My first days here

I left Brussels on Wednesday, 30^th of October, in the evening. My two flights took in total 13 hours and I landed in Bangkok around 8pm in the evening. At the time my European friends were waking up for me in Thailand it was time to go to bed again. My first surprise awaited me already at the airport. According to the instructions I received – a teacher named Nok picked me up from the airport together with another teacher and two students. They came to welcome their faran (foreign) teacher J It was a very nice gesture!

We took a van from Bangkok to Surin (direction north-east) and during the 6 hours journey we had our first talk with Nok about Thailand, schools and the volunteer experience which I’m about to live. I learned in the meantime that she already has a lot of great suggestions for my/our weekend trips around the Surin region. After a few hours of quite bumpy ride we arrived to my host family – I’m staying with a young English teacher Pim in the house of her aunt (Pa) and her cousin (Mint). As you can see on the picture, the house and my room are new and comfortable.

 

 

 

 

On Friday morning together with Nok we went to meet the Principle of the Saikeaw High School where I will teach. The school is located around 10 minutes by car from my house. There are 500 students in the age of 13-18 and there are 3 English teachers which I will work with – Nok, Pim and Lin. The first impression of the school was very positive, children who were outside were very interested in seeing me, but very shy to talk. A white blond creature is not something that Thai people see very often, so I learned very quickly “suay” means beautiful in their language. After a short meeting with the Principle we drove to school in Surin to join other teachers from the region in English training. That would be interesting if not a small detail that they taught English grammar speaking Thai, which as I learned later, is a very common practice in this country. As a results certified English teachers are masters of grammar rules but aren’t able to speak at all. In the evening I met the rest of my host family and spent some time reading English with Mint. She is 17 years old, but studies in another school, so we won’t have classes together. That’s why we use evenings to practice reading, pronunciation & simple talks. She was very shy at the beginning, but opened up after a few days. She’s a very sweet and funny girl and reminds me my sister, so I immediately liked her J I hope that I’ll motivate her to speak by the end of my stay.

The next morning we spent again on the teachers’ training. All in all it was a good experience, I made contacts with a few teachers from other schools. We made a small tour around Surin with Nok. For lunch we went to an excellent Japanese restaurant with ‘all you can eat’ service, where I had the perfect opportunity to try a lot of new dishes. In the middle of each table was a small stove with a pot filled with hot water, where the guests could prepare their own soup by adding vegetables and spices of their choice. Interesting idea J In the afternoon we visited Sally, a Belgian girl who started her adventure in Thailand as a volunteer and decided to move here for a few years to continue teaching.   She is a professional teacher and just graduated before coming here. Together with Nok and another friend we visited her house – it’s a peaceful place and she seems to have found her oasis there.

  

Sunday was a family day. Sleep in here means that you’re allowed to stay in bed until 8am… This is quite different from my practice in Belgium, but I adapt as I want to enjoy every moment I have here. We started the day with picking blue flowers in front of the house. These flowers are used to give blue color to food and can be also used to prepare a tea. Together with Pim, Mint and young daughter of the neighbor we collected them and brought to an uncle living nearby so he can sell them at a market.

On the picture you can see the blue flowers around and Mint together with me posing in the center.

 

 

The house of the uncle was full of people and activities. There were a few women cleaning snails, some kids running around and playing, another aunt giving orders and uncle building bamboo constructions to catch fishes. There were very welcoming and we took some pictures together – don’t we look like one family?

 

 

 

 

Around midday we went to a local market with Pim and her Mom. Our first stop was a restaurant where we ate some noodles. I’m still hesitating and not touching any chili, I still remember how it burned me on my first day and I’m not ready to go back there… Local market is like a treasure island for a newcomer to this country! Some of the great discoveries of my first visits are:

- dead frogs – I know that this won’t surprise some people, however I have to say that the presentation is quite interesting…

- dead rats (cut in half to make it more extreme)

- fried insects

- alive shrimps

- coconut water – wonderful taste, very refreshing

- faran (kind of green apple look alike, but tastes very different)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t dare to try any of the weird items, but I might give it a try before leaving to Belgium. ;)

 

 

The rest of the afternoon I spent on preparing a presentation about my country and my family. I will show it tomorrow during my first lessons. I prepared a lot of pictures so that the students get attracted to my slides and some simple greetings in Polish. Tomorrow is my first day at school – exciting!!!