hadn't grasped all of the customs yet. I was also a little bit worried about wether the students would respond to us teaching English well and I had no idea what to say during a 'hello speech' Lan had told us we were delivering to the whole school.
I also didn't really know what to wear so I went for a maxi dress which covers my shoulders, knees and chest so I wouldn't be offending anyone with over exposure to the farang's white skin! After a quick breakfast of curry and coffee, Lan drove us to school and as she always adheres to Thai time, we were late. The children were congregated around the large grass area for assembly and she asked us if we would like to jump out of the car while she parked it. We hastily said no, not wishing to be mobed as the children had spotted us and cries of 'KRU FARANG' (foreign teacher) were already ringing around the school. We got out of the car staying close to Lan and were lead around to the main school building. We did a quick awkward 'wai' (head nodded prayer bow) to the principal and were quickly ushered to a microphone infromt of the school to introduce ourselves - in Thai and English. Fabulous. My speech went a bit like this: 'Hello, my name is Chloe and I am from England. Sawadeekah, chan chu Chloe Kah, nickname Dangmoh.' It's safe to say there were a good few giggles, probably from my hilarious pronunciation or the fact id just told the children that my nickname was watermelon. All was fine apart from standing on the grass during the speech a but decided to eat some breakfast direct from my foot so whilst talking I did a little awkward wriggle trying to talk through the pain and get rid of the critter. Thank you bugs for your generous welcome to Watbansong School!
We then sat in the staffroom armed with lesson plans to teach favourite colours for Prathom (Year) 1 and 2. Around 10 minutes before the lesson Lan changed her mind and told us to teach Prathom 6 first. Fabulous, we felt so prepared! We had no idea of their level of English so we have an extremely basic lesson to actually a fairly able class. Their behaviour was terrible. Most of the children were talking, getting out of their chairs and just being nuisances. The Thai teacher with us didn't seem to mind so I thought maybe this is normal. Our situation surprisingly wasn't helped by the marching band bashing their instruments just outside the classroom. That lesson could probably go down as time wasted. I'm not sure anyone learnt anything other than marching bands are loud. Very loud. Although actually quite good at playing the final countdown!
After a few not so planned and not so great lessons we were whisked out of school to a dress fitting. Yeah we weren't informed either, even at this point we had worked out that it's best to go with the last minute flow rather than questioning what was going on. We were took to a formal clothes shop which sold a variety of traditional clothes for ceremonies, weddings and events. Our event was the sports day parade and myself and Joy would be walking with Watbansong school in the parade behind the school flag and infromt of the marching band. The women at the shop began to pull out traditional Thai dresses that were beautiful and amazingly crafted but they would only fit a tiny Thai woman or a barbie doll, definitley not me! They quickly realised this through a few giggles and pulled out some material and bodices which they can wrap around and see you into. We were joined by 'Auntie Anne' a 20 year old man (referred to by Lan as she and not he) who I see as a plumper, Thai Gok Wan. He used to attend Watbansong school but now is studying English at Univeristy and helps out at the school at lunch time with Thai singing and music. He is also quite the fashion guru. He expertly wrapped the material around me and Joy to create Thai Traditional dresses. They then pulled out reems of gold jewlery which is not the expensive kind but unfortunately the type that makes your skin green. We said our 'korpkunkah's' (thank you's) to the women in the shop and headed to a restaurant for lunch. At this point it was 12pm and we had a lesson at 12:30!
Me and Joy shared two rice dishes one with pork and the other beef. I made the mistake of dipping too heavily in the chilli sauce and then having to soothe my tounge with lots of kaow (rice) and namplow (water). It was good though! My tolerance for pet (spicy) food has come a long way since coming to Thailand. Previously a mild chili con carne would set some heat on my tounge but now I'm happily dipping in chili sauce?! What's happened?!
Calls were then made back to school to tell teachers that we wouldn't make it back in time for our lessons and no one really seemed to mind. Instead when we returned to school we hung out in the school office until Lan took us home.
At home I entertained my favourite little monkey. Aparantly he's normally shy with strangers but Lan thinks he must like us because he had no problem with running up the stairs and into our room shouting HELLO! HELLO! He also regularly speaks to us in Thai thinking that maybe we'll understand...
