Adventures in Thailand & Teaching: Provincial Life

At last! My computer is up and running and I can continue to blog about my quirky life here in Thailand.

My cute neighbors cutting open a coconut I found!

I have been teaching at the lovely Warinchamrab School outside of Ubon Ratchathani for the past month now. Where do I begin to describe the situations I have been in and what my daily life looks like? I think I will try to describe a typical day. I say 'typical' ironically because...I am in Thailand...and to be honest, you just can't count on anything being normal!

I wake up around 6:30 to the morning sun already streaming into my room. The five tiny dogs next door and my neighbors (the school volleyball team---don't ask me why ten girls and one ladyboy are allowed to live alone on campus...) are my cheery alarm clocks. Usually right away I can feel a few bug bites forming on my ankles, due to the fact I gave up the mosquito net after I woke up with it claustrophobically tangled around my face each morning. Mornings are as hard for me here as they were in the US, but I must be a traitor to Oregon and say that waking up to a bright world is pretty motivational. I pick out my appropriate-for-Buddhist-culture teacher outfit and decide which flourish I want to add. By this I mean that I like to add a scarf on my head or some big earrings, just a little something to keep my Thai students and coworkers guessing. Being here has given me strange urges to act a little crazy.

I dodge the termite hills and gecko poop in my kitchen, make a little breakfast, say goodbye to my Chinese housemate 'Smile' and take off for the day. The walk to and from school is always an interesting experience because I am still currently a novelty or perhaps a more fitting word---celebrity. I walk from my little pink jungle house, across the soccer field and I can't even count the number of times I say, "Hello! How are you?" and flash my American smile to the adorable students who muster up the courage to yell greetings to me. We spend a half an hour praying to Buddha, reciting the national anthem, singing songs and listening to the director speak about whatever directors here speak about.

I walk to class and giggling students flock around me and then it hits me: I love being a "kru" (teacher) here and I admit I enjoy the paradoxical respect and ridiculouness of the profession. My students take off their shoes when they enter the classroom, they 'wai' to me when I hand them a worksheet, they clean the whiteboards, turn on the fans---then they go CRAZY! Students are out of their chairs, copying papers (not stigmatized here at all) and talking on the phone. Really, really? There are no bells, so teachers dismiss when they feel like it and it seems like every other day class is delayed or cancelled because of 'Sports Day' or 'Scouts Day' or 'Let's All Wear the Same Colors and Do Weird Cheers and Who-Knows-What Day'. As I have said before, Thai life is fluid, flexible, inefficient one might say, and this extends to the educational system as well.

In class, I have an alter-ego that is the most dramatic version of myself. Imagine teaching classes of 40 students, with a different cultural background and diverse home lives and we also have a language barrier...oh and it's 95 degrees with no air-conditioning. Welcome to my life!! It's challenging, fabulous and overall the most difficult thing I have done in my 22 years.

A few other highlights in the past month include going to the neighboring province of Surin with five other Fulbrights for an elephant festival. It monsooned and almost rained out the whole show, but luckily it dried up in time to see the elaborate performance of dozens of elephants and Thai dancers and singers. I volunteered to run out in the middle of the stadium and play tug-of-war in the mud against a huge elephant with a Thai celebrity---we lost of course! Later that night, my friend Amanda and I ended up at a Thai-coming-of-age party for a boy from the Surin people. Think bat mitzvah on Thai steroids. It was a crazy party with go-go dancers, musicians, and copious amounts of food. It was only fitting that Amanda and I were made to go onstage and dance for everyone. Oh Thailand.

Last week, Fulbright flew us back to Bangkok to attend seminars on Thai media, celebrate Thanksgiving, run a 'Fun to Learn' fair to promote cross-cultural exchange and have a mini-reunion to share about our experiences thus far into teaching. It was refreshing to hear others' stories, difficulties and triumphs and it gave me a fresh perspective on my situation.

I am so excited to figure out where I fit in, in Thailand. I am a farang, struggling to understand the life, weather, culture and language here and yet I will be a part of this community for a year. This is going to be one for the books, folks!