Hello, สวัสดี (Sa wa dii), Hola

“Kerry chim”, meaning “Kerry taste” is a phrase I often hear, but today took things to a whole other level! Instead of teaching English today I was shown off at the health fair that took place on school grounds. The fair was put on by the health center in NongHee and it focused on iodine, its importance, deficiencies, and ways to get it. Apparently iodine helps with your I.Q. and there is a lack of it in Isaan … or so I understood. But back to being “shown off” … I use this phrase to describe me walking around the fair because that’s literally how I felt … yesterday I was warned by Earm to not wear sport (despite the fact that today was Tuesday and I was told countless times that ‘NongHee teachers wear sport on Tuesday’), since many people would want to take their picture with me. I was told specifically to dress ‘suay’ (beautiful). So I did. And when I say that people want to take their picture with me … sometimes it doesn’t even matter whose camera it is … for instance I have taken pictures with people, who are asked me, with my camera, and they never see the picture … curious. My VIP status grew 10 fold when I was handed a baby to take a picture with (on my camera only).


But no complaints here on that one because I honestly miss human contact so much that holding that baby for 30 seconds was amazing!!! …I’m a creep. Now to the tasting … for about an hour and a half straight we walk around the fair stopping at each booth, which more times than not contained something for Kerry to ‘chim’. Most of the food was ‘arroy’ (delicious), some was not … and most was ‘phet’ (spicy) … which I now enjoy … to a certain degree. There are dishes of som tam that Earm tries and goes “Kerry no eat.” Hahahaha The people of Isaan like their food on fire! Then we had about a two-hour lunch where I was given sugar cane to eat … which was my favorite discovery of the day … surpassing the baby. It’s cut into slices and you bite pieces off, chew the sugary liquid out of it and spit out the hard part … ‘saaaaaap’ (Isaan word for delicious).

The term ‘mountain climber’ can now be used to describe me. No joke. During sports week I agreed to travel with the teachers from Phon Tan to Loei for the upcoming weekend, figuring it would be an “adventure” and entertaining. They get very excited when I say I will do things with them and I did come to Thailand to spend time with Thai people so … here goes. All that was communicated to me before we left was that we were going camping on a mountain … now that could mean many things in Thailand and plans change like the weather in Ireland, so I was prepared for anything and everything … or so I thought. SeeSuda picked me up at 7am on Friday morning and we set off on our way. We spent all morning driving, stopped for lunch (where whiskey and soda was served, typical), drove some more and then randomly stopped for haircuts … don’t ask. We were escorted by someone’s friend to the national park from inside a town (where the haircuts were) and found that it had closed for the day … since it was now about 3pm. We then found a hotel, had some happy hour drinks, while sitting outside on mats, went to the night market nearby for dinner, and hit the sack. Thank god for that, as I would learn soon.

We awoke at 6am, showered, dressed, and headed out in search of caffeine and food. We arrived at the park a little after 7am to find that many people had already arrived and the crowds were just as they had told me, big. We checked in, walked over to where you ‘check’ your bags to be carried to the top of the mountain via a bamboo pole balanced on someone’s shoulder, and began what would soon be the longest and most difficult hike of my 22 years of life. THANK GOD I decided to check my backpack and not be a martyr.


This hike was literally 9km of a 45 degree angle UP. Oh. My. God. All I could think while we were climbing was that this was NOT for the faint of heart … and that Jim and Fran could not do this with me so it’s a good thing I’m doing it without them. Hahahahaha


Clearly Thai people know me well, or maybe I’m meant to be Thai but after the first kilometer I was greeted by a beer and a piece of watermelon (at 9:30am) … classic.


It proceeded to take us about 6 hours to finish the climb ... at which point i became a "conqueror" of Phu Kradaung


And THEN we had to walk along the dirt road at the top of the mountain another 3 or so kilometers to the visitor center. The road literally opens up to a giant field filled with tents … just rows and rows of tents as far as the eye can see.


Our bags were not yet at the top so we ‘gin khao’ (ate lunch, literal translation ‘eat rice’) and then waited for our bags … one would think that a shower would be exactly what someone would want after this epic hike, but as it turns out by the time our bags got to us the temperature had dropped at least 15 degrees and I was now quite chilled. The thought of getting into a probably dirty, campground shower, that only had cold water was the farthest thing from appealing at this point. I bought some tshirts, we rested in our tent, we ate dinner (gin khao), and then went to bed. I was the youngest person in the group by at least 10 years so my company was pretty dead at this point. Once again, luckily we went to bed so early because I was rousted from my slumber(or as much as I can call laying on the ground with a blanket in a tent in the freezing cold, slumber) at 4am … told to get dressed … I was freezing so I put on a tank top, l/s shirt, cardigan, jeggings, socks, sneakers (I know, fashion faux pas, but my feet were frozen and I had to hike down the cliff this day), and a scarf … (later I would realize this outfit was the worst choice EVER) and we packed up and went to go wait in line to check our bags and wait in line to use the bathroom … fun times when its going to still be dark out for almost 2 hours and its frigid. We then got breakfast which consisted of hot tea, coffee, and the most delicious egg dish everrr … it was basically and open face omelet served in the pan it was cooked in, with delicious ingredients such as, tomato, onion, pork that tasted like a maple sausage type thing, and cilantro. “Alloyyyy mak mak” (“delicious, very, very” in Thai) After breakfast we set out to attempt to see one of the waterfalls that is at the top of the mountain since the famous viewpoint was another 9km away and this was a lot closer … along the way I was warned that since the ground was wet I had to watch out for something that was going to bite me … this could obviously be a multitude of frightening creatures and was completely unsure of what exactly I should be worried about … awesome. We saw a baby waterfall and continued on to try to find the bigger one … as we are walking along SeeSuda stops, looks down at her shoe and goes “oh Kerry, this!” I look down to see a small black slimy wormlike creature slithering through her shoelace and shoe to her foot … she takes her shoe off and peels the creature off her foot to show me the small bite it has made … another teacher we were with, Mem, immediately started jumping around freaking out … They are trying to ask me what I call this creature in English and as I try to get a closer look I see one slither through the mesh of my sneaker and obviously freak out throwing off my shoe in the process, then as I’m trying to compose myself one tries to get into my other shoe which causes me to repeat the throwing of my shoe and now I’m in my socks in the damp dirt freaking out. We manage to get my sneakers back on sans frightening creatures and quickly move on to an place where hopefully there are none. Needless to say we did not make it to the waterfall because the signs got confusing and it was getting a little late for us to be exploring up there when we still had to climb down the mountain and drive home … we then decided to just go see the Buddha image since it was on the way back to the visitor center and head home. As we were sitting at the Buddha image I asked SeeSuda to type into my electronic dictionary the name of the creature, to which there was no translation and she tried to explain to me that they live in water but there is a kind that lives in the mountains and come out when its wet … I then typed “leech” into my dictionary to get the thai translation and of course when I showed SeeSuda she shrieked in excitement and said “YES!” … awesome … a leeched tried to slither into my sneakers this morning … hopefully I will never experience that again! We then set off to journey down the mountain along with the other hundreds of people who slept at the top on Saturday night and I actually saw a traffic jam of people going down a mountain … something I never thought I’d experience hahaha and it was during this journey to the bottom that it became VERY clear why I saw people wearing shorts sweatshirts or winter coats at 5am … It. Was. Freakin. Hot! The pants and long sleeved shirt were sticking so badly to me that all I could think about was getting to the bottom so I could change into a tshirt and flip flops for the drive home. We eventually made it down, with no falling or sliding (thank god) and I was able to change into my tshirt and flip flops … I was also handed a cold beer which made this all even better! Hahaha we then headed to the car to make the gazillion hour drive home … I was eventually able to fall into my bed around 11:30 … then another full week of teaching started bright and early Monday morning!

