We'll all enjoy to be together. Oh English camp make me happy!

I have just spent the past weekend having the time of my life. We went to a summer camp. There were 8 of us. Jennie and Karen from England, Bass and Joroen from Holland, Sandra from Austria, Anke from Germany and Johanna from Sweden(I stand corrected mom!). At 4pm we got ready to leave Nongkhai and in true thai time, they showed up around 5:30pm.

An hour later we arrived at the school and they showed us to our sleeping quarters. We were told we were going to be in tents. This was not the case. The girls room had 4 mattresses on the floor, and we had to improvise with two more. It was bare bones and rather ugly, but it was better then a tent. We only had 1 bathroom for the 6 of us. However, Johanna thought she saw a rat and spent every night patrolling thr room with a flashlight(or a torch to the British), so that was rather unpleasant. The boys room was like a palace, especially with only two of them. They had a balcony overlooking the school and had two bathrooms, one for each of them.

We were then whisked off to eat. We went to a Korean BBQ place. Essentially its a buffet, with raw meat, vegetables and noodles, and you bring it back to your table and cook it. Its weird though, b/c then you just kinda eat whatever you want, even stuff that other people brought back. Also, since the oven is like part of the table, it gets pretty hot underthere. When it's about 100 degrees fahrenheit, you kinda don't want to add any additional heat to that.

Then they informed us that we would need to put together a bunch of lesson plans to teach for the next day in four different areas; speaking, listening, reading and writing. This was tough for many reasons. The main two reasons is that most of us are very strong willed and the other reason is that we know different types of English and we fight over grammar, prononciation and spelling. So we put our heads together and came up with a smashing agenda. We split ourselves up, one native and one non-native speaker to each group and we taught the same lesson twice in the am and twice in the pm. I was with Bass and had listening and reading.

After planning, we went to the balcony and hit the bottle. Of tequilla. I only had 2 shots and was in bed by 10pm. I had a great night sleep. Nice hard mattress. I awoke at 730 and hopped over to the boys dorm to have a lovely thai shower. That's right folks, I showered with a bucket. I squealed alot, it was ice cold and I couldn't get all the shampoo out of my hair to save my life. I have no more to say on this subject. I'd rather not relive it anymore. ;-0.

The morning consisted of the whole group together. We started with like a little obstacle course, limboing, hopscotching and then patting us down with talcum powder(see pic on top). We sang song after song. We sang and danced with them. We figured that after tomorrow we will never have to see them again if we don't want to so we can make complete asses of ourselves. We did. Think the JCC but mostly in Thai. First we sang a few thai songs and then English songs like....(to the tune of, Oh when the saints come marching in)

"Oh English camp
Oh English camp
Oh English camp make me happy

We'll all enjoy to be together
Oh English camp make me happy."
Like the grammer? Thought so. Another song we sang, was the peel peel banana song. I have some lovely video footage of it and will share it with you all when I figure out how...

Then we taught. Bass and I worked very well together and the kids were great. They begin with the entire class standing up in front and robotically saying good morning teacher, how are you." Then you say, good or fine, how are you, and they repeat back "I'm fine thank you". Its cute but a little creepy. The activities went great. I won't bore you with them, but they were fantastic.

About every hour or two they fed us fruit, or bread or noodles. They had a constant supply of water for us. It was lovely. Minus this sweet desert. Ok it's black jello mixed with ice and gelly candies. Plus lots of sugar. Grooooooooossssssssss.

We met back as a group again and embarassed ourselves some more, then did another class, this time much longer. We had so much fun. Then we had some down time and me, sandra and jennie just laid in their bed doing anything to avoid the 100f heat.

Ok, so as I just mentioned, it was over 100f heat I beileve. At least around that. So they decided it would be a good idea to have a bon fire after dinner. Ok fine. Not ok however, to have us sing and dance around it for over 2 hours. Jennie thought the whole thing was proposterous(she's british, so she can use words like that). I have to say I agreed. I mean I had alot of fun but it was a little insane. We are already hot, lets add to it.

Then, they did the weirdest thing. They handed us Leo beer and strawberry wine coolers. What place of employment(or voluntary employment in this case) would do such a thing. Either way, that moved the evening along quite nicely. We moved ourselves up to the boy's "royal" balcony and spent the rest of the evening watching the stars, listening to music, talking, and maybe breaking a few glasses.

The next morning we ate breakfast and then we were off to a national park. They had us do 4 10 minute lessons(so each group saw us once). I worked with Sandra, and when a student got the answer right they got to be pulled up in a tree and ring a bell, by a pulley. Picture will explain what I mean. It was ridiculous but fun.

Then we laid around for the rest of the time. We watched the students zip line right into the water, which I would have done had the water resembled any blue or even green hue, but brown was just too dirty, even for me.

Speaking of dirty, I showered 4 times in the 48 hours I was there. Oh, and since I was so afraid to go "number 2" in the thai toilets that were there, I scared myself into not going the entire time. I think that is a disease. I probably should look into that.

We were told we'd be leaving back in nongkhai by 430. It was 2 oclock and we were at least 3 hours from home. Instead of heading back to the camp we went to this place called Erawan cave, which housed a beautiful temple in it. Only problem; it was 611 steps up. Let's talk about how fun that was, in 100f heat and me still horribly out of shape. But I got some great views.

Finally, we went back to Nongkhai and arrived around 8pm. Just a little later then promised. There's Thai time for you!