My students are "naaaaa-raat" (cute)!

6/29/09 and 6/30/09
Well, so much for teaching on Day 1. The entire town literally threw us a party. It was absolutely ridiculous. Nhaca and I arrived at school fully prepped and ready to teach. The teachers shuffled us into an extended tour and kept waiting around for Supa and Daniel, who agreed to come translate scheduling and watch us teach. The school has two buildings, one for Patom (my kids! Younger ones  ) and one for Mataum(grades around 6-9 in the US). It’s rural with no doors and kinda dirty floors but everyone takes their shoes off anyway at the door-a Thai courtesy. The teachers were so friendly but most only know a few words of English. The kids are ADORABLE…they “sawatdee” us and call us “Teacher”. Anyway we continued to wander around until we sat in under this outdoor podium with about 100 parents finishing up a parent meeting to discuss (get this) Hawaiian shirts for Friday uniforms. All of the sudden we were in front of the stage, handed microphones to introduce ourselves and people smiled, but all but maybe 4 of the parents do not speak English and it was kind of awkward. Then we were presented with flower leis by the town mayor, policemen, other officials, teachers, etc…I was so flattered and my neck felt like it was going to fall off. Then Thai students danced for us, we feasted, and all was merry...but I really wanted to teach!

Then scandal arose over the host family issue. The non-English speaking host dad farmer I was supposed to stay with was really upset and thus Nhaca’s family (host dad is Nhaca’s brother) was really upset and thought I was leaving because of the tree…it is really hard to explain to someone that it isn’t personal, but LE standards weren’t being met, etc. I ended up being placed with a teacher at the school, whom I affectionately call Maream  She is so sweet and is trying very hard to speak English and calls me DEB after I said that DEB-AN could be easier to say as Dev. My new host family is incredibly compassionate and I love them all. Like most Thai families, they live around extended family, so in addition to my “Pa” and two sisters, Fun (16) and Film (15) I’ve met aunts and uncles. Aunt O is really overprotective of me (actually they all are) and insists on running or biking with me because I’m too “sawaai” or “beautiful” to be alone. I eat and hang out in MaReam’s house but sleep in her now North Carolinian uncle’s house which is really westernized. It’s definitely not as authentic as the 1 room farmhouse with no bathroom!, but this has an AUTOMATIC TOLIET, AIR-CONDITIONING!!!!!, and a huge comfy bed and CLOSET. WOW I am so lucky!

Today, 6/30/09, was my first day of teaching and it was overwhelming. I had Buu there (she skipped school to help me and Nhaca!) to help translate, but it is very difficult with little kids who are chatting and I can only “shhh” without knowing words in Thai to make them behave. Nonetheless, all is going well and I think once they concentrate, we can learn a lot. The older kids (8) know the alphabet song, but cannot write the alphabet or do anything out of sequence. I caught kids cheating multiple times under their desks when quizzing them on writing the alphabet. Most of them have NO clue. The kids greet me standing with “good morning teacher” even if it’s afternoon and say “thank you teacher” when I signal to sit down. In other words, they’re well-trained. And SO CUTE. I really want to put up pictures, but it may take a while. All in all, I’m really busy and tired, waking up at 5 and crashing at 10 with lesson-planning and lots of pilot stuff for LE. Hope all is well in the States!