It is unclear what Thai people refer to the last day of Sports Week as but from what I witnessed, I consider it to be nothing less than a finale event. This such event involved Kerry getting picked up at 6:40am (when it was actually quite chilly and the sun was on its way up) and driven to school, where we then walked over to the temple to meet everyone. I obviously had no idea what was in store for me until I arrived at the temple to find my P. 4-6 girl students dressed in what I would call a “dance costume” complete with fishnets and black boots … full hair (including fake hair pieces) and makeup completed the look. There were also students dressed in traditional Thai attire as well. As time went on, it became clear that all the schools had assembled a ‘drum line’ and baton twirlers to parade down the streets of Nong Hee and process into the school grounds … how entertaining!

Here is ChoomChonNongHee parading ---

WHAT A DAY! I went to NongHee for Sport Day, which we've been having all week ... having Sports week means we do no teaching a basically watch the students compete against other schools in various sports. It is quite entertaining since NongHee does fairly well in most sports haha ... but in any case I went to school and watched the boys play 'football' and then watched a game of 'beach volleyball' (literally on sand with two players on each team) ...


The boys football team ... aka my darling loves who I attempted to teach "yo, what's up?" to


And the star volleyball duo ... bpaay noi and chuue ... LOVE THEM

and then the student teachers asked me if I wanted to see the people of NongHee use their special fishing equipment, this one particular day of the year ... rough translation but I of course said sure! ... so we hop on motorbikes (yea I rode on the back of one for the first time! wooo!!!) and drove over to the river (same place we hard Loy Kratong) and sure enough they had created our of bamboo and net these fishing apparatuses ... according to the one student teacher this only happens on one day of the year.



AND THEN they asked if I wanted to see silk worms ... so I said yes! ... so they said ok first we "gin kaio" (eat rice aka eat lunch) so we hopped on the bikes and went back to school to eat and then hopped back on the bikes and rode to a nearby house to where a woman was legit old school spinning silk from the worms ... AWESOME ... I was shown the worms before cocoon, during cocoon, and after (aka while the silk spinning was taken place) ... then one of the student teachers starts scooping out the silkworms from the boiling water that are completely out of their cocoon and goes ... can eat ... uhhhh what? at that moment I get handed a silkworm peeled out of its outer membrane if you will and was instructed to just pop it into my mouth ... so I did. it was a little crispy on the outside and smooth on the inside ... not too bad hahaha I ate a few more and then it was apparently time for a fashion show with the hand woven silk this woman had crafted ...








just another typical day in NongHee

So I realized the other day that every meal I eat in Thailand contain in some way or another rice (khao), eggs (khai), and/or bananas (gluay). By no means am I complaining ... yet. hahaha While I like all of these things, having them so often can only lead to me becoming sick of them. It's funny that in the U.S. I would NEVER choose to eat rice over other carb options but since coming to Thailand and eating it with every meal I actually find myself craving rice if I haven't had it in a while (meaning like 1 meal). hahaha I love that I am taking cooking class with my students every Monday afternoon because then I am learning how to make many of the dishes that I have eaten and enjoyed.

Another things I learned this week was how to play "bay thong" ... at least that is how I am guessing you spell it ... its basically a version of bocce ball that I see my students playing ALL the time. I've been dying to try to play and finally I had a chance on Tuesday. I had just finished teaching P. 1 and P. 2 in the pavilion and was walking back to my classroom to return an eraser when I noticed some of my P. 5 boys playing right at the bottom of the stairs ... I stopped to asked them what it was called and then asked if Teacher Kerry could play, in as much of a Thai/English combo that I could muster that we understood one another. They said okay so I quick put my things down and went to go play. We made two teams of two and one of the boys threw a small stone, which we were to trow one of our 2 heavy metal balls at ... kinda like curling but with a ball. They showed me how to trow the ball and they would tell me when it was my turn. I wasn't really sure of the scoring until Ajan Sumet showed up and would translate the score after each set ... after each player throws their balls you switch sides and the small rock gets thrown again. I know you want to be the closes to the rock and its good to hit other people out of the way ... i got some cheers for that haha I'm still trying to learn exactly how to play but I'm sure that will come with time.

The third new thing I learned this week was how to make paper flowers. On Friday I was told I had to make a bulletin board about Father's Day because Sunday is the King's Birthday/Father's Day. I commissioned one of my P. 5 girls to make me a bunch of flowers since that is the preferred way to decorate a bulletin board in Thailand and then after school when I was hanging out with Earm and the students teachers they taught me how to make them.

To recap, Kerry loves rice, can play a game with her students, can fold banana leaves, cook Thai food, and make paper flowers ... the only thing left to do is work on my Asian squat and the transformation is complete!

Each class begins and ends with the students all standing with hands in wai position (pressed together chest level) and saying, “Good Morning Teacher”, “Good Afternoon Teacher”, or “Thank You Teacher” … but the accent in which they speak English makes this more adorable that it already is!

Here is a video of my Choom Chon Nong Hee Pratom 5/1 (5th grade, 1st group) class saying “Good Morning Teacher”



Here is a video of my Choom Chon Nong Hee Pratom 6 (6th grade, both classes together) class saying “Thank You Teacher” … at the end they are all laughing because I am doing some typical Thai picture poses.

So as per usual on Monday afternoon I went to cooking class, this week we made a dessert with pumpkin and coconut milk – delish! Then while we were cleaning up I heard marching band drums being played in the pavilion. I asked Earm if I could go watch to which we replied, of course! She asks me if I know how to baton twirl and I laugh and say no I do not but I can learn hahaha … so I walk over to the pavilion where my all my favorite 5th and 6th grade boys were being instructed by Ajan Sumet. They were all playing these shiny new drums and I was very content sitting and listening. I think Ajan Sumet was concerned I wanted to go home and that’s why I was there but I assured him that I just came over to watch. I’m watching for a few minutes and some 5th grade girls start convening outside the pavilion, some with giant silver batons with decorative tassels and string on them. Then Earm shows up. Then SOMEHOW I am in a baton marching and twirling lesson and everyone is cracking up and we are legit marching around the pavilion with batons to drums. You can’t make this shit up! Hahaha I later found out that they are practice for Sport Week which starts on Monday and that the drums were bought this year … maybe because of my arrival … who knows!

I also showed pictures of my family in class today since we are learning family vocab and I obviously pointed out that my father is tall, my mother is short, my brother and sister are tall and Kerry is short. While cooking Earm and I were talking about my family and she told me that I was “recessive” because I am short and that my father, brother, and sister are “dominant”. Hahahaha She also told me that her and Ajan Sumet thing everyone and everything in America is big and/or tall but Kerry is small … same same thai people. She said, “so I think Kerry a doll, took a ta (baby doll in Thai) because you small.” So for the first time since being in NongHee I was told I am small as opposed to being told I’m gonna be fat because I think everything is delicious! Hahahhaa what a great day!

