
always a big table in the middle of the space
under the house
people sit or squat on the table,
boxes and bags of rice are arranged on the ground
a bicycle, a neat pile of wood
a hammock with a sleeper in it
red plastic chairs
people squatting
things in plastic bags hang from the posts
clothes hang on a wooden rack
lots of things in the space
all neatly arranged

a lashed, wide open weave wooden fence surrounds
a brahma cow although the fence would never hold a cow that didn’t want to be there
a 15 foot high haystack organized around a center pole
a dug out water hole the size of a swimming pool
to store water from the rainy season
a very large round pot or three to hold water from the village well
a tarp on the ground holds unhusked rice drying out
a woman pushes the rice around with a little broom
a richly painted gold and yellow and orange family shrine

“How did you decide you wanted to go to university?”
“When I was very little, my mother asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.
I said I wanted to be a doctor and go to university. She said, ‘okay.’
Yes, I’m the first one in the family to go to university. I just always knew it.
My parents are rice farmers. I don’t want to be a rice farmer.
It is very hard work, all the time. My mother also has a little store.
I changed my mind about doctor.
Now I want to run a hotel. Yes, my Dad is very proud of me.
I like going home.”
I am very interested in Reatrey’s life and her family life.
The information from these conversations
come together like the pieces of a patchwork quilt
made of tender persistence and careful listening
for example, when I asked her how the fire didn’t burn the floor,
Reatrey looked amazed that I didn’t know about the cement slab
I am reminded of the south sea islanders who purportedly
couldn’t see a clipper ship because they didn’t know about ships
She did well, translating her world to me

Cambodia is 95% Buddhist.
Every few kilometers we pass a glittering temple
gold, orange, yellow, red and ornate
plain, high walls and very richly decorated roof edgings
in towns, they are the center of town
in the country
we see a fancy arch
and then my eye traces down a long, long dirt road
a highway of my imagination as I consider what temple, what town,
what ordinary extraordinary things might be down this road
so open and yet so clearly leading somewhere as yet unseen

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.

INTERVIEWS with the 12th graders

6th graders interviewed the 12th graders
they were very nervous at first–
interviewing the 12th graders–their heroes!
we made up interview questions
they did the interviews
and had a good time
surprise!

they edited each other’s stories
with a red editing pen I gave each one
“Everyone needs an editor,” I said
“You should have seen how many red marks
from my editor that there were on my book.
I didn’t like it at all. Then I found out
that the changes made it a better book.”

Ren and I discovered that there are
typical Indonesian English mistakes
representing differences in
grammatical structure
we have names and symbols for these:
snake mistakes (under and over use of plural s)
skyscraper mistakes (capitalization)
clock mistakes (lack of agreement of verb tenses in a sentence)
envelope mistakes (other kinds)
we use the symbols and then they make the correction
they learned about the publishing process

it was a proud and exciting moment
when they delivered a copy
of their interviews to each class
as if it were a real newspaper

Here are two of the interviews

Kak Noko, by Journalist Syifa

Kak Noko’s full name is Tri Andi Sunoko, be we often call him Kak Noko. He was born on the 22nd of June 1994 in Central Kalimantan and his zodiac sign is Cancer. Kak Noko is living in Sukamulya that is located in front of Rungan Sari. His hobby is skateboarding and his favourite movie is Harry Potter because he said that Harry Potter’s story is adventurous. At school, Kak Noko’s favourite lesson is physics because physics is easy to understand. He also had a favourite teacher named Pak Gunardjo. In recess time, Kak Noko likes to play guitar and he wants to be a successful singer like Bruno Mars. Kak Noko said that being 12th graders is hard because the lessons are complicated. Kak Noko also said that when we are in 12th grade we should study hard to pass the National Exam. His dream after passing the national exam is going to the university called ITB (Institut Teknologi Bandung). Besides all this, Kak Noko can also speak French. He wants to learn French because the French language is awesome. I like interviewing Kak Noko because he is funny and friendly. I’m not nervous to interview him because he’s an easy going person.

Kak Hengky, by Journalist Shila

Hengky Susilo is his full name. He lives in Sukamulya on Tjilik Riwut Street. He was born in Pulang Pisau between Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan. His birthday is on the 2nd of November 1993. He will continue studying or working after 12th grade. “12th grade is cool and awesome, “he said. His favourite foreign countries are Australia, America, and Japan. He wants to go to Australia because he wants to take a picture of him with a koala. He wants to go to America because he wants to see the biggest museum, and he wants to go to Japan because he wants to study there. A time he felt scared was when he was about 5 years old and there was a big thunderstorm. He respects people who are younger than him. He has a big wish and it is to be a successful person. Something that makes him sad is that he lost a person he really loved. A time he felt angry was when he got a toothache and there were people disturbing him. He wants to be a doctor and a singer because he likes to study those lessons. He has a “girlfriend” but we don’t know who she is because he doesn’t want to say it. Now he is teaching primary students in public school every Saturday. He feels happy because he’s only 18 years old but he is already teaching and he said he is the youngest teacher. He was thinking about 12th grade and he thinks it is hard to be in 12th grade because he will get a National Exam. “I will feel successful if my dreams come true,” he said.

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.


