3 Hour Dinner and 50 Mosquitoe Bites

10 year old students
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Last night I had dinner with the english teacher at my school.  Her name is Anne and she is 30 years old.  Her english is pretty good for only having learned it at the university in Bangkok.  She is responsible for all english classes at my school; that covers about 450 students.

She picked me up at 730pm and she took me to her Aunt's restaurant.  This was a Chinese-Thailand restaurant which means they display in the front of the restaurant all the food they serve for dinner.  It is kept in hot boxes or the fresh vegetables are just sitting out.  I had my first experience with pork intestine, which I had about an 1/8th of an inch of, and then moved on to the deep fried frog legs.  Those little bouncing suckers are pretty tasty.  They taste like a very good seasoned white chicken meat.....and yes, I would have them again.  We had so much food I didn't think that the 115 pound Anne could consume as much as she did, let alone me.  This trip will have put back about 15 pounds on my ass.  All the food is really good, we just eat so much and since it is so hot, you just want to sit around and lounge let alone doing any exercising; except my 6:15am run or walk.  The mosquitoes were deadly and feasting on my feet as much as I was feasting on the food in front of me; fair is fair, right?

....mosquitoes were deadly and feasting on my feet.......

Some of the teachers at my school
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The conversation was really interesting as we sat and compared the Thai culture to the American culture (or the lack thereof since we are a large melting pot).  The thai family unit is very much like the mexicans/latinos.  The families mostly live together (parents, kids and sometimes the grandparents) under the same roof.  When the kids go to the university and graduate, they usually live at home until they are married or possibly move to another city.  Unlike the US, everyone lives separately and the kids leave the home after university.  She asked about George Bush, politics and if the American people would be as welcoming as the Thai people if she were to travel to the US.  I really couldn't answer the last part since it would depend on what city (big or small).  The thai people are extremely welcoming, and in a lot of cases the volunteers have been invited to teachers houses for dinner or sleep overs.  Nearly every single person you pass on the street will smile and say hello....they usually can not speak english but want to try and have a conversation with you anyway.  The children here are not much different than in the US; but they are quite a bit more respectful to their elders and in a very pleasant and refreshing way.  You will have your good studious kids, the middle of the road like I was, and then the class clowns.

Teacher Anne on the left
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I had a small breakthrough with one little girl who is about 7 or 8 years old.  She is very shy, doesn't really talk to anyone (kids or teachers), sometimes sits alone at lunch and is usually pretty slow when it comes class work.  I have been paying a little more attention to her with the hopes of making some sort of connection.  In class I will look at her often while annunciating various parts of english words so she can see me and mimick me.  I will make sure to look at her class work and help her through it, and so forth.  Well, last Thursday or this past Monday (the days sort of blend together) as she was sitting by herself I gave her a bag of thai cherries at lunch.  When I did that, there was a slight surprised look on her face followed by a glowing in her eyes with a smile.  Some of the other girls around her smiled as I displayed this nice gesture.  About 10 minutes later she came up to me and thanked me with folded hands and a slight bow (which is thai custom for a display of respect and thanks) and then ran off.  In class on Wednesday (yesterday), surprising she was following along with me very closely through the annunciations and pronunciations, AND, when I had them write the english words in their book she was in the top 10 students of a 38 student class.  In most cases, she is just starting when the other students are finishing.  I was very pleased to see that.  That's the thing about being here, if you try to make a difference on a micro rather than macro level, you will experience some accomplishments.  You are only here for a short period of time and have a very big task at hand with a large number of students.  You can not expect to teach all the kids english, but if you can get through to a few of them, then I believe that is a big success....at least for me.  I see other people trying to focus on the big picture, but that is very difficult if you are only here for 3 or 4 weeks.  Anyway, this was really special to have experienced and it made me feel good seeing an improvement and difference in this little girls life if for only 1 day.

Sarah leaving her school on her last day
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Today, classes were pretty good.  I have only 2 on Thursdays so it was pretty easy....also, I am getting to know the kids better (who listens and who doesn't) so I can work through the 1 hour classes accordingly.  Today, we reviewed vocabulary, signs such as "No Smoking" and I think I taught them the question "What is this?" followed by showing them different pictures which they had to name and spell on the blackboard.  At lunch, with all the teachers sitting together.....yet again they were trying to marry me off to Anne.  They all love me but thinks we should be together since she is single and speaks english just like me....plus as you all know, I am pretty dam cool.  Anne tells me today that all the teachers and principal really like me since they think I am doing a great job and get along well with everyone.  Their only disappointment is that I can not speak more thai since they all try to talk with me and ask me questions.  Anne finds herself spending most of her time translating between us all.  Anne doesn't mind since it gives her practice with english and so forth.  Today, I decided to do something special for all the kids in school.  Since my last day at the school will be Thursday March 8th, I am going to bring ice cream in to have a little going away party at the end of the day.  With 450 kids getting at least 1 serving of ice cream, it will only cost me $75 US dollars.....that is a very small price to make a lot of kids happy and give them something to remember.  No other volunteer has ever done this in the history of the Trang CCS English Volunteer program.  With daily temperatures lingering around 95 degrees every day and having 90 percent humidity, I and all the teachers think that the kids will be extremely happy and appreciative.  I can wait to see the smile on all their faces.

Tonight we had dinner out and had some ice cream cake for a birthday.  It was the Program Directors 52nd b-day.  This is the first time in 10 months that I had any ice cream and boy did it taste like a slice of heaven.  I definitely miss eating it.

A lot of walking was had today.  I woke up this morning for my run and realized that I was still slightly full from last night so I walked about 3 miles.  In the early afternoon, I walked to and from the airport which is about 5 miles round trip and then tonight after dinner I walked another 3 - 4 miles.  Between dinner last night, tonight and the cake.....I had to do something.

Tomorrow morning, I leave for Chiang Mai which is in the northern part of Thailand and the oldest area as well.  This was the capitol before Bangkok.  We are staying at the Eurana Hotel (www.euranahotel.com) in the old city, visiting the silk and gem factories as well as going elephant trekking in the mountains.  This should be pretty fun.  I will send out a blog update on Tuesday next week upon my return.  Tuesday night will be interesting as well since we will be meeting with a Monk for a few hours to discuss buddhism and meditation, etc.  I have been doing some reading about this and look forward to the discussion.

Next weekend, I am off to Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee) Islands which is near Phuket.  What a trip this has been and continues to be......

Adios....