A lot has happened since I wrote last, and I am skipping to the most recent events .... just because. So Tuesday morning was AMAZING!! We went to the. Taweechai. Elephant Camp in Kanchanaburi. to go elephant trekking and bamboo rafting. I was extremely excited and happy once I saw all the elephants. I rode the elephant with Jesse. She was also very excited. We climbed a set of stairs to hop onto the seat that is harnessed on the elephants back. Our elephant's name was. Alaya. As soon as I got on I was laughing hysterically. It took a while to get used to the movement of being on an elephant's back. Our elephant guide's name was Kao. He was really nice. He eventually even let us sit on the elephant's neck. Jesse got on first and then a little later I hoped on. Alaya's. neck. It was sooo amazing!! Jesse said she felt like she was falling off, but "Alaya would save her ". She was getting pretty spiritual and close with the elephant actually, it was funny. While we were trekking, a girl in front of us dropped her cell phone; the back and the battery broke off. The elephant she was riding. amazingly picked up each piece with his trunk and gently gave piece after piece to the girl. After we were done trekking, we were able to feed. Alaya. bananas. It got a little slobbery. We then watched two elephants preform tricks for us. The best trick I saw happened to my roommate Katie, and another teacher Jeff. They each were lying down on the ground with a towel over their bodies. The elephant then took his foot and started to make "stomping" motions on them. Katie said it actually felt good. The elephant was actually massaging her, pretty unbelievable. We made our way over to see the baby elephant. That little one was a little naughty. He was running back and forth behind his cage and would randomly slap people with his trunk. A few teachers got slapped. I guess they were standing a little too close.
After the elephant trekking it was time for bamboo rafting. It was a beautiful day to do such fun things! The river we went rafting on was a quiet one. I swam a little bit too, the water was very refreshing. After our adventure at the Elephant Camp it was time to head back to the hotel to pack up our belongings and say our goodbyes to the big group. I was finally getting acquainted with everyone, and found a group of friends that I really enjoyed being with and now it was time to leave each other. But it's\ ok ........ There's always the weekends for travelling. I know I will see them again.
Our last group orientation lunch was very good. They served a delicious green spicy curry. YUM!! For dessert they served the typical watermelon and pineapple along with another Thai specialty. It was called green jelly with taro and coconut milk. Basically the name says it all and then add ice on the top. The green jelly looks like a green noodle, kinda strange for a dessert; but it definitely grew to my liking bite after bite.
After lunch we had to say our good byes to all the fellow teachers. Toon, my coordinator picked us up. She brought along her daughter, who is eight years old and very cute! She was shy at first, but then opened up. She doesn't know that much English though. They picked us up in a van, it was pretty small and the AC didn't work very well. The drive actually was not too bad though, maybe 2 hours, it went fast.
When we got to Bangplama school, we first met the school's directors. The school grounds looked quite familiar, similar to the pictures that were sent to me with my placement. Toon. then took us to our apartments. She said that one of the apartments was filled with more "artwork" than the other. So we took a look at the first apartment. The walls are orange, floors are cement, and there is a hole in the ground for the toilet ... Oh boy! And we thought this one was going to be bad .... We stepped in the next apartment and it was worse!! Extremely repulsive .... There were holes in the walls, bugs and spider webs everywhere, the walls were also cement - no color, and the entire feel of the apartment was really depressing. Also the past teacher had left a ton of junk just lying all over the apartment. I believe there was no way that any one step foot in these apartments before we arrived. It. wasn't a. very warm welcome; but Katie and I were able to "save our face". The moment. Toon. left I felt like I was going to break down and cry ... .. It needed A LOT of work to say the least ... Katie and I discussed the situation we were just thrown in to and asked each other what did we just sign up for?! We decided that since there are two rooms in each apartment, we would just share the "better" apartment. It makes the most sense and made me feel a lot better that I did not have to be alone, in what to me seemed like a jail cell.
