Monday 13 December 2010

A Surprising Farewell Party

By the way, it's only surprising as we weren't meant to be going.

Basically, we were just in the office doing stuff minding our own business when we get a phone call from the Director saying that we had to go down to the main office straight away as we had to go with the Director to a farewell party of a Si Saket Governor person or something. We had to rush to the main office so we wouldn't keep him waiting and then get into the Director's personal school van and were then driven to the town hall. Once there, we followed the director in and went with him to the centre of the room but he actually shooed us away and walked off leaving us in the middle of the room feeling a little bit lost at what to do. We ended up finding a corner to sit in and grabbed some of the free food to eat and just relaxed for a bit.

Unfortunately, the relaxation was short lived. Suddenly, the Director came up to us and said that we had to sing on stage! Not the most enjoyable thing for for me. We had to go near the stage to sort stuff out and had to wait for about an hour to actually be able to go up. Clem and myself sang 'Let it be', as we could harmonise, and 'sha la la la la' as it was upbeat. It was weird as when we did sing them, it was just a few people left who were chatting with the man who was leaving so it felt like we were singers at a bar with three or four customers who are just chatting and not really paying any attention. I think you know what I mean.

We had to wait a while for the Director before we could go back and once in the van, Clem and myself started to just chat quietly, but we were shushed because we weren't allowed to talk in the van unless the Director spoke to us! What a weird thing that is. I couldn't imagine travelling a long distance with him not being to talk or sing and such. It would be torture. I suppose it's just another Thai thing that I need to get used to as the Director likes to show us off to visitors and such so we will probably have to go in that van again at some point.

A bit of a weird evening, but we got free food so it's all good.

After a lot of Preparation.....

Throughout the past couple of months, both Clem and myself have been tutoring a number of students for an English competition. The first stage was just the schools in Si Saket. Then there is one for all of the winners in Issan and then it steps up to Chaing Rai for the final in all of Thailand. There are four different English sections. Story Telling, a Demonstration, Public Speaking and Crossword (known to us Europeans as scrabble). We had to create what was being said for each of the students and practise it with them so they could learn it off by heart and have the correct pronunciation.

When competition day came along, it was held in SISAT Technic school so all lessons were off for us. First of all, Clem and I had to judge one of the competitions. It was not a pleasant experience as we had to judge the Public Speech which one of our students was in. What made it worse was that she forgot what to say so we had to mark her down.

Next was the Demonstration and thankfully we could just watch as the college had got other people in to be the judges. Out of all the demonstrations, I honestly believe that ours deserved to win as she was the only one to remember it all she said it all confidently and properly. Thankfully we did win! Our Demonstration is going to the next stage.
Straight after the Demonstrations came the Story Telling. Unfortunately, the main student never really came to us for tutoring so he didn't win as he didn't practise enough and the other student was too nervous and forgot parts of the story. Some of the other schools had really good performances with students walking round the floor acting out the characters and putting on really good voices so they deserved to win.

The next stage is at Yassaton (I'm not sure if it is spelt right) with the winners from all around Issan. We will be joined with all the other winners around Issan. Hopefully we will do well as she is so good. Also, we managed to come first and second at crossword (scrabble), so that's another thing which we go to Yassaton with :)
The competition is in a few days so soon you will be hearing of the results. Wish us luck.

A weekend away Part 2

So this is the second part of the essay. This part includes the events of Sunday and Monday.

We woke up and had breakfast with all of the adults and before the Sunday service, we had some time to kill and went to play with the younger children. We played 'duck, duck, goose', and with a skipping rope.  All the girls were in dresses and looked so cute.



After a bit when we were both pretty tired after being so happy and energetic we had to go to a church service as the people who ran the organisation were Christians. We had to go along as well and it was a very weird experience. It was very 'Halelughia' with arms in the air whilst singing and such which is very different from Clem and myself have experienced when we had gone to church in England.
 After church we had lunch and then went to the local shop with the smaller kids. it was so sweet as they all had little umbrella to protect themselves from the sun and they all tried to hold our hands. At the shop they spent some of their pocket money on snacks and stuff.

Unfortunately, we had to leave afterwards. We are thinking of going back though when we have time off. We had to stop off at Khon Kean again for the night and before we went to a village in the town run by the Mercy foundation. This one though housed children with HIV. They had medicine to combat it and some were looking so well and energetic. Unfortunately, a couple of them were a bit more affected by the medicine and were not able to be as involved or as energetic as some of the other children. We stayed there for a bit and had dinner there as well. The children there are all so happy despite the fact that they all have HIV. 


Later that evening, we went to a market which was set up for some Thai silk thing that was happening in a few days. We bought some nice clothes and jewellery and I also had a go at one of the games.
We went back to Si Saket Monday morning and went back to teaching in the afternoon. All in all, a brilliant weekend.

Thursday 9 December 2010

A weekend away from Si Saket

Ok, so first I am going to apologise for the sheer length that this post will be. So much happened in such a short time and I have to write all of it, so be prepared for an essay with a lot of pictures! I may put it into a couple of parts for you all.

