An E-sy weekend

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Apologies for the gap between this and the last update - over the weekend we don’t really have internet access (or at least, no free internet access). Hence no blogging. Anyway when I last posted we were just about to go for lunch with a Very Important Person (so they said); the lunch itself turned out to be a bit of a damp squib, we were very briefly introduced (or shown off?) to the special guest and then shoved down to the furthest possible point away from him on the table. Our presence from then on was pretty much superfluous, we were quite literally only there because of the novel colour of our skin. And the food was much worse than usual; Wiz had to politely force down another helping of what I think was ‘jellied tofu’ (even worse than it sounds) just seconds after suppressing the urge to vomit caused by the first portion. Ugh. After lunch we taught a class how to talk about the weather, our second attempt at the topic but this time with a different group; I think we’ve now hit on the most successful formula for teaching (or at least making the kids enjoy the lesson - massively different), which is basically to play a game which takes up a lot of time and involves moving around a lot shouting loudly. I’m not sure how the other teachers felt about the guttural roars and screams emanating from our classroom during the game of ‘What’s the weather like?’, but the class had a pretty good time.

On Friday evening E turned up at our room and told us to get ready quick-sharp because Bo Sorn had invited us to a party being held in honour of the retirement of the director of another school. It was a faintly ridiculous affair; at one point, several teachers got up on stage in outfits resembling something from A Clockwork Orange to sing a farewell song. On the plus side, the food was out of this world, albeit marred by a woman singing karaoke with all the elegance of a drunk tramp. As is becoming the norm, we were plied with whiskey by some of the male members of staff, and rode home in the boot of Mr Na Long Chai’s truck, plastered.

The weekend went by in a flash, thanks mostly to the efforts of E who took it upon herself to entertain us as much as possible. Saturday was Valentine’s Day and while the romantic possibilities of Aranya Prathet are limited, we had a nice bike ride into the town centre, ate ice cream by the lake (though ‘lake’ is a rather grandiose term for a stagnant, fetid pool), and looked around a few nice temples. In between, E took us for a Vietnamese feast for lunch, and then in the evening led us around various markets and fairs, stopping to win us a lurid and oversized stuffed toy on a fairground darts game. I attempted to do the same, and nearly killed a man with a dart to the head, so decided that was enough for the evening. We ate al fresco in Aran Park (a huge do-it-yourself stew of pork and vegetables, enough to feed three, for 50 baht - less than a pound) and feasted on loh chong afterwards - a strange but delicious dessert made from coconut milk, ice, and thick green noodles.

Sunday started very early, again at E’s instructions, and we headed off to the huge Rong Kleua market, right on the Cambodian border. It is less a market than a city devoted to selling knock-off (and possibly stolen) goods, but we were in no position to quibble with its ludicrously low prices. Thus we finished our shopping spree with five t-shirts, a pair of military-design shorts, two Vietnamese shuttlecocks for use in another Asian variant of keepy-uppy, some fake Aviator sunglasses and 12 pairs of socks for well under a tenner. It has to be said that E was largely to thank for the low, low prices due to her aggressive bargaining techniques; it made us realize how often we are badly ripped off when we try to buy things on our own. In the afternoon we took a road trip to the lake at Klong Hat with E, her husband and assorted other family members. It was a scenic spot and all manner of fun was had with rubber rings and rope swings (we thought we’d seen the last of them in Laos!), as well as an enormous, partly-homecooked meal.

To round things of, we returned to the bosom of the Na Long Chai family for another road trip in the evening, to a fair in Sa Kaeo organized by (we think) the Red Cross. Ostensibly we were going to watch Mr Na Long Chai’s tah koh team in action, but their game was cancelled due to their opponents’ failure to make an appearance. We watched a couple of other tah koh games (as usual, staggered by the ability of the players), Pi Tuy bought us enough fairground food to sink a cruise ship, and - best of all - we watched a ‘ring of death’-style show where dashing daredevil kids rode motorbikes and drove cars (!) up and around the walls of a rickety cylindrical velodrome. Wiz got asked to join the driver of the car but wimpishly declined, and a giant, unspeakably disgusting bug landed on my leg - it was a fantastic night.

Which brings us to today. After the weekend of fun we felt apprehensive about going back into Klong Nam Sai school, but as it turned out our morning would be spent differently; teaching in Pi Tuy’s primary school. Our first thought was that this would be an idyllic morning spent teaching tiny, adorable children about the alphabet; and while we had a good time and the children were both tiny and adorable, we are now more tired than the reality TV format, i.e. very tired indeed. We sang songs('One I Caught A Fish Alive' and 'Sing a Rainbow'), we played football, basketball, “duck-goose” and a game of ‘Simon Says’ which transcended the barriers of language and age; it was an exhausting three hours despite the fact that the kids were the easiest crowd possible, entranced by our every word and action. Hopefully we’ll get to do it again sometime.

So now we’re sitting in the Soundlab, having just declined to teach a further class with our pal E (we’re simply too tired, and have already done the required hours today, but we’ve promised to teach two classes with her tomorrow). We think this was a good decision; Wiz just reprimanded an unplugged-in kettle for being slow to boil. Tonight we go back to the fair to watch the rescheduled gamed of tah koh. Until then, lah gorn krap (a polite way for a man to say goodbye - see, we’re learning something too, everybody wins!)

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