Why who? Wai Kru!

So here in Thailand, there is a tradition of giving homage to teachers at the start of every year. The students and some of their parents come to honor their teachers in a ceremony. Today, I was a part of this tradition. Let me walk you through it.

So, one of the benefits of working in a i-lingual school is that we have Thai teachers who teach 2 blocks of our day (which provides for awesome prep time!). Our Thai teachers were the ones to prepare the students with instructions for what they need to do. The only thing I had to do was show up to the ceremony. Sweet!

In an effort to be merciful, the grades were broken up into chunks, so no one would have to sit through the honoring of the entire teaching staff (except for the ladies leading it, of course). My class went in with the rest of the elementary grades (1-6) and all of the students were seated into rows by grade. After the welcoming speeches, the teachers went up on the stage to sit in a semi-circle with 3 chairs in the front center. After some more commentary (in Thai), two teachers went up at a time to sit on either side of Ajan Seurat, the school's founder. A boy and a girl from each class would come up and present flowers to the teachers, literally placing flowers at their feet and bowing their heads. It was a bit awkward, but only because it was unfamiliar. In context, it wasn't nearly as ridiculous as it would have been if it had happened in the States. After the class representatives paid their respects, they stepped down and then the rest of the class approached with their flowers. This cycled through for all of the grade levels. It actually only took about an hour, and most of it was in the beginning speeches.

At the end of the ceremony, the teachers bring all of their flowers back to their classrooms. I was told to take a few to freshen up my apartment, but to leave the rest of them in the room. One of my girls, Plai, was completely enraptured with a particular flower in her bouquet, so I gave her one of the flowers. It was adorable. So my room now has a table filled with flowers. I'm not sure how long I'm supposed to keep the flowers, but I guess they'll stay until they start to wilt. I'll say this for them, though: they are beautiful and they smell wonderful. I could really get used to being a teacher here. ;)

Today was the first Saturday that I did absolutely nothing, since arriving in Thailand. Well, maybe not 'nothing' but it was certainly the first time I didn't go off on some adventure that ended in me spending more money than I should.

Last Saturday, I went with a group to JJ's Market. It is essentially a huge bazaar where you can find pretty much anything you want. It's divided into sections, each of which would take about half a day to go through. I was on a mission to get some seating cushions for my class, so I wandered through the home decor section with my friends, Steve and Andrea. They were hunting for things to decorate their apartment, and ended up with some pretty cool things. My favorite was a flower display that had fiber optics and could light up. It was very elegant and cool looking, and stands about 3-4 feet high. As for me, I got some really cool hair clips, a bedspread, and 10 cushions for my classroom. I also got to test out my rusty bartering skills. I was able to get the ten cushions for 1350 bhat, making them around $40 total, or $4 each. Incredible. I also learned that it is much more enjoyable to barter with someone when you can communicate verbally. Bartering with a calculator just stops any sense of give and take and makes the process cold and mechanical.

Another item that i purchased at JJs was a Thai skirt. This was very important, because my school has a dress code, and every Thursday is 'Thai day' which means dress in Thai clothing or a white button-up shirt. I was a bit nervous about finding something that would fit me, but I was able to find an adjustable skirt that was very pretty.

After the shopping spree on Sunday, I spent the next several days finishing my room and working on curricula. Unfortunately, there was only so much work that I could do before seeing where my students were in terms of ability. One cool thing about the school, though, is that they keep the lesson plans from previous years to build upon for the next teacher. Some plans were more helpful than others, but they were great at giving me a starting point. This was especially appreciated as the school is small enough that I am the only 2nd grade teacher.

Thursday was my first day of school. It started off a bit rocky, but it all turned out alright in the end. For starters, I began my day 30 min early on accident. The schedule is set up so that I do CAS (Content Area Support) for the half hour before school with students identified as having difficulty during the previous year. This was not to start until Monday, but me being me, I became slightly scatterbrained when the bell rang and students began entering the classroom. By the time I looked at the clock and realized how early we were, I already had a handful of students, so I just went with it. We played a lot of icebreaker games and got to know each other. I am so grateful that I had a ball ready to pass around!

