The real world
By CARE
From Phnom Penh to Bonn: Channy Chheng in the CARE office (photo: CARE/Bulling)When I first stepped into the dormitory where I was going stay for two months during my summer internship at CARE in Bonn, Germany, I saw the different coloured skins of many students inside. One question came into my mind: What do they do here during summer? One day later, I got a chance to talk with them. We introduced each other. The man with glasses who claimed himself from China said he came to Germany for a one-month summer course while the girl with curly hair from Mexico said she came here for a summer internship. Immediately, I thought of Cambodian students and what they are doing during their break. I already know that only a small number of the students is doing a summer internship. The majority has nothing to do.
From my own experiences, so far, I have been interning two times. First, I took an internship at the local organization, Youth for Peace, for three months. Then I worked for another two months as a freelance news writer. I had to travel from province to province to gather information for the magazine, Youth Today. I gained a lot of benefit there as I am a media student. I was very talkative in the office at that time. Sure, you know, Cambodian colleagues, language, working environment.
One step abroad, great experience
And now I am taking an internship at CARE Deutschland-Luxemburg. This is my first time working abroad. Can you imagine how far it is from Cambodia, South-East Asia, to Germany? It took me nearly 16 hours on the plane. But I am very happy to have this golden opportunity. This is my first time being out of my home country.
Everything is really different from country to country. In Germany, I encounter a lot of problems from the way to work and in the office. Although I have been in the office for a week already, everything is still very new to me. Every so often I have to sit still for a while, take a few breath and then find the way to cope with them since I can’t speak German.
Of course, it is my own mistake that I did not learn some common German words before I came here. Without the language spoken, I feel isolated; the colleagues in the office speak to each other their own language that they somehow seem to forget I am Cambodian. Oh, I am so sorry to say that. In Cambodia if you don’t understand what they are talking about, then people say “Dek Kou Tov Meul Touratos’’ which means, “You are like a cow taken to watch television’’. Furthermore, everyone here speaks very fast that, sometimes, I don’t know whether they are speaking German or English to me. But the colleagues in the office are very helpful. They always offer me help whenever I ran across problems. Every document and paper—hanging on the wall, on the table, in the computer is written in German.
Short lunchbreak and German word bits all around
One more thing I have to adapt myself to is time for break. The first day I was in the office, after lunch the colleagues went straight to work. I asked myself: Do they forget the time for break? The answer came the following days. Oh no, they don’t take a rest after lunch. In Cambodia, after lunch I was lying on the cot and listening to music or news and then took a nap for around 20 minutes before I went back to work again. It is very funny to say that the first day I was very drowsy after lunch, but I tried to open my both eyes sitting in front of computer to work. In Cambodia, the people have at least two-hour break after lunch. They always say that: Don’t work while our stomach is digesting.
Bonn or Africa?
Let me say another fact about my feeling, sitting in the office, I think that I am not in Germany, but somewhere in Africa. My feeling somehow interprets mistakenly because there are a lot of photos showing African people hanging around the walls. Why are these photos in the CARE office? The question explodes in my mind. I then figure out the answer after I finished reading Annual Report 2007 published by CARE. These are photos that portray a few women amongst hundred thousands whom CARE has helped from the poor and war-torn countries in Africa.
The other thing, I don’t need to go into detail. I think maybe you know. It is the computer keyboard. In my country, I use the English keyboard, but here I sit in front of the computer with a German keyboard. The first day I had to move my fingers slowly on it. However, it quickly turns out to be normal to me.
Many Cambodian students do not know the concept of internships
A student friend of Channy does interviews on the street (photo: private)There are thousands of university students in Cambodia doing their degrees every year. But the majority of them has never had the opportunity to take an internship.
Some don’t even know what internship means. As I know, there are just a few public universities which provide internship opportunities to their students. Last month, I was really stunned when one of my friends, who is doing his master degree at a private university in Phnom Penh, asked me what internship meant after I told him that I had been successfully selected for an internship in Germany. At first, I thought he just wanted to make fun with me. But then I realized that he didn’t really know the term internship. At that time I almost didn’t believe my ears that the student who will graduate from university in a next few months never did an internship. My friend is only one among thousand of students who never interned.
In my university, Royal University of Phnom Penh, especially the Department of Media and Communication, taking an internship is a must. This will count as a course credit. The students will have to find a place for their internship after they finish second and third year. My German friend Kristina, 24, a political science and Communication student, who is also doing an internship at CARE Deutschland-Luxemburg, said that in Germany students have to intern. This also takes into account for the school credit. At CARE, she is working in the Media section and she hopes that this will be beneficial to her in the future as she wants to be a journalist.
One week has just gone, and others will come. The first week seemed to be long for me, like many things needed to be learnt. But it was ok. To make myself easy, I think, I have to learn some easy German words or phrases. Now I can say that I am steady getting used to those. And here I am waiting for what I haven’t seen and heard yet about Bonn.
