Orphanage

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Hi all

Well have started work at the Orphanage. Just to re cap the children are from Hill Tribes up in the North of Thailand, the Hill Tribes are ethnic minorities who live in the Mountainous regions. Each tribe has their own language, cultures, dress etc, so most of the children at the school come here not knowing any Thai as in this schools case their language is Akha and they learn Thai as they go. Most tribes originate from Tibet, China and Laos and have come here over the past 200 years, they are described as 4th world people and have the lowest standard of living. They do not have Thai citizenship and therefore have no right to own land and are not allowed health care and schooling. In the past decade the government has tried to improve their lives and intigrate them with society mainly by providing Orphanages which are free (funded by the government and monastarys) and giving them an education so they can go on and get jobs and move from the Hill Tribes. That's the history lesson for you all. Anyway on the Tuesday we decided that although there is so many improvements needed to the school with so little time and a very small budget (funded by Greenway who are the organisation who set up the voluntary work) we thought to decorate and turn one of the empty rooms into a games room for the children. At the moment they have no such thing and just have their classrooms, bedrooms and then outside. We were given a timetable for the week for teaching and had 2 lessons a day of 1 hour each and the rest of the time we could work on the room. The lessons we had to teach were English, P.E and Art! We took it in turns doing the lessons whilst the rest of us started on the room. English was fine as just teach the children some words and then make sentences and play word games etc, the main trouble is their pronounciation. As their alphabet and language is so different they really struggle to say some of our sounds, we played hangman and when they say the letters B & P and M & N they sound the same but it's hard to get them to hear the difference as if you try it they are alike. The P.E was interesting as it has been the hottest week ever and we were outside with no shade in at least 35 degree heat so we thought we would all pass out. We managed though and taught the kids Dodgeball which they loved mainly because they could throw a ball actually at each other without being told off and then we did some relay games, we had one of our co ordinators with us during the lessons to translate where needed which was helpful. During the art lessons we were getting them to make pictures and mobiles for the new room we were doing and the Thai kids are fantastic at art and put us to shame so we let them get on with it. The room we decided to do up was manky and we had to start by scrubbing the walls to try and clean them, however the colour coming off was black and it did not make much difference, again working in the heat was knackering and I have never sweated so much in my life, we were constantly drinking pints of water for fear of dehydration. Once the walls were cleanish we then had to paint, Roma decided she did not have any clothes suitable for painting so we put her in a black bin liner and told her to get on with it. The painting took most of the second day (Wednesday) especially as we had to keep going off to take lessons and changing clothes each time as we got in a right mess and the schools expect you to look presentable for lessons! On Thursday we had pretty much finished the decorating of the room and Amy who is a good artist started to draw a large beach scene on one wall whilst we finished off. During the evenings this week we have not been capable of doing much (luckily as not much to do) as so tired and had to plan the next days lessons, so on Friday we decided to just work the morning and then go to Bangkok for the weekend as needed a break. Roma decided to fly home on Friday night as she was homesick and wanted to be with her family so we thought it would nice to accompany her, it was a shame she has left as she is good fun and there are now only 4 of us. It was great staying in a nice airconditioned room for 2 nights as the Brown house is so hot and every night it was like sleeping with a high temperature and you never got a break from being hot and sticky. We stayed at the New World Lodge hotel just off Koh San Road and went out for dinner on the Friday night before saying bye to Roma. We went to a place were I could get Spaghetti Bolognaise so I was very happy after living on rice and veg for so long. On the Saturday the 4 of us who are left on this particular project which is Sander and Judith who are Dutch, Amy who is Swedish and myself (luckily they are all speak very good English) caught a water taxi and went round Chinatown. It is chaos there as made up of market stalls selling everything you can imagine and being the weekend it was heaving so we did not spend too much time there as crowds and heat do not go. As we have now been to Bangkok a few times (starting to feel like my 2nd home) we decided to try and travel by public transport (please remember at this point that aswell as being a different language, their words just look like pretty patterns!). We did well though and managed to get on the correct bus (more luck than brains I think) and got to Siam Square for 7 Baht (about 10p). Here is the huge MBK centre and tons of other shops which make it the biggest shopping centre in Southeast Asia, we spent some time looking round and had lunch (club sandwich - heaven) and headed back to the hotel late afternoon. In the evening we met up with Robin who was on our 4 week programme and had spent last week in Koh Pha Ngan for the full moon party before flying off to Australia on Sunday morning. Had a nice evening with a lovely meal (tuna salad - yum) and a few beers which I am getting used to now as the Thais really can not do a nice wine. When I get to Australia the first thing I am doing is going to a bar and drinking a bottle of cold white wine as missing it badly so if you are reading this Lynsey and Sarah (they are meeting me at the airport) make sure you take me somewhere good. The best news though is that on Sunday morning we were looking around the Koh San Road area and there was a hairdressers that said hair straightening on their board, I went inside and paid 20 quid, took 3 hours, lasts 6 months and I now have permantly straight hair! Come rain, heat whatever my hair is dead straight with no frizz. I feel human and beautiful for the first time in weeks, it's great, why did I not discover this sooner?

Anyway we returned to the Brown House Sunday night and went to the Orphanage again today (Monday) and have been informed that this week is English Camp! Rather worried about this as out of the 4 of us I am the only English one and whilst with the others their language is very good, their spelling and pronounciation is not great and very hard for them to teach their second language which is fair enough. We spent today preparing and the camp runs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and there will be 80 kids split into 4 groups (one each) and we will have one of our co ordinators with each one of us. The groups will consist of cooking, art, singing (help) and roleplay all in the good old traditional English way. The main programme is set up and we just have to follow it so should not be too bad, it is just a shame that this only leaves us Friday to finish our room off and we still have a lot to do so we may spend the weekend there. This evening our co ordinators (Lyn, Mewl, And and Glm) started teaching us some of the songs and games and I'm sorry but traditional English songs they are not, half of them I had never heard of and I am sure the Thais have just made these up. There was 2 I know and that was "If your happy and you know it" (Oh joy) and the "Hokey Pokey" and yes I did spend 10 minutes falling about laughing at the spelling and then managed to stop long enough to explain and correct the spelling whilst they all looked at me like I was mad (that's the trouble with being the only English person). Once I had explained Judith then found this very funny so at least there were 2 of us laughing. Well I now know some other songs that are apparently English so I can teach you all them when I come back (something for you all to look forward too). We are currently at the Lemon House checking e:mails and writing this and then going to the bar for a beer, although will be an early night as need to be at the school for 8.00 tomorrow. Hope alls well back in England and I will happily send you some of the weather here as has been a bit too unbearable this week, although it has been raining today which calls it down abit. Take care and will write again soon.

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