If you were not aware, Thai people do not use their first names as a form of public identification. Everyone has a nickname that they use. This is helpful, as many of their names would be incredibly difficult for me to pronounce, much less remember! Some of the names are western, such as Naomi, and William, whereas others are quite eastern, such as Ton Gla and Toey. Then there are the fanciful names, like Music, Bam, and Ice. One girl is named Fafa, which of course makes me think of the Flight of the Conchords song (feux de fafa!) Seriously, every time I think of her name, the song goes through my head.

So, that leads us to today. I was exhausted last night and ended up declining to go out in favor of curling up to watch The Office with a pizza. It felt like a piece of home. Then this morning, I really wanted to get some work done on my lesson plans, so I stayed behind instead of going out to visit the local orphanage. One of the girls goes there every week, so I know that there will be other times.

All in all, today turned out to be a pretty good day. It's been pretty restful, and I managed to get some things done, such as updating this blog after a much longer time than I anticipated. I'm sorry that I can't add any pictures. I took some really cool ones of my class, but they won't upload to my computer. Very frustrating. Anyway, until next time!

Teachers in Thailand

Today, we received some more instruction about living and working in Thai culture. The man who was speaking to us has been living here for a long time, and has been a long term friend with the Ektrakul family, who started the school. One thing that he was saying that really stuck out to me was the placement of teachers in Thai culture. In their hierarchy, dead ancestors are at the top, followed by former monks and then present-day monks. Just below monks are teachers. They actually place teachers above other professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, etc. While this is difficult to grasp, I am being held to a higher standard here than I am used to. This means the way I dress and the way I conduct myself must be as impeccable as I am capable of, not just because of my profession but also because of my status as a Christian. I have been hearing that most students and parents who come to know Christ through this school do so because they are watching the love of Christ playing out in the lives of their teachers. The responsibility is huge. I honestly am not sure how I will measure up to their expectations, but I'm praying and trusting God to see me through.

In addition to my teaching duties, I am also responsible for leading devotions daily. I decided to do a year long study on the Fruits of the Spirit. Each month, we will look at a different fruit and how it is seen in God's word and what He says He wants us to do in order to grow that fruit within ourselves. I'm a bit worried that I may have bitten off more than I can chew with everything I hope to accomplish this year, but I'll do the best I can and pray that some of what I'm teaching sinks into the minds and hearts of my students. I ask for your prayers that His will will be done in me and in the lives of those I witness to through my actions. May they see Him and His Spirit, because there's no way they'd be led to salvation by watching me with all of my flaws!

Picture updates!

Hey all! So, I tried adding pictures to my last post, but I had some trouble. So, here they are! (there is one picture on the other post that shows the view from my room!) So, without further adeu, Here are the pictures from my trip to Bangkok.

Saturday in Bangkok!

Sawat de kaa!

Yesterday turned out to be a fabulously exhausting day. My roommate, Eunice, had an idea to go to downtown Bangkok to see Thailand's largest reclining Buddha. Because it was a religious place, i had to dress a bit different, which means that I had my first experience wearing jeans in the humid weather. It actually wasn't too bad, though, as there comes a point when it doesn't really matter what you wear; you are simply hot. Anyway, Eunice along with Steve and Andrea (a couple from Canada) took the ferry down to Bangkok.

Travelling on the ferry was interesting. We saw children jumping in and swimming. We saw fish poking out and making ripples. We also saw trash littering the banks. Ferry travel is pretty popular, and it is almost like a version of the BART, as the destinations are limited, but the ferries go on regular schedules. We did need to make sure that we boarded the one with the orange flag, because there were a few different lines that made different stops along the banks.

One incident that happened on the boat was when Eunice was trying to show me her shoes. She propped her foot up on the seat next to her, with her leg straight out. This essentially flipped off the entire other side of the boat, and I quickly told her to put her foot down, but not before we received quite a few stern glares. Fortunately, we are clearly farang (foreigners) so they knew (I hope) that it was unintentional.

