Actually, the rooster crows at 5am, 530am, 6am and so on. No lie. Plus add the fact that you wake up just to take a thai shower and a thai crap, and it is not a pleasant morning.
I was in a village the past week so small, that the travel books do not even consider it worthy of mention. Me and 14 other volunteers headed to Nongolampoo for a homestay summer camp experience.
We stayed in different houses throughout the villages. I stayed with Anne Ruth, Anke and Sandra. I was so glad to be with them. After we got home every night from whatever we were doing, we'd sit around in our underwear(i kid you not!!---they are European) and have girly talks. It was great!!
Our responsibilities included spliting up into four groups of teachers and teaching the same topic four times for an hour each, with a break in between each class. We also had to lead group games and songs and the like, which was basically the stuff you would do at summer camps. Once I get my pictures and videos up I will provide a link for those. There is some great stuff.
Our responsibilities ceased after dinner(oh by the way they fed us all our meals!), around 6 pm.
We lucked out that we had a great facilitator, Mongkut, who was also the principal. He was great fun, really entertaining and a great English speaker! He took pity on our circumstances and "was single" for the week, as many thai's often are when they here Westerners are in town, and took us all over town each night. The only problem was, we had one truck for the 15 of us. Well, we improvised, drove really slow and stuck us all in the one truck. It's so funny that we all thought it was so great and took all these pictures and was "roughing it" when this is the life of a Thai person. One of those grass is greener sort of things.
We lucked out that we had a great facilitator, Mongkut, who was also the principal. He was great fun, really entertaining and a great English speaker! He took pity on our circumstances and "was single" for the week, as many thai's often are when they here Westerners are in town, and took us all over town each night. The only problem was, we had one truck for the 15 of us. Well, we improvised, drove really slow and stuck us all in the one truck. It's so funny that we all thought it was so great and took all these pictures and was "roughing it" when this is the life of a Thai person. One of those grass is greener sort of things.
Two of the evenings, we spent with the locals. Every night, different parts of the village practice their Thai dancing for the San Kran festival coming up in April. Long story short, San Kran is the Thai new Year, that lasts for about 3 days and everyone throws water on everyone. Like a week long water fight. As Sam kept saying, it was a priveledge to be able to join them as they practiced their dancing. How many other tourists can boast that accomplishment? It was truly amazing!
I am more and more infinately amazed at how little verbal communication occurs between us and the Thais and yet how bonded we feel with them. Throughout most of the camp, the students began to write us little notes telling us how much they appreciate us. Although if the grammer in the notes is testament of our teaching, then we might not want to pat ourselves on the back so quickly. Either way, they really loved us being there. One student gave me the bracelet off of her wrist in gratitude. At the end of the camp they covered us in yellow and pink flowers, pictures, diplomas, and more notes. Although it wasn't all work and no play. While we didn't really drink that much, we did find other ways to pass the time, such as...
It was a great experience and a lot of fun. Now, I have got one more week in Thailand, although I think Anke and I are going to Laos for a few days so I can get my Vietnam Visa, and then I fly over to Nha Trang, for some lazy relaxing in the sun!!
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