"Beautiful Snow in Antarctica" by Victor - 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

Victor, 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 Victor (a pen name as required under Cambodian privacy regulations)

for allowing me to publish this very beautiful poem.

"Beautiful Snow in Antarctica" 

by Victor

 

Antarctica is very nice, I love Antarctica.

I want to go to there but it is very cold.

I can’t live there.

There are some dangerous animals.

There are sharks in the sea.

Polar bears in the caves of ice...

I love ice.

 

Antarctica has a lot of penguins.

They have wings but they can’t fly.

They can only swim and walk.

Some dangerous animals like to eat penguins.

Some of the penguins are dead

because the dangerous animals eat them.

 

The people can skate on the ice.

I hope I can go to Antarctica

Because Antarctica is very nice but it’s very cold.

 

Victor, age 13 

 

When I was 10 years old, I was swimming with my friend in the pond. I tried to swim very hard, but next I felt like I drowned in the water. I thought I was going die but my friend was trying to help me. Finally I was safe. My friend helped me  by swimming to get me from the water. When I came home I was very scared that my parents would hit me. Then my friend tried to help me again by using good words and they didn’t hit me. I am very happy that my friend always helps me.

Mel u