Toon. us to. Tesco. Lotus, the. Wal.- Mart of Thailand, to get some necessities for our apartment, cleaning, living, and eating wise. We spent quite a while there actually. We also ate dinner at Texas Suki. Tesco. Lotus is actually similar to a shopping mall. The shopping is on the main floor with restaurants and a game room on the second floor. Our dinner was delicious. It's actually Japanese themed; you order a few different items such as chicken, lobster balls, prawn. wontons., And a vegetable dish. You take the items and cook them in a cooker that sits on the table. The concept I think is very similar to The Melting Pot. It was good! Toon.recommended we try another Thai dessert. I did not oppose. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name but it had coconut strips, either frozen strawberries or raspberries, coconut milk,. waterchesnuts, and ice. It was tasty!
Being out in the town with. Toon. made me forget where we were going to be living for the next 5 months. When we got back to our room and brought up all our groceries / supplies, we looked at each other in disgust and anger ... I am trying to keep a positive attitude and always remember the expression we were taught in orientation about "Saving Face". Basically, when around Thai people and something may not being going the way you want it to be going keep smiling and save your real facial expressions until you are by yourself. This concept is much needed in a situation like this! Especially since our coordinator is super nice and wants us to be happy. I just think the Thai standards are a lot different than those of the United States, therefore she really does not understand completely. Also like Katie says, things tend to get "lost in translation". There still is a lot of work to be done to the "orange" room; as well as getting used to the things we have encountered our first night ... ... geckos, spiders, weird noises, little bugs on the bed (which to me is. seriously not. exceptable .......), The rock hard mattress (literally it is like sleeping on a piece of wood or cement),. and the hole in the ground as toilet. Needless to say our first night sleeping in our school. accomodations. was quite rough ....
Toon. picked us up around lunch time and took us to a coffee shop to use the internet. since the school's. internet. was not working at the time. She also knows how much we like coffee, which was sweet of her. We came back to the school and found the internet. to be working!! It doesn't work very well in our apartment though, if at all .... It's a very low signal right by our window. I did find restrooms in the administration building that had actual toilets! YAY.! It's becoming funny how the little things in life are making me soooo. happy here.
Around dinner time,. Toon. drove us to the actual town of. Suphan. Buri. It took about ten or fifteen minutes. Driving with. Toon. got to be a little scary. Our school is off the major highway; it's not as busy as a typical highway in the US but still a highway. W.ell while she's talking to us she tends to look back at us and swerve and also there were a few times she almost hit a. car. Thank goodness we didn't! She showed us how to get on the bus which would take us into town as well as how to get to Bangkok, which will be helpful! Transportation seems cheap ... .120 Baht to get to Bangkok from here. It's about a two hour drive. 120 baht translates to about $ 4! We had. Toon. drop us off to meet up with my friend Liz who I knew was living in an apartment in the town. There were also a few other teachers. who live in the same apartment building; good to know to hang out with people close by. It was nice to hang out with a few other Americans for a while. We ate dinner at an outdoor food stall. There were a few different vendors. I ordered the Pad Thai, it was delicious!! And also cheap ... 30 baht! Oh, if I haven't already mentioned the stray dogs around town ... it seems to be worse than Bangkok. They are everywhere, especially places you find food. After dinner, we walked around for a while and stopped at a little convenient store with tables outside and had a Leo. It's a Thai beer, a lot better than Chang. As we were walking home, Katie attempted to walk on the sidewalk where a line of dogs were sleeping. That was a mistake .... The first dog she came close to, began barking very viciously, g.iving her fair warning do not walk any closer. We walked back to the apartment Liz was staying at, which also was probably a mistake since it was. sooooo. much nicer than ours! It's an actual apartment complex, with a small food store in the lobby, thumb finger prints to get on the elevator and on their floor, air conditioning, their own toilet seat, but they do have the same mattress as we do. So. Toon. had told us we could catch a. tuk.-.tuk., A. taxi service here in Thailand. at the. Tesco. Lotus until midnight. So we left their apartment with plenty of time at 10:30. It took at least a half hour to walk there, come to find the lights are shout off and the place was deserted. Katie and I both look at each other, "Oh shit .... We are screwed". How do we get home? We debated whether to walk back to our school, which would have been a LONG walk or to walk back to Liz 'apartment and sleep there for the night probably on the floor .... We decided to walk back to Liz 'place, but as we. were walking it seemed to be taking twice as long, probably because we were tired and sick of walking. We walked by this Thai club and figured it's worth a try to ask if anyone spoke English or if there was a. tuk.-.tuk. that someone could get us home. Well no one spoke English that well. There was one girl who understood a little. Thank goodness for. Toon. writing our school name down for us in Thai, after a lot of laughter and hand gestures, we were able to get a moped / scooter ride! This tiny Thai woman motioned for us to hop on her scooter. There were three of us on it. I was. soooo. nervous and began praying immediately but then I realized it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. We made it home safely, and it actually was a pretty nice ride. She was very nice and grateful. We paid 150 baht, which was little bit more than the. tuk.-T.uk. b.ut at that point we didn't really care. What a day .... Seeing the other teachers' apartment's made me so sad / upset that they had such better accommodations than we did. It does not seem fair ... .. Someone please remind why I am doing this ... .. I try to keep telling myself every day it's all for the experience and the teaching! I think as soon as teaching begins everything will be a lot better or at least I hope so ....