When we reached our stop, took took drivers (small motorized carriages) descended and tried to get us to hire them. We could see the temple we were headed towards, but a driver tried to convince us that it was a 20 minute walk. Yeah right. We walked there in about 5-10 minutes.

The Buddha was incredibly large and plated with gold. I will upload pictures when I can, but I am still without a camera until my paycheck comes at the end of the month. :( Seriously, though, it was about the same size, if not bigger, than the huge stature of Ramses III that I saw in Egypt. Truly, there are no words to convey how massive it was.

After seeing the statue, we wandered around the temple, looking at various shrines and taking pictures (them not me). We got a bit turned around and ended up getting taken in to be blessed by a monk. At that point, we couldn't refuse without being rude. So, we were sprinkled with holy water, gave him a small donation, and continued on.

By this point, we were hot, tired, and hungry. I put in my two bhat and requested that we find an air conditioned restaurant to eat in. Eunice struck up a conversation with a representative from the tourist police by the pier about where we should go. When he found out I was American, he immediately said, 'What's up!' He then pointed to himself and said that he was called 'PoPo.' I have no idea what crazy tourist corrupted him, but I'm guessing it was some wannabe ghetto guy, possibly from California. ;)

It was actually quite a good thing that she talked to him, because he seriously gave us the hook-up! He had a took took driver agree to take us to a restaurant and then to a few shops before ending up in the market strip that we wanted to get to. About 3-4 hrs of service for 50 bhat, which translates to about $1.50. Yeah, pretty incredible.

The restaurant was nice, and had great food. I'm finding that to be a common theme, because I haven't had a bad meal yet! The lady was nice and helped us practice our Thai a bit. Thak koon kaa! (Thank you!) It was funny that they didn't turn on the fans until we came in. Then again, the door wasn't even unlocked until we got there!

After dinner, we went to see a jewelry shop. They had stations where you could see the stones being shaped and fitted into jewelry, as well as displays of uncut stones next to their polished counterparts. It was very interesting, but the best part was in the back, because that was where the finished jewelry pieces were. They were stunning, and really cheap for gemstones. I may or may not need to buy a few things there before I come home. Presents anyone? ;)

Later on, the driver took us to a few 'high fashion' shops. If we stopped by and browsed for about 5 minutes, he received a commission. He was nice, so we allowed the salesmen to hound us about making tailored clothes and suits for us, but we told them that we weren't tourists and that we needed to get a paycheck first before we could buy anything. Interestingly enough, it seems that all of the clothing shops (at least the ones we went to) were owned by Indians, not Thais.

After the shops, we went to the huge touristy market place, where we were again assaulted by street vendors. My personal favorite was when one guy was pestering Steve, who told him that we weren't tourists but here to work. His reply was 'so are we!' Food, clothing, accessories, massages, and even tattoos were everywhere. My favorite was a little shop that did fish foot massages. These tiny fish that are about the length of a finger swim up and eat the dead skin cells from your feet. I put my hand in to try it, and it felt very interesting. I'm pretty sure I felt their little tongues! Sometime before I leave, I am definitely doing that at least once!

Steve and Andrea wanted to look at a lot of art shops to get a wedding gift for his sister, so we ended up seeing a lot of art. There was one shop where everyone there was deaf. It actually made things easier, as most of our communication needs to be nonverbal anyway! Plus, I speak more sign language than Thai at the moment. I was at least able to say thank you to them in ASL.

As their art search was still unsuccessful, they continued going into shops, while Eunice and I decided to take a break. A street cafe had a singer who was playing popular songs on his guitar. He was pretty good, so we sat down to have a drink while we waited for our Canadians to finish their purchases. Interesting (and helpful!) thing about ordering here is that every item on the menu has a number next to it, so I was able to order and practice my numbers in Thai at the same time! At first I thought I'd done it wrong, however, because I ordered a daiquiri and I got a margarita. Turns out, though, that that's what they considered to be a daiquiri. Oh well, it was still pretty good.

