Perspective
“Basically, all new primary school teachers like me earn as much as 70000 Riel (18$) a month”, Bunna explains, “but I have to spend 6000Riel (1.5$) a day on gasoline for going back and forth, not to mention the money I have to spend on lunch everyday. I see no gain in doing this. So, what the point of continuing to teach?”
The school knows his problem; they are already in shortage of teachers. So, to encourage him to keep coming to school as well as to help reduce his every day’s expense , on a voluntarily basic, students agree---despite the fact that their families are so poor--- that they would bring one or two kilos of rice each month to school and cook for him. In one or two weeks some students would hand him one or two of their home-raised chickens as a bonus for his dinner.
Most of the students come from rural, impoverished families, with low educational backgrounds. Yet, Bunna could still see in their eyes--- the eyes that are hunger for knowledge and the need for proper education.
