"When Problems Happen" by Victoria - From The Anjali House Writing Project. Siem Reap, Cambodia

Master Link to All Project Related Posts

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  -Project Director - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information

Victoria, like all the work shop participants, is just starting to learn English. Unlike European languages, the structure and grammer of the Khmer language does not share Latin roots with English, making it very hard to master. The two languages do not even share a common alphabet and Khmer is written from left to right.

My thanks to Victoria (a pen name as required under Cambodian privacy regulations)

for allowing me to publish this very interesting well written poem.

"When Problems Happen"

 by Victoria

 

In my dream I want to travel around the world.

When I see bad things happen to people

I want to help, too, but I don’t know who they are.

 

When I look to the sky

I see the bird fly in the sky.

I want to fly, too, but I don’t have a wing to fly.

 

I want to touch the sky,

but I can’t touch the sky,

because the sky is very high.

 

I feel unhappy because there is a flood in a country.

I want to help the people.

When their trouble is over I will help them to build a house.

 

 

 

 

Victoria, age 12 

 

One day at Khmer school I had a test. I did some tests and some I didn’t. One week after that, my teacher checked the tests.Some tests had good scores, some had bad scores. Then the next week my teacher gave the student record book and I saw that I had a good score. I had passed my exam. I took the student record book to give to my mother to see it. My mother was very happy and I was very happy too.

Mel u