Hello, สวัสดี (Sa wa dii), Hola

Bittersweet. The perfect word to describe my feelings about leaving Nong Hee and the life and “home” I have created here throughout the past year. A year. I can’t believe it will have been exactly one year to the day that I left Philadelphia for the adventure of a lifetime. The word adventure does not even begin to describe what my life has been since boarding my first plane in Philadelphia one year ago. Since studying abroad in Ireland in the Spring of 2008 I knew that I wanted to spend more of my life traveling and thought what better way to do it than teaching. I love both and luckily am able to combine the two to create a perfect situation. There is no better way to travel than by immersing oneself into another culture. The bonds created and understanding of the culture is so much deeper this way. I have learned just as much about the world and myself this year, if not more, than the English language skills I taught my students. While teaching was a HUGE part of my life and routine here, simply observing Thai people took up even more time. When trying to live in another culture one begins by emulating all that the people around them do, then realization of what social norms aren’t as important to keep comes to light, and finally acceptance of what parts of the new culture you want to keep and what parts of your own culture you want to keep are found. I have compiled a list of things I have noticed about “Thai people” and life in Thailand in general. These are things that I alone have noticed and most of the time find them to be endearing, while the other part of the time they are the bane of my existence.
• That Thai people refer to themselves as “Thai people”, in their language and in English … they are a person, not simply “Thai”
• Their utter lack of understanding regarding sunglasses. Men are found in women’s bedazzled shades and sometimes not even when it’s sunny.
• Their need for things to be “riproy” … orderly, clean, tidy, ironed. Thai people LOVE cleaning and showering. You will often find shopkeepers sweeping the dirt outside of their establishment.
• The fact that people open stores and restaurants whenever they want wherever they want. Sometimes just by opening up their home.
• The last minute planning and execution of ideas. As volunteers we are constantly given only a day’s or few hour’s notice of an event or school closing. We have even shown up to school expecting to teach and just not had our classes show up to then realize there is some event going on.
• “Mai pen rai” which translates to “no worries” and is used in place of “your welcome” as well as times when one would say, “it is no big deal” or “don’t worry about it”
• the giant smile always plastered across a Thai person’s face! This country is called the land of smiles for a reason – but they also hide emotions other than happiness and comfort behind these smiles, which can become troublesome to an American.
• That the direct translation for everyone meal is “eat rice”. Thai people love to ask if you have eaten yet and literally ask, “have you eaten rice?”
• The innate center of balance all Thai people have as well as their perfect flat-footed squat. I know they have these abilities because of squatter toilets and the fact that their main forms of transportation are on two wheels (motorcycles aka ‘motorcy’ and bicycles) but I am still jealous.
• The need for mealtime and eating to be painful in some way. Their love of intense chilies and taste of fire in their mouths to the puckering sour fruits they choose to eat. It’s painful to watch.
• Their inability to pronounce ending syllables, “r”, and “th”, as well as the way they add tones to English words. Since Thai is a tonal language all English words that have been adapted into society therefore get assigned a tone. We could be saying “ovaltine” but because we were not putting the correct emphasis on the right syllable they have absolutely no idea what we are saying.
• Their TERRIBLE taste in music and need for speakers to be uncomfortably loud. Also in this category their love of karaoke and microphones in general.

My last few days in Nong Hee are consisting of spending as much time as possible with my students, teaching dance and watching movies in class, having goodbye parties and string tying ceremonies, crying, and packing. So very bittersweet at its best! On Saturday I head to Bangkok and from there hopefully I'll be able to upload some pictures of this nonsense ... If not it'll have to wait till after India when I am pack in America on September 29th!

Until next time ...
Goodbye Ban Nong Hee and thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you have taught me this year. I hope one day to come back but will always know that it will never be the same as the time I have spent here in 2010 and 2011. I will miss you forever and always.