So after a long week of teaching (lies) … someone needs to unwind a bit, right? Well for starters it was not a long week of teaching since I didn’t teach Wednesday and on Friday afternoon none of my students showed up because they were all at a ‘meeting’ (ie. They all sit in the pavilion with one of the teachers talking about god knows what). So what did Kerry do? Enjoyed her high speed internet in her classroom for 2 hours … duh. In any case I get home around 4pm and head to the big Friday night market with Michelle and two teachers from her school to get some produce for the week and the most delicious Thai version of a rotisserie chicken … its basically my new favorite thing! When we get back from the market I get a call from the one teacher at PhonTan reminding me that we were going out to dinner and ‘dancing’ … ok, I haven’t spent any time with these teachers outside of school yet, this will be nice. So they pick me up and on the way they ask me if “I can drink beer”, I reply that I can which prompts excited giggles and clapping, awesome. We get to dinner, drink beer, eat, and I’m thinking this is going to be a quick early night … well was I WRONG. After dinner I am told we are going to a pub … ok I can handle that and I’m thinking it’s a karaoke bar since they were talking about singing and Thai people love karaoke … wrong again. We show up at a place called the “New Dankanhung Pub” which has crazy flashing lights, a stage, and a few raised platforms with poles. Ok Thailand. The band starts playing which is just amusing since there are 4 singers that rotate through and one of them we can’t figure out if it’s a girl or ladyboy and the people start filling up. We are having a good time and all the sudden the band takes a break and everyone’s attention is suddenly on the 3 scantily clad pole dancers! Hahahaha later in the evening as I was leaving the bathroom one of the pole dancers was very insistent on talking with me and knowing my name, etc. so now we friends. Hahaha

Saturday was our WorldTeach potluck Thanksgiving dinner, which turned out to be extremely close to the real thing! We got a pre-cooked Turkey and people made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green beans, broccoli, salad, biscuits, pumpkin cookies, stewed apples, cole slaw, and fruit salad. Rambo came and instead of bringing a simple small ice bucket has an entire restaurant size cooler and 4 cases of Leo beer … woah Rambo. Spending time with the group was a good time as always.

Sunday is where the real fun begins. It starts with Michelle and I having to take a sawng-tao 30 minutes into Nakhon Phanom to then get on the one that goes the 50 minutes to our village. All well and good. We get back with time to rest and shower and eat because Ajan Sumet and Earm pick us up to learn how to ‘shoot guns’. WHAD-UPPPP … we drive to the shooting range and all the guns get unloaded. There was another farang there, from England, so we chatted with him for a bit. Then came the fun. First a short photo shoot with the group and separate and the shooting! I shot a 9mm, .45, and a 22 semi-automatic.





A quick gem from my man Ajan Sumet, "Thai people, they like (counting on his fingers) Arnold Schwarzenagger, we call him iron man ... Stalone ... sylvester ... rambo, and (long pause) Michael Jackson."

Over and out from "Teacher Army"

So, I find out on Monday afternoon that I don’t have school at PhonTan on Wednesday, so I make some plans to visit Michelle’s classroom and think of all the things I could do with a day off … obviously. But then on Tuesday I get invited by PhonTan to go to an academic competition at an elementary school (Aunuban Nakhon Phanom) in the city of Nakhon Phanom on Wednesday since I don’t have to teach. When deciding between sitting at home trying to find things to do or go on an adventure with my students … what do I choose? The adventure of course! I get picked up by Earm and Ajan Sumet at 6:50 and head to school to meet some other students and teachers … Earm and Ajan Sumet were going to a different school in Nakhon Phanom so I went with some other teachers who speak less English to the school where the English “Spelling Bee” was held. The students all piled into the back of the pick-up, teachers in front and we headed on our way! I obviously understood little of what was being said but from what I can gather a lot of schools in the area compete in many subjects and skills. It goes on for two days. There is English spelling, math, science, Thai dance, aerobics, cooking, drawing, story telling, karaoke, and I’m sure many others. We arrive at the school and head to the schedule to figure out where everyone in our car goes. I go with the “English” teacher and the student competing in the category. As we are in the “parking lot” I hear “kru Kerry” (which is just teacher Kerry) and I look over to see all these students waving at me … which I didn’t even recognize as my own until they got closer and I realized they were in fact my students and were dressed in aerobics attire with heavy dance recital make-up and all … even the boys. No joke. So clearly I need a picture of this! We then make our way to the classroom where the “Spelling Bee” is to take place to realize it is basically just a spelling test so then I was shuffled by to see the cooking and eventually to aerobics. THANK THE LORD AND ALL THINGS GOOD I WAS ABLE TO WITNESS THIS! The aerobics competition is where all schools get a team of students together, teach an aerobics routine (sometimes including hula hoops), dress in aerobics attire (sometimes including sweatbands, headbands, skirts, and leggings), and performing a choreographed aerobics routine (sometimes to Thai music, sometimes American). It was everything in entertainment I could have asked for an more. And to make it even better there is no differentiation between the sexes … the boys wear makeup and leggings with skirts over them … its amazing. I was thoroughly entertained with this for a long time … then was escorted over to the “science fair” where we just met a bunch of people, they asked to take their picture with me, and we moved on to cooking. By this time the dishes were complete and the display was up. I was then asked if I wanted to take the food … pad thai and some pumpkin dish … but of course I do! So we went to taste the food, which then turned into a HUGE lunch … Kerry being told again that after one year in NongHee she is going to be fat … the usual. Hahahaha By this time the competition is wrapping up for our school and it is announced that our car is going to Tesco Lotus! Heaaaaallll yes!!!! I needed to go there! We all pile in, go to Tesco, do a little shopping, where I got the most amazing Thai treat. It’s called a Choki Choki and is basically a plastic tube the size of a straw filled with nutella. Seriously. You just suck the melted chocolate right out of the plastic. Someone’s be reading my diaryyyy. AND its only 10baht for a pack of 5. What whattt?!

After Tesco, we head back to NongHee and I get dropped off at home. I take a little nap since the ride nearly put me to sleep and decide to go for my run. I’m crusin along the main road when I see two of my students (Khem P.5 and Min P.3) on the other side of the road. I wave as usual and continue on my way. I turn off the main road back towards my house, see the girls continue down the main road… am deciding I can probably do another loop when I realize there are bicycles behind me … so I turn and its Khem and Min … ok they turned down this road too … So I take off my headphones and ask where they are going (in Thai) … they point at me … okay so you’re coming with me … I motion them to follow and I keep going! A little ways down the road I realize this is gonna be really rough on me if I try to run/walk another lap with them on their bikes and we’re kinda close to my house so I ask if they want me to get my back (though a lot of motioning) which gets me excited smiles and nods … so we head back to my house, I get my bike, and immediately feel like a Thai version of Now and Then. YES. We ride the loop a couple times and then I head home.

One major “up” this week is that my students are becoming a lot less shy and a lot more fun to hang out with! Woo!!!

