I know I do this quite a bit, but
here is yet another “catch-up” blog post! My last post was about the weather.
It’s been over a month, and I’m still cold! We’ve had a couple of warmer
spells, but overall, Thailand feels much colder this year than it did last
year. It’s amazing that I can make comments like that now. That’s right, we’ve
now been in Thailand for over a year! It’s a pretty big milestone for us. I’m
already getting ahead of myself though. Let’s get back to everything that has
happened over the past couple of months.
Scout Camp
December 23rd and 24th
Zack and I accompanied my school to scout camp. Scouts (boy and girl scouts)
are standard in every school, and we have various activities throughout the
year related to scouts. Also, every Wednesday is scout day. That means that the
students wear their scout uniforms to school and have scout activities for the
last period of the day. The camp is an event that everyone seems to really look
forward to. Joy (one of my co-teachers) kept telling me how fun it would be and
how excited she was for us to go.
At the camp, the bpratom 6 through
mattayom 3 students (grades 6-9) took part in scout activities led by staff at
the camp while the teachers either followed the students around or hung out in
a separate building eating som tam, drinking and singing karaoke. Right after
we arrived at the camp, we all (Zack and I, the students, the scout leaders and
a few of the teachers) went on a short hike. Of course, no hike is complete
without ice cream, so partway though some ice cream vendors pulled up to one of
the empty lots that we happened to be hiking though and everyone took an ice cream
break. It seemed to be pretty good timing. Some of the students really
struggled with the hike, but I was encouraged to see kids being active outside.
Hiking regularly is one of the things Zack and I have really missed, so it was
fun to share that experience with our students. As we were coming to the end of
our hike, we walked past a wat and were blessed by monks who sprinkled water on
us as we went by. It seemed like a really good way to conclude the hike.
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| Ice cream break! |
That evening, each school performed
a skit. Our students’ performance consisted of a lot of fire. From what I
understand, their skit was about a ceremony that is performed to bring rain
during times of drought. Basically, during this ceremony villagers put a cat in a cage and parade it
around, throwing water on it. Of course, all I can think about is how
traumatizing that must be for the poor cat, but luckily our students used a Mickey
Mouse plush toy rather than an actual cat. I found out a little bit more about
this ceremony HERE.
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| Can't say I've seen anything like this at school functions in the States... |
That night I slept in a small house
with all of the women and Zack slept in a separate house with the men. I was ecstatic to find that
our bathroom had HOT WATER! (Unfortunately, Zack's did not...but he says he finds the cold water "exhilerating!") The students slept in separate dorms. We woke up
the next day, and I didn’t even think about it being the 24th,
Christmas Eve. I came to that realization quickly though when my co-teacher and
school administrator approached me ever so casually, pulled me aside privately,
and as sweetly as possible asked if I could plan activities for Christmas the
following day. I have confirmation that Thailand has changed me, because it
honestly didn’t faze me very much that they would wait until literally less than
24 hours beforehand to approach me with this. A couple of weeks earlier I had
mentioned to Joy that a fellow volunteer was planning a Christmas camp at her
school. Joy made sure to mention this as they ever so kindly asked for my help.
As nicely as possible, I also reminded her that my friend had
been planning her camp for several weeks. The conversation quickly moved to
what materials I would need for the camp. We brainstormed a brief outline in
the span of about five minutes then proceeded to the closing ceremony for the scout
camp. (More of this story to follow…)
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| Wat Luang Phor Toh |
After the scout camp came to a close,
we all made a side trip to the beautiful Wat Luang Phor Toh. On our ride back
to site, Zack and I had some really great conversations with the teachers from
my school who drove us. We learned the word “oop un” which we kind of translated to “warm fuzzies,” but literally translates to “warm embrace.” We’ve heard many
people use this word when describing family, home, or other feel-good things.
Before going home, we made a run to the store to get some supplies for our
Christmas activities. As Zack and I began to check out, one of the teachers
insisted on buying our groceries for us. We in turn insisted that we could buy
them ourselves, but she told us that helping us made her “dtem jai,” which
translates literally to “full heart.” Later that evening she explained that we
need to allow people to take care of us and that it hurts the gift-giver’s
feelings to not accept a gift. Zack and I are still finding the balance with
this, mostly because we don’t want to be a burden to anyone. We have to
tread carefully though because our intentions to not burden could potentially
offend those trying to “take care” of us. This is a perfect example of the
giving nature of the Thai people surrounding us. They just want to make sure
that we are happy and taken care of.
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| Carrying on my family's sugar cooking-making tradition in Thailand. |
When we finally arrived home, I had
a ton to do. Not only did I have to prepare for the school Christmas
activities, but I also had to finish making cookies for a staff Christmas party
that we were planning to host at our house after school. It was a Christmas eve
to remember as Zack and I scrambled to make materials, bake, clean the house,
decorate a little bit and wrap presents.