Now, the real adventure of the evening was getting home! We piled into a taxi, as the ferry service had already closed, and did our best to get home. Eunice had done this one other time before, so she was our official/unofficial spokesperson. There were a few false starts and moments of confusion, but we ended up in the right place and without getting lost. This, of course, I feel was largely due to the fact that I was not responsible for getting us home. If I had a super talent, it would be the ability to get lost and disoriented beyond all hope.

We pulled up in front of the school, and got out. Eunice and I were pretty hungry at that time, so we said goodnight to Steve and Andrea and headed down to see if one of our favorite cafes was still open. Sadly, it was not, but we found another street vendor and ordered from her. There was a bit of confusion with the language barrier, but with pointing and limited Thai, we were able to order squid and crab Pad Thai. Then, of course, we had to stop by the 7-11 (which are everywhere by the way!) to get a fanta. We ended up eating and watching Emma with our other roommate, Naomi, in my room. The movie was great, but we were exhausted, and ended up turning it off halfway through.

Whew! What an exhausting day!

And don’t even get me started on Sunday… ;)

Made it!

Hello! Well, I made it safely to Thailand. It is absolutely beautiful here, and I already love the people I'm working with. Chances are that all of my next posts will describe and detail life here, so for this post, I'm going to focus on my adventure traveling here. Here are a few lessons that I have learned so far:

1. Make sure you know the policies of your airline very well. I'm not talking about baggage weight limits and meals etc, those things are commonly thought of. No, I'm talking about the fact that you might want to check and see if the airport you have a layover in CLOSES DOWN AT MIDNIGHT! Yes, you heard me correctly. Apparently, the entire Taipei airport shuts down at midnight, meaning that I had to find somewhere to be during my 10 hour layover. This wasn't too bad, as I was planning on getting a hotel room, either in the airport or in the city so I could shower and sleep. Unfortunately, me being me, I got a bit lost and ended up out on the sidewalk without finding the airport hotel. (I wasn't sure how far I needed to go, and where I could turn around without violating some sort of immigration rules. Give me a break! I'd just been on a plane for 1 hours!)

This leads me to...

2. check out the surrounding area of the airport you have a layover in, especially if the layover is long and you may need to leave to get a room for the night. If I had done my research, I might have known that, much like most airports, the airport is not really in the city that is its namesake. So, when the taxi service asked me where I wanted to go and I answered that I just needed a hotel in Taipei, I should have told him to find me one closer, rather than driving for about 45 minutes. The taxi driver was very ice, and carried my bag to the front desk. The people there were also very helpful as the assisted me with converting US dollars into New Taiwanian Dollars. The hotel was very nice, and i had a great night's sleep and shower. I set up a wake-up call and had a shuttle ready to take me back to the airport in the morning. I arrived in plenty of time, and was able to see a bit of the city as we drove. Which brings me to...

3. The driving experience here is INTENSE! I'm actually happy that I was able to experience the driving in Taipei, because it helped prep me for the driving here in Thailand. Taipei actually wasn't that bad, just a bit faster and more aggressive than I am accustomed to. The drivers here, however, are a whole different breed. Let's just say that the lines here are merely suggestive. Now, I know I claimed this to be true in Egypt, but it is so much more so here! Think of motorcyclists who go wherever they can fit as they weave in and out of traffic. Now replace the motorcycle with a car. Now picture everyone on the road driving the same way. They have no problem straddling the lane divider line to squeeze in between a couple of cars. What is pretty cool, though, is that there is a decided lack of road rage. So even though the cars are weaving in and out of each other, there really isn't any sense of anger towards the cars around you. If someone cuts you off, you don't retaliate, you just move on. Chances are, you'll end up cutting them off down the road anyway!

Well, that's it for now. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support as I'm adjusting to life half the world away. Until next time!