Friday after school Earn and Ajan Sumet drove Michelle and I to Nakhon Phanom to meet up with the rest of the WorldTeach Volunteers for our insane trip to Surin to go to the Elephant Round Up. They first took us to dinner at the restaurant that was built by the man who owns it and is legit a maze of bamboo high off the ground on the banks of the Mekong River. There are all these little raised rooms of the main path that either have regular table and chairs or the short tables where you sit on the floor. We sat at a regular table. Our dinner was phenomenal as always and I even learned to cook one of the dishes on Monday during cooking class. We then met up with the rest of the bunch and explored the festival that happen to be going on in town and watched a little bit of professional Ta-kaw, which is a sport played in Thailand that is a mix between volleyball and soccer. It is played with 3 people on each team on either side of a volleyball net. The ball they use is small and woven, either from wood or plastic. The team kick the ball over the net and can only keep the ball on their side a certain about of kicks. The high kicks and backwards jumping kicks that happen during this game are ISANE. Our vans then left for Surin around midnight. We arrived in Surin around 6am and freshened up to head over to the Elephant Round Up, which started at 8:30. It initially seemed very odd that a show be from 8:30-11:30 am but then I remembered it is actually fairly cool and daylight hours at this time, so then I thought it was very genius. Hahaha The elephants did all kinds of crazy tricks and had mock battles with epic music playing representing the history of Surin. It almost felt as if we were on the set of an elephant version of 300. They even played a game of soccer … or rather football. It was quite amusing! There was a coupon attached to our tickets and the Thai woman we were with, Daew (who is one of the volunteer’s host mom and is the craziest person EVER) insisted that we use them so I got a Tshirt that has 3 pink elephants sitting on a heart shaped green earth with little pink and green hearts all around it and it says, “Elephants love the earth. Please love our earth. Surin Elephants Round Up 2010 Thailand” … it’s also a white v-neck. What whaaaaat! Basically all the souvenir shirts they sell in Thailand are v-necks which is AMAZINGGG. So then for the rest of the day we explored Surin, took a little nap, went to the night market and hit the nightlife. When we were at the night market we ran into a bunch of other volunteers with a different program. They then ended up at the same bar we were at so it was really nice to mingle with a bunch of other Americans doing the same thing as us. Our program is so much more legit though since they all only work at 3 schools, have dinner together every night and are here for only 5 months. There of course was a guy in the group from Philly so initially I got really excited and was like oh where are you from and he goes, “Center City” and my response was clearly, “ohhhh like you’re actually FROM philly … I’m not. Hahaha” He found that quite amusing and refreshing that I actually admitted to being from the burbs. So then we got on the convo of where we went to school and when I said University of Hartford his reply was, “oh do you know Joe Zeglinski?” … all I could do was laugh. This is a disgustingly small world we live in. The rest of the night we had an awesome dance party on the porch of this bar to the American music they played for us … what a blast. The next morning we left at 6am, which was painful but do-able … until we were about an hour from Nakhon Phanom and our van broke down. Legit. It started to get really stuffy in the back where I was sitting and so we asked for the air conditioning to be turned back on and it was for a little but then it just suddenly turned off … and then we noticed that a lot of people were passing us … and then we saw smoke … and then we smelled oil … and then we realized that we were only in first gear and the clutch was broken … awesome. So we convinced them to pull over and then Daew goes, “ok get out to push the van to the side of the road.” So we did. And then we sat on the side of the road, exhausted and hot, waiting for the other van to come back for us, a bus to drive by for us to flag down, or the driver’s sister to come pick us up. The sister got there first in a pickup truck, so half of us jumped in the back, the rest of us in the cab and we were off to Nakhon Phanom!

Once we were back in the city of Nakhon Phanom Michelle and I got on our Sawng-Tao and headed back to Nong Hee. At 6pm Earm and Ajan Sumet picked us up for Loy Kratong, which is a festival where Buddhists make a “kratong” (which is a float made out of banana leaves with a candle sticking out of it), light the candle on it, and set it afloat in a river or pond for forgiveness and pardon. You also pray for health and happiness after you have asked for forgiveness. You can also light a ‘kohm’ which is a tissue paper lantern with thin wire in a circle at the bottom and in the middle a small circle that gets lit on fire; when the hot air fills the ‘kohm’ it floats up into the sky. Seeing about a hundred of both the lit kratongs in the water and kohms in the sky when it is literally pitch black around you is just breathtaking. We first went to the celebration in NongHee, which was adorable and I saw students at it and then we drove to That Phanom which is about 20km away to go to dinner and see a bigger Loy Kratong festival where there were HUGE and ornate Kratongs, made by the villages in the area. To say the least I was exhausted and even though I very much enjoy the festivals I was ready to go home and sleep so I could begin another week of teaching.

Monday brought two great victories in my life: realizing the wireless internet works extremely fast on my laptop in my NongHee classroom and getting NongHee to split the 3^rd grade class so I only have 20 at a time once a week. A WOO WOO!!! And to make things even better this is the second week in a row I have not had to teach p. 1 and 2 due to random activities. And tomorrow I don’t have to teach at PhonTan because they are going to a competition in Nakhon Phanom so then NongHee invited me to go with them to see the English spelling part of the competition … this should be interesting. Hahahaha

I <3>

One of my 6^th grade student’s notebooks says is very artsy font “Wondering what you have been doing lately” … he has no idea what it says or means!

A group of my 6^th grade boys at Nong Hee are your typical “Big man on campus” and “SO cool” … yet half of them have moved to my front row/hover in my doorway when they are not in class … and the girls sit in the back of the room (VERY odd for Thailand, especially in 6^th grade) … I am OBSESSED with them!

The two 3^rd grade groupies I have acquired. They carry their baby dolls and purses while hovering in my doorway or closely following behind me. LOVE THEM.

The fact that two 3^rd grade girls brought their baby dolls to class and somehow configured a bassinet out of their zipper front sweatshirt jackets … unfortunately the babies had to be moved to the front of the classroom while we were learning.

That my students repeat literally everything I say! … even when I have moved on to explaining something they try to repeat after me, which ends up being a hilarious jumble of sounds! Hahaha

I saw a student wearing a “Pizza Hut” t-shirt after school one day and one student was wearing a bedazzled “Angel” long sleeved shirt in class … to make it even funnier it was also a boy wearing it! There was also a boy wearing a dalmation patterned fur trapeze style jacket one day … bless his heart. Hahaha

BOY SCOUT DAY … each day of the week there is a specific uniform that is worn … the regular button down and shorts, sports day which is track pants and a sporty material polo and then there is boy scout day in which all students wear the most adorable boy scout uniform including high socks and caps. The girl version is similar but with a skirt … it makes my students look ten times cuter.

How excited my students get to come to the front of the room and participate because they get a sticker … stickers are gold here and I will use it to my advantage.

The way my students greet me at the beginning of class and thank me at the end. They all stand and say “Gooooood Mooorn-Ing TeeeeaacchER” and “Thaaank you TeeeeaaachER” … I will try to get a video to post because it is priceless.

The married couple Earm and Ajan Sumet who drive me to and from ChoomChon Nong Hee/ take care of me. They are HILARIOUS. I believe they are in their 40s or 50s and both drive huge old boxy Land Rovers and have multiple guns they like to shoot and have 6 dogs that just roam around Nong Hee. Apparently they are going to teach me to “Shoot a gun”.

The “American” music that gets played for me; including but not limited to Avril Lavigne, Shakira “Underneath It All, Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, and some very old country songs I don’t even know what they are. Love it.

Then this weekend I went to my friend Gen's house, which is about 15Km away. A bunch of volunteers went for the night and we made spaghetti, breaded chicken, and broccoli. It was nice to eat American food but in all honesty I wanted to put chili flakes on it! I am getting very used to eating spicy food and the tomato sauce actually tasted sweet hahaha Then on Sunday morning we all went to yet another string tying ceremony. This time it was at my friend Heather's house. We made American breakfast (french toast and pancakes) but then we were told by Gen's host mother that we were bringing breakfast to Heathers, so we did and it was obviously cold by the time we got there and then we couldn't even eat until after the ceremony! But of course this wasn't just a ceremony, it was a full on party with tons of food plus what we brought, plus the leftover spaghetti ... seriously. And people were drinking ... at 10am on a Sunday. no joke. During the ceremony they give you hard boiled eggs to eat afterwards for a long life ... that is all well and good until you have 3 eggs in your hand (which happened to me at the ceremony at Michelle's school's) and then another 2 today ... apparently I am living forever! hahahaa no complaints there!

