Within Reach

Sunday afternoons are about the only time I have for yoga. Thought I was alone, but in Cambodia you are never alone. I’m in a headstand when I notice one little, two little, three little pairs of bare feet. Three little girls watching me silently. That is unusual, because most things we barangs do is pretty funny. I did a few more stretches and ended in a meditation pose, eyes closed; they continued to watch silently. When I opened my eyes, I gestured to them to come in. That was the invitation what they were waiting for.

With very little Khmer, I demonstrated each pose, and all the girls followed, monkey-see-monkey-do. When I inhaled, they inhaled. We exhaled together. When I went into the plow, well that was funny, so we did that a couple of times. We did about a two-minute meditation before the boys came in to poke fun of us.

As I rolled up my mat, one girl said, Tree teach us about English. I actually recognized the verb agni: to know. As it happened, my companion teacher Cameron was due to come over for a pow wow about our Community Teach for this week. I rolled out our visual aids and tried out our plan on the girls. They caught on immediately. Cameron showed up with a silly Hello-Good-Bye song on his phone, so we taught them that as well. They really enjoyed illustrating various greetings on index cards. (Very glad I had on hand colored pencils.) A sweet teach and preach. And all within reach.