At the end of the 2012 school year I was invited to attend an awards ceremony at the local primary school in my village. Awards for high achievements were given out to students in grade levels one through six. Most award ceremonies in Cambodia are attended by people in high position and authority. For instance, the head monk from our watt, the village chief, the police chief and of course the primary and secondary school directors awarded certificates to the students. I was happy to see that the ceremony had a strong sense of community and parental support. At the end of the ceremony, the primary school director asked if I could speak for a few moments about the education system in the U.S. My counterpart, Vanny, helped translate for me as I tried to explain what the similarities and differences are between Cambodia and the U.S. I mentioned how we don't have school on Saturdays, that the children usually attend school from eight to three thirty, that most award ceremonies do not include village or communal chiefs because we don't have any but that the students in the U.S. are almost as excited as the children in Cambodia to receive certificates. Well actually that's a lie because mostly everyone in Cambodia treats certificates like gold. Cambodians will treat their certificates with the utter most care and heaven forbid you spell their name wrong. They will call you out, hunt you down and fight to have it changed to their liking.
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