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Driving into Non Khai was an exotic experience. The bus driver sent me on a Tok-tok (The taxi/carriage/go cart) with a man who couldn’t speak a word of English. He had no idea where he was suppose to drop me off. The Thai women who was helping told me he was just going to drop me off in the middle of town where I could find someone who spoke English and could ask them. I was oddly not too uncomfortable knowing the driver would be abandoning me with only an address on a piece of paper written in English. As he drove me down the dusty, worn road, I felt like Anna from the King and I. There I was: the new English teacher in the back of a carriage being toured into the town and met by the staring eyes of the locals.
He dropped me off on some isolated corner and needless to say no one I ran into could speak a word of English. I walked along the peer with my large backpack and watched the early-morning-sun light up the gateway that lay between Laos and Thailand. It was 7:00am. The bus dropped me off alone after
the 8-hour night drive from Bangkok. All of the others on the bus were going on to Vientiane, Laos; so I was on my own.
After walking along the pier, I passed an old temple. It was rustic with the walls of faided, royal paint rather than the towers of gold and cuts of glass that shimmer on the temples and palaces of Bangkok. I went back towards the main road and walked until I found a Seven Eleven. Lucky for me they didn’t speak English, nor have a map. They pointed me to the Police Station where an officer found another Tok-tok that could take me to the address.
When I arrived at the Open Minds Project Building, I ran into another Volunteer from the UK, Maia (Miya). She introduced me to 2 other Thai workers Gay and Nick. The head people were still asleep, but I relaxed and talked with Maia for a while until others started getting up to go to their placements. It turns out that one of the volunteers, Catrina, also works at the temple I will be teaching at. So I talked with her and decided to start teaching right away. She
has been teaching at the temple for a week already.
An interesting concept here in Thailand is time. We planned the lesson while we waited for two hours for our ride. The ride never came so we had to take a Tok-tok (but apparently this is completely normal in Thailand). When we got to the temple, I met Pushen, on of the monks who teaches and speaks English. He talked to us for an hour and a half until we started teaching.
The monks are sweet and always willing to tell a good story. On the second day we were talking to Pushen during the M6 Class about popular music groups in Thailand. He told us about Mariah Carry and Whitney Housten. He also said there was this really popular group comming. He could not remember the name and then said, "Oh! They sing that song that goes, 'My hump, My hump. My hump!"
I don't know if i was more surprised to hear it from a monk, or that he freely said it infront of a class of Monk Trainees.
Later at orientation, Kab told us that Linken Park is also popular, and in Thai
Volunteers
Us at the parkit means "A monkey Eating a Bannana."
The first class was a group of 12 Novices (boys from 12-18 training to be monks). We taught them verbs used in the past tense. The second class we taught past participles. I honestly can’t tell you how difficult this teaching is. It isn’t the fact that I stand in front of 15 students, and it isn’t the lack of being prepared, or having the right material--not even the lack of training on my part. The hardest part is that most of the students can barely understand a word of English; some can hardly write and a few cannot even read.
They are taught English, but they have not learned it. Once it is taught they move on. The monks say, “oh yeah, they already learned that. You don’t have to teach that.” The only problem is that they do not know the material, much less how to apply it. Only a few of the students take notes and they have no textbooks. They do no homework and are not motivated to work outside of the classroom. Though quite a few of the students are really bright and always volunteer to
write answers on the board.
The education available to them (at least in English) is in vein. The teachers change month to month and they have no set schedule or rate of progression. The teachers expect you to come in and magically teach the students how to speak, since you are fluent. They don't understand that this doesn't automatically qualify someone to teach.
After teaching, we walked around for an hour or so till our bus came. We walked down these rural roads with lush green woods and hidden houses and shacks. The red mud road was a deep contrast against the forest green fields and bright blue sky. Other than the 92-degree weather, it was really relaxing.
We ran into the main monk again who talked to us about the day and then gave us a ride home in the Tok-tok. Our relationship with the monks is quite an interesting one. We are not allowed to touch them at any cost. If we want to hand them something, it must be placed down in front of them so they can pick it up. I find myself constantly aware of this as the students take turns coming
FREE FRUIT!!
Can you see our friend in the tree? to the board to write. I have to put the chalk down on a desk so that they can pick it up and write. Also just in the busy action of the moving, I have to be careful to keep my distance.
The students are very respectful though. Each class starts with the students standing and in a cadence saying: “Good morning teacher, How are you?” to which we reply, “Fine, thank you, how are you?” After the room has been filled with silence as they stand debating the asked question, they say they are “fine,” in the little broken English they know. After the class, one boy says, “stand up please,” and all say, “thank you teacher, see you tomorrow.” With that, class is over.
We then went back to the Global Minds “House.” There are 2 rooms above the office. One is rather small and has a full size bed where 2 of the girls stay. In the other room there is a queen-size mattress and 2 floor mats. Here 5 of us sleep. Our stuff is just strewn across the room. The only other furniture is a small shelf, 2 fans and 3 misquote nets.
There is one normal toilet with a shower downstairs in his building for EVERYOVE to share. There is another building, which is more like a garage, with a TV/DVD, a plastic table and chairs, and then 3 computers, one of which works with SKYPE and the Internet. The other 2 are quite slow (you should have a good book if you are really dedicated). Then there is a Thai-Toilet (a squatter) but no shower. All of these facilities are for the 10+ volunteers staying at the house at any given time.
After settling back into the house from our long few hours of teaching, we went up to a really nice park. Here all of the Thai community gathers and goes on paddle boating, rides bicycles, and about 40 of them gather on a courtyard and do some sort of aerobic exercise all in yellow shirts. We sat on a bench near the lake and relaxed. After that we rode our bicycles back to the house, Katrina and I walked all around Nong Khai and had dinner.
Despite the fact that it was a long and hard first week, it was definitely eye opening.
We started
orientation this morning.
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D@D
non-member comment
tie che
might have been tie che that they where doing in the park sounds like such a cool adventure miss u girl skype me when you can