Now that I told you about the exciting excursion we had as a group and about our awful living conditions, I will go back to our final days of orientation ... ....
Friday afternoon, after the Grand Palace and lunch, we got back to the hotel and had a few hours of teacher training and some time to rest before we met our school coordinators. Katie and I were a little nervous, but as soon as we met Toon we were relieved; she seems very nice. She came off very friendly and welcoming. She answered a lot of our questions we had about how our Teach in Thailand experience was going to fold out. She told us we would each be teaching a section of middle school and a section of high school. In Thailand, they refer to middle school grades as Mat-tha-yom 1, 2, and 3 and high school grades as Mat-tha-yom.-. 4, 5 and 6. Our main objective throughout the semester is to focus on pronunciation and communication with our students. We don't have a book that we are required to use to teach, but Toon told us we can just somehow relate what we teach to what our co-teachers are teaching. It was somewhat disappointing because she said straight up they don't have high expectations for us as teachers. I, on the other hand, really want the students to take away something from me teaching them English. I think I really need to be strict teaching right away. Lay down some ground rules for the classroom, and set up consequences, such as taking away their cell phone if it's that big of a distraction. Toon said we were definitely allowed to do so, as long as we give the cell phone to our co-teacher. I know that may seem harsh, but I was told that cell phones are a big problem in the secondary level schools. Megan, a friend of a teacher in our group who has been teaching in Thailand already for a few months, came up with having the students come see her for 5 or 10 minutes of their lunch break if they are misbehaving badly in class. This may be a good idea. We cannot have them stay after school because they all ride buses home that leave immediately from school it sounds like.
Does anyone else have any other ideas as far as discipline / consequences go? Any ideas / suggestions are welcome!
After talking with our coordinator, there was a Traditional Thai Welcome Ceremony along with a buffet dinner. The dinner was pretty good. Not one of the best meals we've had, but they had yummy desserts. My coordinator brought Katie and I what to me looked like chop sticks. I was taught that Thais eat their noodles with chopsticks, so for my spaghetti I grabbed the packaging of "chop sticks" to find out it actually was a straw. Before I realized this, I said "ok, so we eat the noodles with these chop sticks right?" I felt pretty stupid, Toon was laughing at me ... .. I was a little embarrassed but it was fine, I just laughed it off. with her. As part of the Welcome Ceremony there were two Thai girls all dressed up and did some type of dance to Thai musicians. It was pretty cool. Saturday, we were able to sleep in a little bit. We had our teacher training and a Thai Educational System and Standards class. English learning for Mat-tha-yom 1 - 3, grades 7.th. through 9.th., Is intermediate grammar and the four language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. English learning for Mat-tha-yom 4 - 6, grades 10.th. through 12.th., Is test preparation for the National Education Exam. One helpful technique for classroom management is the strategic use of praise and rewards. The Thai phrase,. Kreng Jai. means. being aware of other people's feelings and showing politeness. This is also a helpful classroom management technique I will try to use. Following the idea of. kreng jai. comes the Thai word. Sa Nook, to have fun. Thai culture involves a lot of. sa nook. in their classrooms as well as in the business setting. Another topic the lecturer covered was the culture shock about sexuality in Thailand. It is unacceptable in the Thai culture for a man and a woman to show any form of PDA; however it is perfectly normal for two men or two woman to show affection towards one another even if they are heterosexual. This concept is quite different than in the United States.
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