As a World Teach Volunteer I have had specific responsibilities to the organization throughout the year including my TEFL work, weekly and monthly check-ins with my field director and meetings. We had our month long orientation in October, a Mid-Service meeting in March and two weekends ago our End of Service meeting. This one was the shortest, mostly because we had very little actual administrative work to accomplish and no TEFL work. It was mostly one last chance for us to get together in Nakhon Phanom as a group. Sadly, two volunteers who I became very close with were already traveling back to or in America for Grad school and were not there. Regardless it was a very nice weekend. We had lunch as a group and then spent Saturday afternoon getting some administrative things finished, watching the slideshow Jes made for us, and receiving our T-shirts and TEFL certificates. Then it was off to the boat ride along the Mekong and dinner at our favorite Korean BBQ joint "ONION". We gave the restaurant this name because the Thai script of it's real name looks like the word "onion".

*** Due to technical difficulties I am unable to upload pictures to the blog right now so here are some short anecdotes from the night sans photo ... sorry!


Rambo (our police officer friend) missed the boat - but don't worry! He simply climbed on the immigration boat to Laos and ordered the tourist boat to come back for him! mai pen rai!



Korean BBQ is one of my favorite new food things since arriving in Thailand. It involves a personal grill with a bowl around it filled with boiling water. In the "dome" part you can grill meats while the fats drip into the water to create a delicious broth to cook noodles and vegetables in. YUM!


Lastly, I wanted to show a picture of my "team" from dinner, i.e. the 4 people that eat off the same grill. We all get assigned jobs to make the most of our eating experience ... someone gets meats, another gets vegetables and herbs, someone else is in charge of noodles and eggs and lastly, someone gets plates, utensils, and sauces. Teamwork is the way to go here!

Since there was no school for the Queen's birthday last Friday, Amanda held an English Camp at her high school. Obviously all of the World Teach volunteers were invited to participate and I gladly accepted. Here is me introducing myself at the beginning or camp - it's the same for every event that we are at as a group.

The camp was for students in P. 6, M. 1, M. 2, and M. 3; which is about ages 12-15. All of the volunteers who participated ran a station that each group went to for 30 minutes. There were 8 groups of about 16 students each, so somewhere around 130 students attended. We had huge group activities in the morning on Friday which included splitting the students into groups and creating a group name, poster, and cheer. The volunteers helped with different groups and the group I was helping had pink name tags and decided to be called "Lovely". Their cheer was "Hello, we are lovely" (with corresponding hand motions). It was adorable! Here is a group pic!


Before we knew it, it was lunch time and then we did the group work throughout the afternoon. I was paired to teach with one of the Thai teachers and we taught Action words. We reviewed the grammar of pairing nouns with the correct form of the verb "to be" and adding '-ing' to the words. Then we played charades. Here are some classic 'Kerry teaching' shots.


Raise your hand ...


Teaching the word "laughing".


Is this sentence okay? (He are walking)


MUCH BETTER! (He is walking)


Then after freshening up and dinner we had a "great night" (that's literally what is said on the printed schedule) where the students performed something in English (singing a song, spelling a word with their bodies, a dance party, etc.) and we had a giant dance party. The M. 6 students (seniors) who were helpers performed a dance to Waka Waka and lead other dances and games. It was their game that lead to me getting baby powdered in the face! I don't know if I have mentioned the affinity Thai people have for powder - but regardless that fact is relevant to the hilarity of this game. So the students were seated in a giant circle and there were 2 volleyballs be tossed around with music playing and when the music stopped, whoever had each ball was to choose a number and that corresponding piece of paper was chosen for them. When unfolded the paper said either the name of a teacher/volunteer/staff member or a category (tallest teacher, your friend, two teachers, a WorldTeach volunteer, etc.) a bunch of baby powder was dumped into the students' hands and then they were to powder the face of whoever it said on the paper. I was sitting next to Amanda when "World Teach Volunteer" was called and the student who had picked it was in my "Lovely" group and I had been harassing him all day ... so as he is walking towards Amanda and I we are both saying, "It's you or me ... you or me ... you or me" and sure enough it was ME. I could tell how nervous he was because of his smile and laugh and how gingerly he touched my cheeks and than RAN! It was like I had some serious cooties and I could not stop laughing! Here is a picture of me right after the attack ...


and then with num (pronounced noom) himself.


