He-llo Te-cha! How Aaaarrre You?

Every morning when I walk into the classroom, I am greeted by 15 smiling Thai kids who stand up and say, "He-llo Te-cha! How Aaaarrre You?"
"I'm fine thank you. Are are you?" I reply.
"FINE!" They shout back.

Teaching is unbelievably challenging. I work at two schools (Mon, Wed, Fri and Tues, Thurs). At one school, the kids are little monkeys, jumping around, hitting each other, making (and throwing) paper airplanes and refusing to quiet down. One child hoisted himself up onto a windowsill and threatened to jump. Of course I completely freaked out and he erupted into a fit of laughter. Another boy pulled out a lighter with the largest flame I have ever seen. We confiscated it, but by the end of class he was still asking, "te-cha, te-cha please!" while making a lighter motion as if to think that he could actually get it back from us.

The contrast to the other school is startling, where the kids behave like utter angels and do their work without making a fuss.

My favorite part of the day continues to be my time spent teaching the monks. Every evening from 6-7:30 we ride our bikes down to their wat and have an English lesson. They are all between the ages of 18 and 25 and some of them are actually quite good at English. This makes for some extremely funny times. Even the ones who can hardly speak manage to crack jokes with the limited vocabulary they know. They just keep me laughing hilariously throughout the class.

Last week my lesson was based on the Beatles "I Saw her Standing There." I brought in my Ipod and another volunteer's speakers and we listened to song a few times. The second time through they had to identify a few words and the third time we went through line by line writing the lyrics on the board. From there we asked them questions like "What is the Song about?" and "Do you like it? Why or why not?" It was so great! But apparently monks are not supposed to sing or dance - something I did not know going into the lesson, for I had hoped to get them all singing along by the end. However, that didn't stop a few of the monks from getting into it a little bit.

Then at the end of class, I let them pick out music to play off my Ipod. The request was AKON of all things. Let me put an image in your minds: monks singing along to "I want to make love right na na na. Wish we never broke up right na na na."
They are also big fans of Lincon Park.

Farang!

In Thai, farang means "foreigner." Where ever I go, I constantly hear people using the word in their conversations, with little regard to the fact that I AM STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO THEM HEARING THEM TALK ABOUT ME!!! True, I don't know exactly what they are saying, but I can only guess its got something to do with my funny clothes and hat or bizarre mannerisms.

White people here are a total spectacle for the Thais. I've been asked to take a picture with people on multiple occasions and some will just come up to me and shake my hand. When I ride my bike through the town, I am continuously being called out to. "He-llo you! He-llo!"

I was sitting along the Mekong at this beautiful spot writing in my journal and there was this group of school children eating a picknick lunch nearby. They started creeping up around me, trying to read over my shoulder, but would then run away giggling. I decided to engage them and began asking their names. I had about 15 kids surrounding me and I really wanted to take their picture, so i made a camera motion to their teacher as if to ask "is it okay if i take THEIR picture." However, she took this to mean, "Can you take OUR picture all together." The teacher gets up and the kids start gathering around me. The adults around them are laughing their heads off thinking its the best thing they've seen in their lives. Kids are flocking over to be in the picture and then the adults too decide they want to be in this farang's picture. So I've got about 4 adults in the picture as well! Then other people in the area absolutely needed to have their picture with me too. Mothers posed their children. Groups of women, giggling like the school children, flashed peace signs around me for the camera. One, two, three, Cheese!

Aerobics

I went to an aerobics class!!! Every week day there is a huge communal aerobics class in the main park at 6pm. 100+ Thai women showed up. It was truly the most intense workout i have ever been to. They play this hilarious Thai music - that hardly has a beat - and the moves are so ridiculously fast. The first 15 minutes are spent "warming up," and before you know it your jumping around while waving your arms in the air while spinning in circles while trying not to laugh. It was a crazy experience, but I am so glad that I did it would really like to go back when I have another free night.
On an interesting side note, in Thailand, there is a color for every day of the week (monday yellow, tuesday pink, ect...) and if you wear the color, the royal family is supposed to live longer. The relation this has to my aerobics story is that you've got about 75 of the 100 women wearing blue. I though there was some sort of a special aerobics uniform before I figured out this reason for their matching. It was truly something to behold.

Wats, Wats Everywhere

Ok, so last Saturday I had quite the wat sightseeing adventure. I spent the morning reading my Lets Go guide book and spent some time with my head buried in a map plotting out my journey. (I've got a bike as my mode of transport!) First, I rode about 15 minutes to the Indo-china market. While I was not in the least big tempted to purchase a roasted duck, plastic toy gun, or paper umbrella, I was able to get the feel the bustle of Asian markets. From there I rode around visiting a handful of wats (there are more per capita in nongkhai than anywhere in thailand). Its basically impossible to be biking for more than 7 min before seeing one. I then rode about 20 more minutes along the Mekong River to a place where a special chedi receded into the river. However, it can only be seen during the dry season....
On my ride home, I stopped to pick up some delicious pineapple, (I have mostly just been buying my food off of the street), ate it at a great park, went home, made myself a pb+j, and slept for 2 hours straight. It is HOT, HOT, HOT here and all that touring can really do you in.

Arriving in Thailand

Hey Everyone!

I am happy to report that I have made it to Thailand. The journey took about 24 hours to arrive in Bangkok, where I then spent the night and took a short, one hour flight to Udon Thani the next morning. From the airport I was driven to Nong Khai, the town that I will be living through the begining of October. It was a whirlwind journey, but everything went very smoothly.

I still have not gotten over the fact that I actually am here in Thailand. After so much preparation and time leading up to this trip, its crazy to finally be across the world.

After four nights of being in Nong Khai, I still have not fully adjusted to the time change, although it has been steadily getting better. However, I have been getting a lot of reading in, seeing that there's little else to do at 5:30 in the morning..

The Travel to Teach dorm that I am living in currently has three other volunteers. There is Kristy from Australia, Koen from Amsterdam, and Amanda from England. I am by far the youngest volunteer, which is a bit hard, but they have all been really nice and welcoming.

I just cannot believe that I am here. You will probably see me write this over and over again because, truly, it is terribly hard to get over - a bit shocking actually. That's not to say I am not thrilled to be in Thailand. I am.

Let the adventures begin!