Now that the first week of teaching is under my belt I feel a lot more comfortable in my surroundings and am noticing a lot more little funny nuances of life in Thailand. The language barrier creates quite interesting conversation and the Thai views on life and me being a Westerner are also quite amusing. I am apparently very loved at the “talaat” (fresh market) in Nong Hee … according to one of the teachers at my school who drives me they want to see me everyday and think I am “suay” (beautiful). They also refer to me as their daughter. Hahaha As we were walking down one of the aisle yesterday he told me it was a catwalk and that I had to be a supermodel hahaha … my life here is ridiculous!

Teaching 50 first graders with a microphone in a pavilion looking out over a pond is also not so outlandish anymore and I actually quite enjoy it. Also seeing students using sharp objects to cut food or shave wood unsupervised doesn’t shock me as much. hahaha

There are also English quotes and phrases on almost everything and the grammar is always so unbelievably wrong that it is precious. Every notebook says something on it in English as opposed to Thai … haven’t figured that one out yet. One of my favorites is “Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary” … I will collect more and send them your way since every time I read one it makes me smile.

I now fully appreciate a hot shower more than ever. A hot water heater was installed in my house and let me tell you … it is a blessing from God! During the hot season I probably won’t even go near it but for right now … it is glorious!

So my first week of teaching has concluded and I have survived with flying colors. The week was filled with up and downs, mostly ups (thank god!) and now I will try to concisely describe the chaos that is my amazing life teaching here. I teach at two schools, Choom Chon Nong Hee and Phon Tan. Choom Chon Nong Hee is where I am at on Monday, Tuesday and Friday and there are about 300 students there. Phon Ton is where I teach on Tuesday and Wednesday and is significantly smaller with only about 55 students. At Nong Hee I teach P. 3-6 (which is the same as American 3^rd-6^th grades) twice a week for an hour at a time and P.1 and P.2 once a week. This all sounds well and good until you realize how many students that actually is! The P. 6 is combined and is about 30 students, there are two P.5 classes each with about 26 students, and there are two P. 4 classes each with about 21 students. I love these classes. Then since the school wants all of their students to be exposed to a native English speaker I have all of the 3^rd graders at once, which is about 40 students. Not ideal but definitely doable and I understand why it is this way so for that one hour I just need to be especially on top of my game. BUT THEN I realize that they are also giving me every P. 1 student at once and same with P. 2, which equals 50 at one time. WOAH. On Tuesday afternoon I was escorted to this pavilion that sits on the edge of a pond where there are 50 P. 2 students sitting cross-legged in neat rows staring at me. I am handed a microphone and told to teach them. O. K. WHAAAT?!?!?! Hahahah Luckily I am good at teaching on a whim because that was the hardest hour of my life and then I had to turn around a do it all again with P. 1. And if these students were the most adorable creatures to walk the earth and they had more opportunities in life I might complain or say no, but under the circumstances I am more than happy to sing songs and play games with these adorable children once a week! Also, at Nong Hee I was apparently signed up for cooking class and dance class … alrighttt! So on Mondays when I finish at 2pm I go to cooking class with the students, which consists of a recipe being described, students taking notes and then students using butcher knives unsupervised. YES Thailand! I am not exaggerating when I say that these were butcher knives or that the students were unsupervised. The students were literally behind a building washing and peeling papayas with these huge knives with the teacher around front. AND NO ONE GOT HURT. And I guarantee there were no lawsuits involved. Hahhaha Then at 3pm everyday there is dance class that I go to which consists of me and about 8 students learning traditional Thai dance … MAN THESE PEOPLE KNOW HOW TO MAKE ME HAPPY! On Wednesday and Thursday I went to Phon Tan, which is so small and so cute, and I teach Kindergarten, P. 1-3 and P. 4-6. So when I go there I teach, have a break, teach, eat lunch, teach and go home around 2pm. It’s awesome!

The language barrier is proving to be fun and hilarious and exhausting all at the same time. On Sunday before we could begin teaching Monday is was imperative that we offer flowers and pray to the 2 Buddha statues and campus to ask for safety and happiness. We also has to pray and offer flowers to the “spirit house” that is on the edge of the teacher housing to ask for protection from spirits while we are living in Nong Hee. The Thais are very concerned with spirits and have these decorative little houses on pedestals outside residences to protect the house from spirits. Very cool. So now everyone has seen my house and knows that there is no chance of a ghost attacking me. Hahaha Another weird thing about Thailand is that it get dark at like 6pm and everyone is very concerned with our safety so we’re basically not allowed out after dark. This means that I need to plan my day around what needs to get done during daylight hours in the 2 hours after I get home from school. Hahaha This first week of teaching was a little difficult party due to that and partly due to the fact that dinner came from somewhere random each night and that there was a lot of prep work to be done for each class, especially since I was making nametags for all my students. Classic overachieving attitude of mine. But my classroom will look SICK because of it AND hopefully I will learn these adorable students’ names. (and of course they always DIE laughing when I try to say them) There is a lot of laughing going on in my classroom, sometimes because I am trying to speak Thai and other times because when Thai children are nervous/shy/uncomfortable they giggle … and this happens A LOT with a farang (Thai word for white foreigner) teacher they just met!

I have been told so far by co-workers that I am “happy, happy, happy, smile, smile, smile” “quick to learn” and “funny” when I am teaching, which has also been described as “acting” hahahahaha

On Wednesday we had our last day of practicum, which meant games and pictures and good old fun! When we got to school we were greeted by students bearing little flower bouquets, which consisted of flowers being stuffed into the center of a bigger flower, just picked of course! They were so adorable! We then played games and took lots of awesome pictures! I was really getting attached to these kids which was sad to have to say goodbye to them but made me even more excited to meet my students! Wednesday night Pla Pak Wittaya (the school we’ve been staying at) held a “Thank you” party for us at an awesome little outdoor restaurant near the school tucked away from the road. There was awesome food, drinks, dancing and of course karaoke! Rambo greeted us as we got out of the car with a laminated 5x7 picture of the Rambo movie cover that has all of his contact information on it and at the bottom reads “Volunteer Teacher Thailand 2010-2011”. It is my most favorite thing I have received since being in Thailand and it is most definitely getting framed when I return to America. Hahaha During dinner I ate my first bug … as in on purpose! I have the whole thing documented … cricket in hand, cricket in mouth, cricket swallowed Kerry smiling. Hahaha it was very salty and kinda tasted like a potato chip … yea I said it! And despite my terrible voice I am forced into singing karaoke so this time my friend Kaitlin and I sang “Barbie Girl” and some chumbawumba … trying to figure out which American songs are available is always a treat since you have to just think of one off the top of your head and type it into the computer. In any case I will be a karaoke queen when I get home! So the party ended and we continued the party back at the school with Rambo (obviously) and another teacher at Pla Pak Wittaya whose name is Thon (he’s 24 and actually spent a few months working at a burger place in Florida recently so he knows enough English to hold on a conversation). Kaitlin and I were on a high from listening to music at the party to we sat around our computers having a mini sing and dance party with Thon which ended up being hilarious! My favorite line from the night was Thon telling me that when he was in American he worked at the grill and did not practice his English much, he said he only knew “meat” “double meat” and “pickles” hahaha to which I replied “I love pickles” and he started hysterically laughing. He knew a lot of American music so we had a good time picking out songs to listen to.