The rest of the night was dancing and fun and then finally some much earned sleep. The next morning we were up bright and early to finish out "camp". The first big group activity was singing songs and I was obviously elicited by Amanda to be her helper. Here are some pics from the morning of songs and dances.



Then Amanda's Director presented each volunteer with a T-shirt to thank us for participating. Here is the classic shot Thais LOVE to take! The shirt says "somebody in Thailand loves me very much"


After the presentations we took group shots with each group of students - here is the group that had the some of the M. 3 "bad boys" in it - we LOVED messing with them!

And our World Teach group shot in front of the English Camp Banner

This past Friday (August 12th) was HM the Queen's Birthday and therefore Mother's Day. There was of course no school on this holiday so Thursday was when all of the school ceremonies and celebrations were held. Thursday is one of my days at Phon Tan (my smaller school) so I celebrated with them, which was really great since I don't do many things outside of school with that community. All day Wednesday the teachers were preparing for the ceremony by making paper jasmine flower pins for all of the mothers of the students. I attempted to learn how to make them and was defeated by a craft for the first time in my life! I blame the fact that I am left handed and SeeSuda is right handed. Lame, but I will stand by it! Thursday morning, I was picked up for school at the regular time and there was a ceremony for all of the mothers of my students, very similar to Wai Khru but for moms this time! And then when the students were finished wai-ing they would hug their moms, which was possibly the cutest thing I've seen in Thailand.





The students also sang the Mother's Day song, which I snagged a video of for you viewing pleasure!

After the ceremony the school served lunch for the students and their mothers. The menu consisted of a spicy salad, with pork, some veggies, and some rolled flat noodles. I had always been wary of these "salads" before and learned on this day that I quite enjoy them! My tolerance and appreciation for spicy food has gone up significantly in Thailand and is constantly surprising me!

One really important lesson I have learned this year is that humans are the same wherever you go. We all have likes, dislikes, jokes, and games. We work and like to have fun. Climate and socioeconomic standing play a role in living conditions. Culture and religion create differences in term of respect and belief. But for the most part humans, no matter where they live are the same. It's hard to imagine that someone halfway around the world could be the same as yourself and yet they are. I found this to be most true with my students. While there are some obvious differences between Thai students and American students a major similarity I learned this year was that fads are all the rage. They come in overnight and leave just as quickly! I easily saw three different games take the interests of my students. They remained popular for various amounts of time but were prevalent enough for me to recognize it as a fad. Just the same as pogs and crazy bones were for children when I was in elementary school so are these games to my Thai students. EVERYONE plays. Boys and girls of all grades play. Last semester cat's cradle was all the rage - which made me extremely excited since I knew how to play and could get in on the action.

Next, early this semester came a game similar to chinese jumprope, but my students would simply string together an obnoxious amount of rubber bands to create the rope. Ingenious I thought. And currently a game very similar to jacks or pick up sticks is taking the lead in popularity. Here are some of my P. 5 students playing in my classroom during lunch - before class with me starts.





Hope enjoyed this little glimpse into the lives of my students, and feel comforted in knowing that fads are everywhere!