We were soon lead down to an interesting dinner...
Green curry. The spiciest thing I had tried at that point. With a runny nose and watery eyes I managed to muster an 'arroy' (delicious) although I may have been lying. I suppose if I enjoyed the taste of fire it would have been delicious...
The rest of the meal requires an introduction. The first night we stayed at our temporary home we heard a screeching noise. We had seen a cockerel so thought it could be that. We decided it was pigs after a lot of thought and a lot of screeching, mainly at night. I joked that if the pigs didn't stop screeching I would kill them. Talk about speaking too soon. During dinner I heard the noise and asked Lan if it was pigs. She said 'yes! It's the slaughter house!!', just as I was tucking into some pigs ears. Yeah. That happened.
Thai people think it's hilarious when foreigners try to pick the meat of the bone of a pigs ear. We were told, 'No! The bone is soft! You eat that too!' Oh right cool okay then. Classic British politeness overcame me and I did as I was told. Every chew was worse than the last chew, I just about managed it thankfully. Hope was not lost though because there were other dishes to eat which weren't as spicy or strange.
The next day at school I had the chance to take a few snaps of the school and assembly.
That day a lovely class gave myself and Joy, whilst we were team teaching, some letters.
I've been informed they say something along the lines of 'I love my teacher' which is very cute!
We were also treated by Lan with ice coffee and banana fritters. Delicious!
After school Lan dropped us at Tesco where we saw this interesting epiphany on a t-shirt...
In what way is life like an ice cream Thailand? Fathom me that. Is it sticky and melty? Well yes here it is so I suppose that could make sense although not sure it's the meaning they were going for!
We both got majorly excited about the wall of cheese as I was prepared to not see it during my stay other than on pizza in tourist areas. With mouths watering we decided to leave the cheese on the shelf otherwise we would start up a nasty cheese habit that would be hard to break :(.
We then had to do the 30 minute walk home in the humidity. Here's how happy we were about it...
We were even more pleased when we took a slight shortcut infront of some shops rather than along the highway and got chased by two dogs. They were obviously protecting their land but they began barking and then running towards us. As I haven't had the rabies jab I was a bit extra scared as I don't really want to die! Luckily they gave up as they saw us moving away. Phew!
Dinner that night was with some suprises! Dinner was left on the table downstairs as everyone else at Lan's house was too tired to entertain us that night which was very understandable!
Noodle soup. The white bits are the noodles, dark yellow thing is egg and everything else is what we thought was some sort of mystery meat.
Meat doesn't look like this! The texture wasn't meaty at all. We decided that maybe it was brains and maybe we wouldn't eat anymore... It wasn't until the next day that we had the same thing at school for lunch and we asked one of the teachers what it was. Chicken blood. Ahh. Nice. We quickly learnt the word for I'm full (im) which is useful at times when strange things that we've already tried are offered to us. Im not being close minded, I will try anything once but after that I have the right to choose wether I eat it again or not!
The next day I was sporting the top that I had bought in tesco the night before.
Breakfast was mixture of curry and fried vegetables which was really tasty. Spicy food in the morning is a lot different to cereal but it's not bad! I actually think I might ditch the bland cereal and toast when I return to England! Boring!
That morning me and Joy were being good teachers and preparing resources before our lessons, it was sentence work for a lesson on greetings including our song (to the time of twinkle twinkle little star).
Hello, hello!
How are you?
I'm great!
I'm good!
I'm okay.
The children absolutely loved it and some classes were still singing it when we left the classroom which shows it stuck!
After some successful lessons Lan brought us sticky rice and green tea. The sticky rice is in the traditional style in a bamboo cane.
After school, Tonkaow enjoyed terrorising the foreigners as usual which I found quite amusing, despite being so tired!
Tired teachers, to the amusement of Tonkaow! We retired to bed early that night. The next day (Thursday) was sports day and our shining moment in the parade. This meant that we had to be at Lan's house for 4am so we could get our hair and makeup done early at school.
No comments :
Post a Comment