We were lucky to meet an Australian who offered to take us to an orphanage that he was visiting during an upcoming weekend and we were interested so we were invited to go along and see what it was like.

We were picked up on Friday afternoon and had a 4 and a half journey ahead of us to Khon Kean (I think that's how it is spelt). I sat in the front and watched Thailand go by on the road towards our destination and when we took a wrong turn! We managed to get there at around 9.30pm and we managed to meet up with some of the other volunteers as this was the weekend that everyone was meeting up. We surprised them in their rooms and then went out.

We came back early as we weren't finding much and we had to get up early anyway. We set off at 8.30am and had a 3 hour journey to get to the village (orphanage). We arrived just as they were starting lunch so we joined in to eat with them.

The children there are all children who have been orphaned or abandoned by their parents due to lack of money or for some other reason. In the village, the children have love, and educated and are able to create a family with each other. Their ages range from about 6 or 7 to around 16 and they are installing a section so the kids can stay until the age of 18.

When we first arrived, we were really shy and stuck together but after 5 minutes of being there, this really tiny girl came and hugged Clem and then wandered off. We were quite shocked. We ate lunch and sat with the adults we had been introduced to and afterwards, we were shown where we were staying. After settling in one of the adults, Linda, took us to see the school part of the village. It was quite big and looked really tidy and well-kept.



Afterwards we watched some of the kids play with some of the other volunteers there until we were told that Ron was going to give us a tour of the farm which was near by. They had a number of fruit trees and a worm farm as well. On the way back, we saw the younger kids picking berries so Ron dropped us off so we could walk back with them. They were all so cute and tiny and we had been there for about 2 minutes and they were all holding our hands while we were walking back. It was so sweet.


Once we were back we stayed with the smaller children who played outside until dinner. We sat with them for dinner and then afterwards chalk was brought out and we all drew on the concrete playground. Everyone joined in and some of the little kids are really good drawers. Once that was over, we played with a couple of the kids on the trampoline. There was only two at a time but we managed to scrape it to having three. Either myself or Clem and two really small girls who would add up to one. We played 'tag' which is actually really tiring on a trampoline.




Once all the kids had gone to bed, all of us adults played a game called 'snorta'. It was funny as we all had to make animal noises every so often and some of the kids could hear us and started to make noises themselves which was quite funny. Afterwards we went to sleep as it was a tiring day.
Seeing as this is long enough already, I shall stop and put the next day in a new section.

The day I got a letter!

The day was mostly un-remarkable until I left for lunch and was told by P-Max that I had a letter in the front office. I went after activity to go and collect it, all the time wondering who it could be from as I had no idea.

I arrived at the office and the person at the desk didn't pick up a letter or a postcard, but a HUGE parcel! It was amazing and the happiest day of my life! I hardly ever get letters or anything and now a parcel comes along.
We took it home and opened it to reveal a huge number of goodies. :D

There were books, pictures, postcards, pasta and chocolate :D :D BEST DAY EVER!!!!!!!!!!






We are going to try and ration and the save the chocolate so it lasts as long as possible but now we have proper chocolate not the fake stuff you get here, it's going to be hard but we shall persevere.

The Greatest of Kings

Ok so it's Tuesday and we look outside our house over to the massive school field right next to us and all we see are hundreds of chairs out with more on their way. I have no idea where they got them from but by the time they were finished, there must have been around seven to eight thousand chairs set up in that one field.
We found out what it was for the next day. We were told that we had to wear our pink jackets and that we would have a lot of visitors that day. It was an early celebration for 'Father's Day' which about a week afterwards.
There was also a small food market that had been set up right outside the college which meant we didn't have far to walk for food in the evenings. The only was that when we went during the lunchtime with a thousands of new people, we realised that they were not used to seeing white people and had constant stares, hushed and whispered words of 'farang' and we were even filmed by some random guy. After being in Si Saket for around 3 months know, people had got used to us so we weren't really prepared for all of the guests reaction to us. It was actually kind of scary as they stare at you as they do in films. As you walk past their head just turns with your walking and their mouths are open or their eyes are open really wide in shock of seeing us. We very quickly went back into the office and hid as that was the only safe place as it had no new staring people. 
As the sky grew dark and purple, everyone started to make their way to the field with their Thai flags and candles.

Overall, with a space at the front for people to stand in, I guess that there was around ten thousand people in one field. The whole evening involved singing from well-known artists and some famous singers and everyone was dancing.



After they had finished there was this waterfall thing behind the stage and projections were shone through it so it seemed as though the water was coloured and moving. It was spectacular as there was also a famous Thai musical instrument player playing some amazing music. 
Afterwards we lit our candles and did some singing and then we had the amazing fireworks that are here. They are huge! Some of them are twice the size of ones in England. 


 
That seems like it right? Well, not exactly as then Clem and myself were asked to be interviewed. It was quite scary as we didn't know what to say but we pulled though and just about made it look relaxed.
A very fun and entertaining day.