In my ever growing pre-nostalgia, I decided that I needed to have pictures of everything in Nong Hee so I would always be able to look back and remember exactly where I lived for a year in my twenties. Taking pictures of your everyday surroundings is a weird concept since it's hard to decide what is worth taking a picture of. But luckily for me digital cameras and loads of computer memory allow me to take over a hundred pictures of what I see when I walk "the loop". Aka the triangle of roads that goes away from my house to the main road, along the main road, and back to my house; it's the route Michelle and I typically use for walking, running, or biking. Of course no excersizing adventure would be complete without some student companions. This time I was napping and I suddenly hear some little voices at my door ... "KERRRYYYYY TEACHERRR KERRRYYY" and I look out my window to see min, seigo, and bee all ready for some kind of Kerry entertainment. I have chosen some pictures of the adventure to share with you, just to give you a sense of what I see when I am futzin' around in Ban Non Hee . . .
just someone burning their trash and a dog checkin it out

typical house, this one is one the main road

a store on the main road

my friends trailing behind me, bee has her little sister on her back ... poor girl was struggling!

Another typical house, this one tucked back off the main road, closer to my house

bee modeling in the phone booth for me

Another example of Thai houses

The police station

An old lady in her sarong just chopping things

And one more house, this one I think is so crazy because it has so many roofs, they have a lot of covered space with no walls, it's very Thai to have this and after living in a concrete box in this heat, i completely understand why!


I hope you enjoyed this quick look into my daily surroundings!

I can't believe so much time has passed since my last blog update - I feel like so much has happened and the days are just slipping away from me, which is exactly why the antics I am about to show you were able to happen in my otherwise efficient classroom.

Recently at Phon Tan I have been doing alphabet centers with my classes since I see them twice as often as my students at Nong Hee and I am a big supporter of hands on learning. I also have mixed classes at Phon Tan so figuring out ways to keep everyone interested and involved can be challenging. And the latter is exactly why this occurred in the first place. I have only 4 students in my P. 6 level and all of which are pretty quick witted and can learn what I teach a lot faster than their peers, so when they are assigned to the centers that are fairly easy, they finish quickly and are left with time, pipe cleaners, and big imaginations. I walked over to their corner of the room to find Bee-ah Yai and Moate making glasses, mustaches, microphones, and ties. I could not physically stop myself from laughing and saw no harm in the situation since their assignment was completed and then made the executive decision to not let this pass me by and grabbed my camera.






I also recently had students at Nong Hee make me some lovely flowers out of pumpkin, eggplant, and carrot . . . classic.


Now onto big city adventures - Last Friday was a Buddhist holiday so that meant no school on Friday or Monday (yay, long weekend!) Because we already had these days off Kaitlin and I decided this would be a perfect time to go to Bangkok to get our visas for India, and luckily Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2 was premiering the same weekend! We also needed to do some serious JJ market souvenir shopping. This all sounds well and good until we realized that the visas could take up to 5 business days as opposed to the 2 we originally thought, so Kaitlin and I ask our school for some extra days off and headed to Bangkok on Tuesday night - We get to Khao San road (the backpacker haven), get ourselves a cheap room, and freshen up to head over to the office that is designated for Embassy of India visas. We get ourselves before 10am and soon realize it is exactly like a DMV - awesome. After an friendly chat with the employee and the organizing, stamping and payment portion of the trip he informs us that the first day we can call to see if our visas are ready is Tuesday and 4pm. Wonderful. I always wanted to be indefinitely trapped in Bangkok. I realize this does not sound exactly terrible and it really wasn't - just unnecessarily expensive. hahaha Luckily Gen arrived on Thursday and Amanda on Friday so we had plenty of distractions including Harry Potter himself! 4 American girls in their early twenties, spending a year in Thailand cannot be expected to act at all calm during the epic finale to a series we grew up with - no matter how crazy we looked, even to the kid in Harry Potter glasses who took this group shot of us.


Also, this is the nicest sign I think I've ever seen at a movie theatre.


SOOO SAD!!!


Just battling with the best.


I am able to end this post on a happy note - The visas for India were obtained on Tuesday and we did make it back to Nakhon Phanom on a 12 hour 2nd class overnight bus ... and when I had just finished my obnoxious amount of laundry it started down pouring. BUT my roommate brought me chah yen, gluay tawt and rotis chicken with sticky rice from the market before the storm so needless to say I LOVE THAILAND.