Then on Thursday everyone got picked up from orientation by someone from their school, summer camp style, as in all of our belongings were packed up by our beds in the big room we’ve been sleeping in and one by one our rides arrived and many hugs were given and tears shed. Hilarious. My roommate Michelle and I got picked up by one of the teachers from Choom Chon Nong Hee along with her daughter, nephew and nephew’s friend. Her daughter Tee-da is an English teacher at another elementary school and is 25 with a 1 year old son. Her nephew’s name is Fam and he is same same 22 like me and goes to school in Bangkok for Information Technology. They both speak enough English for us to communicate and laugh when I try to speak the little Thai I know. I asked if they like American music to which I found they do and then Fam played a Westlife cd (which I believe is an Irish boyband). Too funny! We also had to take the mattress I’ve been sleeping on all of orientation with us which was so funny because most people were just sleeping on mats that either fold or roll up and I had an actual mattress. Luckily the boys came along and they loaded and unloaded the pickup truck seamlessly. Once we got to the house we brought everything inside and decided that Michelle and I would go to Tee-da’s house for dinner. We got picked up around 6 and were met at the house by my paaw-aw who is her uncle, the teacher I will work with who is her mother and a slew of other family members including Tee-da’s husband and adorable baby boy! We ate dinner Isan style which meant sitting on mats on the ground around a hot plate with a pot of boiling water that was filling with vegetables and herbs. We used these neat little basket-like scoopers to cook meats and noodles. There were delicious spicy sauces and we could just use our chopsticks to pick out vegetables from the pot to eat. What a fun way to eat with your family! It gets so dark here so early and so quickly that it was already pitch black when we got picked up and when we got home it was around 8 o’clock and felt like 10! Fam and Tee-da invited us to go to Mukdahan with them on Friday so at 8am they picked us up and we set out on quite the adventure. All they communicated to us was that we were going to Indochina Market in Mukdahan (which is one of the cities that has a “friendship bridge” with Laos. So Michelle and I are thinking we can get a lot of errands done today and whatnot … well were we wrong or what! Hahaha I complete and awesome Thai style this day turns quickly into a sightseeing photo shoot extravaganza! To the extent that I was actually told to be like a supermodel. Seriously. If anyone every made the comment that Asian people like to take a lot of pictures … You. Have. No. Idea. Its like the paparazzi was following me around today … and I’m not complaining its just funny. Tee-da was trying to teach me Thai all day which was hilarious since I can repeat after her but then forget what she told me 5 minutes later. Also, during the car ride there was another game of do you know this American song which resulted in the entire car belting “My Heart Will Go On” … yea Celine Dion! But I digress, the first stop of the day was Wat Phra Tat Renu Nakhon (a temple in Renu Nakhon, which is in Nakhon Phanom Province, close to where I lived), then it was off to the friendship bridge even though we couldn’t actually cross into Laos, but then in order to get a picture we were directed to a lookout point which took forever to find because the signs were misleading but then we finally found it and of course it was windy so then we all imitated the epic “king of the world” scene from Titanic … some things don’t change no matter where you are in the world! We finally got our pictures and headed to Phu Pha Thoep National Park right outside of Mukdahan. There are incredible rock formations there with wild flowers growing all over. This is where the true photo shoot happened climbing rocks and posing it funny ways. The art of a sightseeing picture discriminate no race or ethnicity. No matter what language you speak the urge to take a picture pretending to push over big rocks or climb to high places does not change. Hahaha We also rented umbrellas to shade us from the sun which was hilarious to me and of course it was super windy so I felt like Mary Poppins the whole time! At the entrance to the park there are vendors selling really inexpensive handmade baskets made of plastic strands, so I bought 2. Hahaha I got one small one what will probably come home with me and another larger one about the size of a small trashcan to use in my room which has very little in it. After lunch we went to a lookout tower/museum. You had to take your shoes off to go inside, which is so funny to an American and yet so refreshing. Then after the lookout tower we FINALLY went to the Indochina market. I got a sarong that is BEAUTIFUL and an elephant bangle and best of all a tshirt that had a giant fish made of patterned fabric sewn on to it. Even Michelle knew it was trouble that I had seen it because of the colors on the fabric design. It even has little bubbles coming out of its mouth! SOOO precious!

On Saturday Michelle and I took the sawng tao from our school for the first time into Nakhon Phanom for an extensive shopping trip since we realized all of the things we needed after moving in! It was a successful first trip into the city from our new home. THANK GOODNESS! You see taking the sawng tao from Pla Pak was the end of the journey so you got on and off at the station ... from our school we must stand at a stop on the main road, flag down the correct sawng tao and then manage to take the correct route home and press a button when we are nearing our stop to signal the driver that we want to get off! The sawng taos are all similar colors and stop on the same street in Nakhon Phanom, the only differences are the writing stamped on the side, which is of course in Thai. So we had a Thai teacher write what we needed to know in Thai and brought it with us. what an adventure! hahaha ... I'll be a pro in no time!

School started on Monday, I will write another post describing that so far at another time. And of course I will upload pictures and hopefully a video tour of my house soon! Reliable internet is on my fingertips!

oh and I totally forgot to mention I saw my first elephant in Thailand on Saturday!!!! It was sooo cute!!! I bought some sugar cane to feed it and petted it and I love it!!! yay!!!!

This weekend in Nakhon Phanom it was the fireboat festival, which meant a lot of crazyness and fun! Let me start from the beginning. Friday night after dinner Jess (our field director) showed us a Thai movie, whose English translated title is Mekong Full Moon Party … odd yes but a very good movie! I highly suggest it to anyone who wants to see a portrayal of the culture I am living in this year. But I digress … The movie is about a myth in Thailand about fireballs that shoot out of the Mekong … some parts true some exaggerated … but in any case the festival this weekend was for the full moon in October. These huge boats were built and soda cans were filled with gas and attached to the structures to create ornate pictures that light up and float down the Mekong River … They. Are. Beautiful! … so Friday night we watched this movie and then Saturday morning we left Pla Pak at 7:30 to go to That Phanom Wat (the temple in That Phanom) to watch traditional dancers from High Schools in Nakhon Phanom Province. We legit piled in cars and trucks (yes there were people in the truck bed) with bedding and a change of clothes for each of us. The dancers were gorgeous and the temple is AMAZING. It was really hot so that was kind of a bummer since we were dressed up but whatever. It’s hot here all the time. And there were people in sweaters and sweatshirts! Thais are crazy! But in any case we stayed there till 11:30, then we went to lunch with Rambo (the police man who “is like the moon” because he patrols around us) and the director of Pla Pak Wittaya (the school we have been living with) at a restaurant legit on the Mekong River, where they insisted on getting us all ice cream but apparently we love ice cream! But who wants to pass that up?! It was deliciousss! From there we traveled into Nakhon Phanom City where we dropped off our stuff at on the volunteer’s housing assignment for the year. (Her roommate is a gem and invited all of us to sleep at her house for the fireboat festival) She then dragged us to the parade sweaty and exhausted hahaha … the parade was of these temples made of wax from each of the villages. They were awesome … people were walking along the floats spraying the wax with water so it wouldn’t melt. There were also some dancers and bands … sometimes just speakers in the back of a pickup truck with old guys dancing … hilarrrious!!! Then we walked around through some of the stands and went back to the house to freshen up for the night. We went to dinner as a group at a place called Good Morning Vietnam …. It was delicious! We got make your own fresh spring rolls with chicken, star fruit, garlic, chilies, this delectable peanut sauce, and these dry banana things. We also got this awesome spicy noodle salad and lots of other spring rolls and some fried egg with rice. Yummy! Then we watched the fireboats which was an experience in and of itself … it was just like being in a crowd watching 4^th of July fireworks only it was all Asians in the crowd. There were fireworks with the full moon right above them reflecting off the Mekong. There are no words to describe how cool it was. While stuck in a crowd at one point this little girl bumped into me so I looked down and smiled, which cause her to gasp because I am a white person and she then loud whispered to her family “farang” (meaning white foreigner) so then I was cracking up … it was special. And everyone here calls you beautiful because you are white and they think white people are gorgeous … so my self esteem is really going up here. One especially memorable encounter happened yesterday during the parade when a woman came up to me and said “Welcome to Thailand” (in English) and then she said “You are a very beautiful someone” … yesss!!!! Hahaha! After fireboats we all went out for some drinks and get a feel for the nightlife in Nakhon Phanom City. We went to the previous volunteers’ favorite spot, a place called Duck Pub. Rambo greeted us with reserved tables and whiskey as soon as we walked in. hahaha! We danced and drank all night! It was so nice to get to go out with everyone and let loose! We even found out that Rambos brother owns the bar … they’re a connected family ha ha! On Sunday we woke up and went to Meringue, a favorite hang out spot in NKP that has real bread and coffee , which are hard to come by around here. Then we piled in some trucks and headed to the former District Directors house (a man named Mr. Narong) for lunch. He did all of the beginning paperwork to get WorldTeach in Nakhon Phanom. His house is so nice and the food was delicious and he gave us all his number so we could call him and go to his house this year. He is a very sweet old retired man! We were Thai dancing with a bunch of women at the house as well … so fun! I am currently EXHAUSTED from a crazy fun weekend and gearing up for the last few days of practicum and the move into my house at the end of the week!

