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Published: October 22nd 2011
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The Arm Pit of Thailand?
It's been a mildly hectic and confusing week. We completed our final three teaching practices this week at a Thai poly-tech institute. It is a vocational school where high school students planning to enter the workforce and practice a trade can transfer to prepare for their careers. Monday morning, our first day at the poly-tech school, Tara and I are getting dressed, rehearsing lesson plans, eating breakfast and preparing for our 7:45 am departure. As Tara checks her email she announces that we have an email about our teaching placement...
Up to this point we have heard that we were awaiting final confirmation for a private school in Rachaburi Province, a fairly large city in a rural area about three hours from Bangkok - the type of setting we are looking for. All of a sudden Tara announces a supposed change of plans. It appears that our placement has now been moved to a location that another couple in the program had just refused. The location: Samut Sakhorn - a large industrial and fishing port city about twenty minutes outside of Bangkok. Although we had been quite clear that we wanted to be well
away from Bangkok, (and this was not what we had in mind) we decided to do some research. We emailed our placement company to say we would get back to them (since the email seemed to imply we had a say in the matter).
Monday afternoon, following a full day of teaching practice and observations we are eating a very well prepared lunch at the poly-tech school. We are exhausted and the short break seems to be a time to relax before returning to Nai Harn, going back to class to learn of our next day's teaching assignment and heading to the internet cafe to make materials for an undetermined number of students with an undetermined level of competancy in the english language whom we will be providing instruction to in an undetermined setting. All of a sudden there is an announcement that brings much confusion and chaos. Many teaching placements have been finalized and confirmed: Dan and Tara - Samut Sakharn, the location we thought we had been ASKED if we wanted only hours before. So at this point we're thinking "Okay, is there some type of mistake here," but we decide to wait until we get back
and email the head of the placement agency.
Once back in our classroom at Nai Harn, we are working on materials for the next day's lesson when we are approached by one of the placement company's employees. She says she is picking up bus tickets and needs money to get our tickets to Samut Sakharn. By this point, we have done a little reading on the area, so let me fill you in:
Samut Sakharn is a large suburb of Bangkok, right off the Gulf of Thailand (literally right on the ocean). Cabs are very cheap and you can take a cheap air-conditioned bus into Bangkok for about 30 baht ($1.00). So far so good. But just because a place is on the ocean does not mean there is a beach. In fact, the closest beach is nearly two-hours away, with only muddy shores along the coast in Samut. What being near the ocean does mean in this case is fish, and Samut Sakharn happens to be one of the largest industrial fishing areas in all of South-East Asia (supplying much of the Bangkok area). Apparently much of the coastal area has a very strong fish odor (hence,
the arm-pit of Thailand label, perhaps?) Furthermore nearly everything there contains one type of seafood (if not many) - not so good for vegetarians. Finally, the school we were to be placed at had about 3,500 students, about 180 teachers, and class sizes that could approach 60 students per class. Finally, school would be starting the very next Tuesday, meaning we would literally finish the course, hop on a twelve-hour bus, find an apartment, make some lesson plans and be teaching in a total of three days. No thanks.
All in all, for someone who wants a cheap location with a close proximity to Bangkok, Samut Sakharn is probably a great place with friendly, honest and hardworking people. The situation, however, is just not for us. We quickly inform the placement company employee on site that we would not be going to Samut Sakharn, even if it meant breaking our contract, paying the $500 USD each, and finding our own job. She replies that she needs to call her boss, and soon returns to tell us (very politely, i should add) that we have to go to Samut Sakharn. We quickly respond (in a very calm, patient manner) that
we most certainly will not be going to Samut Sakharn. She replies that we will have to talk to her boss, the head of the agency, who again informs us that Samut Sakharn is our placement. We decide we will have to wait until Thursday when we met face to face.
Needless to say, we arrive to class Thursday very anxious, and our optimism for negotiating with the head of the placement company (who will also be providing us with two days of Thai cultural training) is not high. As a side note, I should add that what follows is a perfect example of why one always needs to keep a "cool heart" in Thailand. Our trainer and head of the placement company turns out to be an unbelievably funny, sweet and genuinely kind Thai woman who is in the unenviable position of trying to make everyone (the teachers on the one end and the schools on the other end) happy. When we finally are able to speak face to face we are so glad we had kept our composure and remained polite throughout. She explains that she understands why we don't want the job, and has been trying
to help us be placed together while also fulfilling her obligation to the school. I immediately feel genuinely sorry we had put her into this position, but we really didn't travel this far around the world to be in a situation we weren't comfortable with.
We are informed that she will continue to look at jobs for us, that she is still waiting to hear from the private school in Ratchaburi province, and that she has also contacted a school all the way in the north-east of Thailand in a city called Nakhan Phanom, surrounded by jungle and settled on the banks of the Me-Kong river boardering Laos. We are also told that we can start looking for jobs on our own, and buy out of our contract if we find one we really love (such as Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai in the very far North of Thailand).
So that leaves us where we are today. We are packing and preparing to take a bus to Bangkok tomorrow night at 7:00 pm. We should arrive in Bangkok sometime on Monday morning, at which point we will take a three hour train ride west to Kanchanaburi, where we
will hang-out and wait for a few days to see what our placement company will find us. We are also debating leaving from there to take a train twelve hours north to the Chiang Mai / Chiang Rai area to begin going door to door at the local schools passing out Resumes. Our instructor at ATI says we really shouldn't have a hard time finding a job on our own, if we choose that route. We will be joined in Kanchanaburi by Drew and Lana, who are in the identical position we are (having turned down Samut Sakharn as well). We will also be joined by Alex and Ashley whose school is underwater for an undisclosed amount of time, and Ben and Lauren who have about a week before their school begins. We plan to check out some of the local attractions there which include cave temples, waterfalls, floating restaurants, rafting, hiking and tribal villages. The baht gets you at least twice as far here as it does in Phuket, but we still need to make it stretch on the count of no work yet. The uncertainty can be a bit of a weight at times, but the freedom of
getting on a bus and heading north with no idea or expectation is quite liberating as well. Wish us luck!
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Herbert Simonds
non-member comment
Sorry for you
Been following your blog posting. I feel bad for you.Just be careful and be safe.