An Update on What I’ve actually been doing besides school! 7/6/09

7/6/09

On Thursday I had an intense day of teaching 5 classes including an extra English session after school for the community. No community members showed up though...but it was still a very successful lesson and I felt like I was doing what I was meant to do. I might consider going into teaching after this experience. There are frustrating points, but the rewarding feeling watching a phrase as vital as “my name is..” click makes all of the planning and time worth it.

On Friday we did not have class because it was the start of a Thai national holiday. The entire school of around 150 students marched through the village with drums and instruments to two temples, carrying a GIANT candle and gifts for Buddha and the monks. It was great to be a part of the celebration.

The pictures help explain more, but I went to Big C on Friday, a Thai version of Walmart where you can find lots of random housewear as well as culinary delights like “fake” fried squid morsels, RICE RICE RICE, and some really cute clothes for about $3-6 USD each. This weekend (7/4-7-5) is Fun’s birthday weekend. I convinced MaReam to let me buy cake mix and improvised with tub margarine (no butter in Thailand) and guesstimated without measuring cups, used soybean oil, and a gas oven with “low-to-high” temperature settings. YET IT STILL WORKED. The birthday cake and celebration was a grand success and my host fam loved the cake/candles/song. They tried to give me more cake for breakfast…no wonder Americans are fat. I forgot to mention my host sisters call me P-Dev; when you say “P” before someone’s name, it means big sister.

Since this is a 5 day Thai holiday through Wednesday to celebrate the rainy season, I don’t have school. We went to Phitsanulok on Saturday and Sunday and I shopped, saw 5 temples, and ate SO MUCH food. I visited 4 temples with PaChub and MaReam on Saturday while Fun and Film studied…really incredible. I love feeling spiritual and connected to a higher being, so it was interesting to try worshipping in a different way.

I had a pretty intense experience that is hard to describe at this temple called Wat Chawmaichunim above the city overlooking the countryside. I have never felt so free…it’s very difficult to explain. The pictures speak to the beauty of this place, but one realizes the sacred spiritual grounds only from encounter. A monk played this giant gong with with hand and the sound of it washed over my body. It was so surreal and I know this sounds cheesy, but I felt the rupture and reverberation of my spirit. I got to rub the gong afterwards for good luck. The temple was so peaceful with music and water rushing, playing into all of one’s senses. I sat on a rock reflecting on the glorious Earth beneath me…it was really special.

Then we had ice cream for Fun’s birthday and picked up ‘National Treasure’ so that I could show them a movie with D.C. in it!

On Sunday we went to a library to drop off Film while Fun was at tutoring and then went to Sukhothai, an ancient city North of my home. We (Me, PaChub, MaReam, and a fellow teacher from our school) drove about an hour North and saw the glorious stone buildings built over 700 years ago. MaReam and I rented bikes and enjoyed the cooling misty rain and took lots of pictures. It was remarkable! MaReam is so cute and sang funny English songs i.e. “hello, hello, hello, how do you do? Fine, fine, fine, how are you?” while we biked. I am getting so close to my host family!

I missed everyone over the 4th of July, but I’ll be home in 5 weeks...thanks for reading.