Christmas
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| There's my mom! |
After the Skype chat, Kru
Charoensri (my other co-teacher) and I used the projector to tell/show the
story of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer in English and Thai. Afterwards, Zack
and I taught the song along with motions. We then played a “pass the balloon”
game. Each balloon had a question about the story inside of it. The students
passed balloons around as music played. Whoever was holding the balloon when
the music stopped had to pop it and answer the question inside. The students
who answered the questions even got Christmas presents as prizes! Our last game
was a Santa hat relay race. Our principal dressed up as Santa and each team
raced to put the hat on and say “Merry Christmas!” before passing the hat to
the next person. The last person in the relay line then ran to “Santa” to give
him the hat. It was pretty cute, and our principal seems really proud to be
Santa. He kept joking about his skin color not being right, be we assured him
that nobody knows for sure what Santa looks like and that he was a perfect
Santa. Last, the school rock band (a band that Zack has been working with every
day after school) performed for the first time! The meeting hall turned into a
giant dance party, perfect for channeling Christmas cheer.
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| School Staff |
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| The Band |
The party didn't stop there! Right after
school, the school staff came to our house. Some of the younger women came home
with me during last period to help prepare fruit and snacks ahead of time. Zack
made popcorn and I pulled out the Christmas sugar cookies that I had made the
night before. I made hot coco, and we all ate together. It was unlike any
Christmas I had ever had before, but my heart was still full and we were surrounded
by people who care about us. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
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| My principal sits down for some Christmas snacks. |
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| A little Christmas Cheer |
New Years at the SAO
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| (above: Pi Noi, one of our absolute favorite people below: some of the SAO staff) |
The day after Christmas was the New
Year’s party at the SAO (Zack’s work). It was a night full of singing, dancing,
eating, drinking, gift exchanging, and all-around light-heartedness.
Trip to Koh Samet
That Friday night, Zack and I got
on an overnight bus to Rayong province, where we were planning to spend New Year’s
and my birthday on the island of Koh Samet. We arrived in Rayong early in the
morning and ended up navigating our way to the ferry with a man we met on the
bus who happened to be a vendor on the island. We felt so fortunate to be
guided and were once again grateful for the kindness of Thai people. Once on
the island, we still needed to find a place to stay. Since it was a holiday
weekend, there were a TON of tourists, mostly from Europe. We secured a place
for the first couple of days (which was actually our first choice of places to
stay!) then spent a good chunk of the day trying to track down another vacant
room. We eventually got it all sorted out. The next few days consisted of a lot
of beach lounging, swimming and attempted snorkeling. We were lucky to be able
to spend time with a couple other PCVs, so that made things even more fun. New
Year’s Eve was a blast! We had real pizza, hung out on the beach, set off and
watched others set of a million fireworks, watched a steady stream of lanterns
floating over the ocean and toasted the New Year with champagne and good
friends.
left: the view from our beach bungalow, right: our bungalow at night
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| Look what Zack found!! |
So that brought us into the New Year! The beginning of January has been pretty eventful too.
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| Cheers! |
Zack and I were home in time for
our 6 year anniversary. We still can’t believe it’s been that long! We made
dinner together, complete with my new favorite food, cilantro salad, and
instant mashed potatoes from a wonderful friend back home.
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| If anyone wants the cilantro salad recipe, let me know! It's super easy and REALLY delicious :) |
Out of Commission
Monday I was back at school, but
feeling a little bit off. That evening it really hit me. I would try to get up
to do something then would have to sit down moments later because I was out of
breath and dizzy. For whatever reason, this extreme fatigue continued for a
couple of weeks, keeping me out of school most of that time. I’m much better
now, almost back to 100%, thank goodness. I was starting to lose my mind a bit
and everyone at the school was super worried about me, so I received regular visits
from my co-teachers and the rest of the staff. I also received several bagfuls of
fruit to aid me in my recovery and felt so genuinely cared for.
PST
Once I was finally feeling better,
I ended up getting a last minute call from our Peace Corps Program Manager
asking me to come help out at group 126’s Pre-service Training (PST). (Zack and I are
part of group 125, so this is the next round of volunteers!) Because of the protests in Bangkok, the person who was
originally going to help couldn’t make it to the training. Zack had already been
invited to go, so it just made sense for me to tag along. It ended up working
out really well. The sessions were fun, and it was so great to get to meet the
new group of volunteers!
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ONET
This pretty much catches me up to present-day.
I’m back at school, trying to get into a normal flow again, but ONET
(standardized testing) is interfering with that quite a bit. I may end up
writing more about it later, but for now I’m just happy to have the opportunity
and the health to be able to teach whenever the opportunity presents itself.
When we teach it’s really enjoyable, and I am seeing an enormous amount of
growth in our students.
Even in the past couple of months
Zack and I have grown, and we continue to learn so much from our experience
here.
Check out more pictures HERE.
Check out more pictures HERE.
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