Today was my first day of practicum (student teaching)! A few days ago we were split into groups of three to plan lessons and work ideas out with one another. During practicum we will be in the classroom together, to observe one another and help out! We teach for 2 hours a day for 6 days. Therefore each day 2 of the people teach and the other just observes. Of course my group decided that I would be the first person to teach … thanks guys! Haha I got over it quickly and was mostly just excited until … we showed up at the school this morning and there was not a soul in sight! Whhhaaaattt???? We immediately called our field director, who obviously freaked a little, called the Thai school director we work with and found out everyone thought it started tomorrow … awesome Thailand. But in the spirit of being in Thailand we all yelled “mai pen rai” and decided to go with the flow! The school was able to round up some kids and the 2 groups of teachers melded our lessons together and taught the random group of 20 … IT. WAS. SO. MUCH. FUN. I can’t even explain how fun it is to teach these little Thai children English! The experience I had this morning completely sealed the deal for me on what I am doing here, why I’m doing it and how much fun this is! We hear time and time again from Thai people who come to speak to us how happy they are that we are in their country and willing to help the children of Thailand. And while its nice of them to say these things to us, it means nothing until we are in the classroom working with the eager young minds, dressed in dirty American super hero pajamas. Seriously … the amount of misspelled American clothing is out of control! You see a lot of Mickey and Minnie mouse, hello kitty (obvs), Spiderman, and I even saw Stewie from Family Guy. My most favorite shit I’ve seen on a child so far is one that has a train on it and says “Reading Phillies” with a number on the back and underneath the number it said “sexy girl” … random! I would have taken a picture but we were at a restaurant and the little kid was playing and I didn’t want to be that awkward white person taking a picture of some random child! Haha but I digress … I LOVE teaching here and can’t wait till I’m at my own schools!

Since orientation is soon ending (my practicum starts on Wednesday) I decided to reflect on all of the things I have learned or noticed since being in Thailand … here are the 10 that stick out in my mind the most!

1. all bathrooms are wet … everywhere … hence the literal translation of “haawng naam” meaning “room wet”
2. bugs are your friends … there are daddy long leg spiders, mosquitoes, flies, fruit flies and things I don’t know what they are EVERYWHERE; geckos are clear and crawl on the walls
3. Colors have corresponding days of the week and people wear that color on that day …
4. you eat rice as a side dish for every meal … unless of course you’re eating noodles
5. Thais do not walk anywhere … so we get even more looks as if we weren’t getting enough for being “fa-rangs” (white foreigners)
6. Powder is the bee’s knees … baby powder, “sweetie pink” (for an oily/sweaty face), and most of all cooling powder (moistures activates it to tingle … for when you’re sweaty, which is all the time unless you’re in the cool season which we are entering now … THANK GOD)
7. Diet coke is nowhere to be found … Coke light can be purchased at Tesco Lotus and Coke Zero is a close second but is also quite difficult to find.
8. The internet has a mind of its own … sometimes it even chooses which computers it wants to work for
9. Although I am in a low income area everyone still looks “riproy” meaning neat, tidy, polite. All Thai people take appearances very seriously, this means you’re hair needs to be tidy and combed (difficult for me! LOL), you’re clothes must be pressed and stainless, and your shoes neat. You also take your shoes off to enter every room because you’re feet are considered dirty … and here they really are!
10. Lastly, nicknames are the way to go! EVERYONE goes by a nickname. I do not have one yet, but hopefully when I move into my house and start teaching I will get one! … my favorite so far is Rambo (the police man whose sole job is to protect us … even though we don’t really need it … bless his heart!)

Today we had a picture scavenger hunt in Nakhon Phanom City. It. Was. So. Much. Fun. We basically pretended like we were on an episode of the Amazing Race, briskly walking around the city, taking pictures and trying to be the first one done to call our Field Director and meet her wherever she happened to be in the city. My group dynamic was SO fun and it had just rained so we all kept sliding in our sandals and cutting it way too close to falling many times! Hahaha It really helped us get a sense of the city and I can find everywhere I would need to go now! After we finished the scavenger hunt we did some shopping and I bought another skirt for teaching seeing as they are very much into clothes and appearance here and I did not pack enough riproy (Thai phrase used to mean clean, put together, and fresh) clothing for teaching. The two skirts I have bought can be worn also as a dress so I’ll hopefully get more use out of them when I’m back in the states. We took a sawng tao back to Pla Pak in the afternoon and then stopped at the fresh market that is in town every night to get some dinner. I got a feast for 25 Baht which is less then 1 US dollar! My dinner included meat on a stick (2 pork, 1 chicken), fried rice, and fried bananas (my new favorite thing!). The food here is SO good, I don’t know how I’m not going to gain weight! Hahaha

Monday and Tuesday were fairly mundane days in terms of how things have been going around here since my arrival … a lot of class, actually getting out early, and adventures in night markets. We had our first Thai dance lesson which was SO much fun!!! I was clearly the star student in that class and totally in my element … I gotta get myself some Thai music so I can practice! Hahaha The night markets also have brought me a lot of joy; trying new foods and such. I’ve had Chai yen which is Thai Iced Tea, meat on a stick, an assortment of fried items, some sweet some savory, and the closest thing I’ll get to a rice crispy treat/ rice cake this year. Hahaha I also tried cooling powder which I believe with be my saving grace this year in terms of battling the heat. It is beyond me why I would decide to go somewhere so freakin hot and were not even in the hot season yet!

Friday was a fairly quiet day … we had a lot of class but actually got out before dinner for the first time! A bunch of girls walked to the little store near by to get some school supplies and then we ventured to the night market where I tried bubble tea for the first time … not a fan of the little gummy treats floating around. Glad I tried it though. Then later that night we got all the projector equipment out of the classroom we use for learning and brought it down to the boy’s room and had a little movie party. Hahaha

Saturday we literally had an entire day of class. It was LONG. But as a group we decided that instead of going to lunch places all together (since it took too long and we seemed to scare the locals) we would pick numbers and go in smaller groups. My group ended up being really fun! It was all girls so we finally had a chance to have some good girl talk! Ha ha! The unpredictable internet has really gotten to me and I am debating getting an aircard which would work like a cell phone plan and give me internet anywhere for a certain amount of time depending on what I pay. I think I am just going to wait and see what the internet is like at my school and house and then decide.