Phnom Penh–just the names bring forth
images of war, massacres, jungles, poor peasants,
rice paddies, ambushes, fear, danger, landmines…
flying in, we look down at small green patches
of villages surrounded by fields and connected by
small brown roads
I’m surprised not to see the ravages of war.
The airport is modern-ish
You can get along in English or Khmer or French
Cambodia was a French colony
I had forgotten
Cambodian English is kind of delightful
Since they can’t say the ce or ch sounds,
we hear “Have ni time, This is Fren restaurant,
Do you want ri with that?”
In addition, English is pronounced with a French accent
like: “This is a pagoDA, These are loTUS flowers.”

Our dear friends David and Nerina and their son Curran
meet us at the airport
and drive us to our little bed and breakfast
in the “expat” area of town
Phnom Pehn is an Asian city
coming into its own economically
In the morning, David and Nerina
come by to pick us up in a “tuk tuk”
a quaint little cart pulled by motorcycle
“$2 dollar” (American money is the most popular currency!)
we plan the day, “Let’s see
how about a lovely $8 hour-long foot massage
in a lounge chair with tea or juice?
and then there’s the FCC (Foreign Correspondent’s Club)
where we could go for lunch
it’s on the Tonle River just where it connects with the Mekong
closed up during the war days
but now back in service
tall ceilings, fans,
river views, pagoda views
classic pub atmosphere…
then maybe a nap and a swim
and then Nerina and Cedar can get their hair washed
and their nails done for $7
Then we can go to a wine bar where we get a view of the city
and then a Cambodian barbecue that’s a must while you’re here.”
“Okay, sounds great!”

There’s not much to see in the city
other than daily life happening
and there is plenty of that
the usual street stalls with all kinds of merchandise
the massive central market
teeming, literally, teeming with everything imaginable
and linked with every imaginable smell
exhausting after 15 minutes of wandering and bargaining
new apartments gradually replacing old slums

we have good food, good times with our friends,
friendly hotel to stay in
adventures to remember

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.

9 weeks at school

it’s been nine weeks now
next week is the last of the term
the 6th graders
at first shy and silent
now, arms around each other,
call themselves “The Famous Six”
(a play on a book they read called “The Famous Five”)

chalk it up to the natural result
of familiarity
and there are things they’ve taught me
about how to help them flourish

why are they reluctant to speak English?
their culture is naturally soft-spoken
they are afraid they will say things wrong
and, big one, their passive vocabulary
is sooo much larger than their active one
they know what they want to say,
they’ve read or heard the word
but they can’t pull it into voice

we go through the fabulous book “Anamalia” (by Graeme Base)
looking on each alphabet page for pictures of things
that begin with the letter on the page
they know things like: Roman numerals, raccoon, roller skates,
ram, rocking horse, rolling pin, rattlesnake, register
they pronounce these words in Indonesian (rom, peen)
so I know they have not actually heard the word

for Indonesians, English (Inggris) is very important
because it is their bridge to the world
and Central Kalimantan is one of the least developed
of the large nation of Indonesia
Reading is important, of course,
but clarity and fluency in speaking is at least as important
Monica wrote on a spelling word sentence
“When my family went to Hong Kong, we were frustrated
because even when we spoke English, they didn’t understand us.”
(the spelling word was frustrate)

So my focus has been on speaking clearly and fluently
one of the complications with this is
that they hear so many different accents:
Indonesian English, British English, Australian English,
and more rarely, American English, although
much of their passive vocabulary comes from
watching American movies, and they consider
American, the “coolest” accent

Here are a few of the things we’ve figured out
• practice reading aloud and pronunciation with
younger grade picture books (baby books we call them)
because the words and phrasing are simpler
• when one child says the word incorrectly,
they all practice saying the word
• I notice and praise
“You said the word, that correctly this time.”
“You caught yourself about to get too silly and stopped.”
One day after a multitude of asking them
to speak louder and slower
I tried inviting them to give suggestions to each other
“Can you hear Dion?” heads shake,
“Would you like to?” heads nod
“Could you make a suggestion?”
Bagus smiles and says in a teasing high voice,
“Just a leeetle beet louder.”
We all laugh as I realize he is imitating me
in an exaggerated way….new class joke

• we invent and play “famous person gives a speech.”
each student comes up with one sentence, like–
“My family went on vacation to Jakarta.”
I look at the sentence and then introduce the student:
“Our next speaker is a delight.
She is a world expert on family vacations.
I know you will totally enjoy her speech.
Please welcome Ms. Shila!”
Shila comes to the front of the room
and says her sentence
we coach her to be loud and clear
and confident
She says the one sentence over and over
emphasizing a different word each time–
“MY family went on vacation to Jakarta.”
“My FAMILY went on vacation to Jakarta.”
“My family WENT on vacation to Jakarta.”
We laugh and clap for Shila

• And then there’s the “yes and… game.”
One student begins the story,
speaking directly to the next student
(not to me, so we practice conversation style
rather than teacher to student style)
“Ale and Bagus went to the mall.”
The next student says, “Yes, and….there they met
and he pushed Bagus down.” “Yes, and…Bagus was bleeding.”
We go around three times and the stories that emerge
are funny, teasing, serious, fearful.
Full of the 11 year old psyche: vampires, blood, ghosts,
making messes with food, boy/girl antics and awkwardness.
They’re having fun, they’re talking as if in conversation,
they’re listening to each other, and they’re playing in English
instead of just studying English.
I’m happy too.