Sunday was REALLY fun and also quite exhausting. Who knew it would be SO HOT here?! The day involved going into Nakhon Phanom city and getting a general tour of the place, doing some shopping, and doing a cultural observation. I went to a fresh market which is similar to Rices (for those Bux Mont people!) except that it is covered and the sensory overload goes from floor to ceiling (and there are actual dead animals just sitting on tables waiting to be purchased haha), an Indo China Market which is similar to the fresh market but indoors and is mostly clothes and electronics (it’s where we got our cell phones), a Buddhist Temple (I even went inside!) and walked along the Mekong River! Literally across the river is Laos. There is a mountain range in Laos that you can see from NKP that is absolutely gorgeous! On the way into the city and on the way home we rode Sawng Taos (meaning two benches) that are literally pickup trucks with two benches in the back. It was so wild and yet so normal. Of course since our group is so big and there was obviously Thai people on the Sawng Taos too that there was also a bench in the middle and the boys were hanging off the back! Too funny! While at the Indo China market I learned a little about bartering and even bartered for a mug all by myself!!! SO proud! It has two elephants on it … one mama and one baby … and the baby is tugging on the mama’s tail! We also went to Tesco Lotus which is as close to a Target as I will get to in a long time! Hahaha They actually had Coke light which isn’t quite diet coke but a good substitute … so I got meself a little treat since it was VERY hot and we had quite a walk back to the Sawng Tao. There was also a Dairy Queen inside the Tesco and a “Mister Donut” … odd. All in all it was a really great day of experiences! : )

After traveling for literally 45 I FINALLY made it to my orientation site at Pla Plak Wittaya (which is the high school in Pla Pak). At the Bangkok Airport I was greated by intense heat and an air conditioned van … which only helped some because at that point I had been traveling for 36 hours. But in any case I made it … we got to Pla Pak to find that our accommodations were really quite nice … a mat on the floor of an air conditioned room (one for boys and one for girls), 4 bathrooms in which toilet paper was actually being supplied for us (something that doesn’t happen in Thailand), and at least 1 western toilet (the rest are squatters, and all are manual flush, ie. Take a bucket of water to rinse away your pee). It may sound a little out of some peoples comfort zones and maybe even out of mine but I have adapted well and live by the thinking that if people here live like this why can’t I?

Sunday was a very relaxed day of getting used to being here, the weather has been rainy, cool and humid all at the same time but is actually a very nice way to be adjusted to Isan because it usually is quite brutally hot. Everyone in my group seems really great and we have a VERY funny dynamic which is making this a lot easier and a lot more fun than it could be. There are 13 of us, which right now seems like a great number!

Monday was the LONGEST day EVERRR! We literally had 12 hours of on-task activities. The morning began with our first day of Thai language lessons, then an impromptu field trip to the school’s rice fields where were learned how to harvest rice and play tunes (like a kazoo) on the stems of the rice plants. Of course I was the first person to correctly make a noise with mine, which caused a great deal of excited cheering! HA HA Then we had a long lunch and a LOT of TEFL training and Thai culture lessons. It was exhausting but fun.

Tuesday I learned the most important lesson for living in Thailand – “Mai pen rai” – It literally translates to “No Problem” and is used as ‘you’re welcome’ but it is also a state of mind/philosophy meaning “Do not worry about what you cannot change” – There are a lot of things you cannot change while living here and while the people are SO welcoming they don’t always have an exact plan or tell you the plan ahead of time. We met with the directors (principles) of our schools today in a surprisingly formal event which consisted of the library being turned into a board room complete with a giant square of tables with microphones on each side. We were formally introduced to our directors (while knowing a day’s worth of Thai) and had to speak to the whole room. (AHHHH!!!!) But then I remembered … mai pen rai … and I learned to laugh it off, smile, and just have a good time because the people of Nakhon Phanom want us here SO badly to help with their English that we are treated like celebrities and after all this is the land of smiles. After all of our working papers were properly filled out there was a huge banquet set up for us in the auditorium … and when I say huge I mean huge. Tables and chairs with many beverages at each table including, whiskey, beer, wine coolers, Coca Cola, and water with a bucket of ice. They brought out a legit 5 course meal for each table including two whole fish, a chicken dish, a salad, tom yum (which is a soup), a huge bowl of rice, the most amazing egg rolls I’ve ever had and another dish I have no way of even describing. For dessert we had fruit (even watermelon). Set up on the stage was a band, karaoke, and Thai dancing. There was also a huge banner that read:

“Welcome to Nakhon Phanom with warming and friendly On 5^th Oct. 2010”

It was beyond precious! We got up and sang many songs on karaoke as a group and danced all night! It was so much fun! Earlier in the morning during our Thai language class the head of police came to introduce himself to us and tell us that he will work very hard to keep us very safe in Thailand and that he is very happy we are here. (He speaks very good English). But in normal Thai custom he has a nickname which is Rambo! So clearly we all laughed and love him! … He sang a LOT of karaoke.

Wednesday was a fairly quiet day, which was much needed. It was still very long because our trip to the hospital to get working papers signed took much longer than anticipated. Usually doctors just sign your papers and take the money but they actually took all our blood pressure, pulse, and weight and then we went into a separate room where we met with the doctor who listened to us breathe and then we were done. This process seems simple but when there are twelve of us who have to go through it, it takes a while. So then once again we had class after dinner.

Thursday we had our first Thai quiz! Ahh hahaha … it was our teacher Oa dictating words to us that we had to write in Thai! So crazy! But I only got 3 wrong out of 10 so I’d say that’s pretty good! And I am working really hard at learning basic vocabulary so I think I’ll be able to learn a lot very quickly, especially once I am working at my schools. Which brings me to the second thing we did today – school visits! In about 4 groups we went to each other’s schools and living accommodations. It was very exciting and very fun! I am working at 2 elementary schools – Choom Chon Nong Hee and Phon Tan. The latter is very small and has only about 55 students in the whole school. Nong Hee is a middle sized school with about 300 students. I will actually have 2 classrooms at Nong Hee which are side by side. One has desks and the other doesn’t. I am living with another girl in my group named Michelle at her high school. The house they are renovating for us is REALLY nice, especially by Thai standards. I do believe there is a western toilet but we didn’t really get to look around since they are working on it so I will update more with pictures at the end of the month when I actually move in. There are two teachers at that school that speak really good English as well so that is a nice comfort, though after today I am feeling confident with the language barrier and actually finding it quite fun to try to communicate with people and learn each other’s languages.

Ok so I know this is a VERY long entry but I promised to keep everyone informed and with unreliable Internet this is what we gotta do! Mai pen rai!

Sitting in the Philadelphia International Airport chewing mint mojito gum, hungover, had been crying all morning, thinking about how I don't speak Thai and why do I think I can do this - I should get my head examined instead - my entire body is numb, I'm sweating - ALREADY - my hair is frizzy because its humid as shit here, OF COURSE ... my original flight was canceled and so I was put on a new flight transferring in Detroit - ew - instead of Minneapolis- St. Paul (the sin cities) - forgot my watch and my confirmation number, what a ding dong! They do not sell watches at the CNBC news store but you can purchase 20 different kinds of headphones there - just in case you were wondering - AND i got meself some Philadelphia and PA postcards - YES - Buy 3 get 1 free! There is also this painfully obnoxious beeping sound that happens every so often ... BUT despite all of these things I am beyond words or explanations EXCITED for this adventure and to teach because I love to teach and when I get to mix the two things I'm passionate about (teaching and traveling) this is what you get! Hopefully I'm making the world a better place in the meantime ...