Thailand, America, and Italy Unite

As a belated 4th of July Celebration (really we just wanted an excuse), the four of us invited our Thai co-teachers over for dinner on Wednesday night.  We went to Chiang Mai this last weekend, where we picked up some gems, including pasta (and a large jar of peanut butter).  We strategized our menu in accordance with our appliances-- rice cooker and electric wok-- and set off to the market on Tuesday night to buy some kilos of tomatoes, some onions, garlic, and lots of veggies. We even found balsamic vinegar at the department store in town! A worthwhile investment. We whipped up a veggie-ful tomato sauce, complete with lots of Thai basil.  We completed the cooking adventure on Wednesday after school, boiling the pasta in the rice cooker and whipping up some bruschetta. All five co-teachers came,  and we had some other special guests as well: the 4th grade chinese/math teacher who always talks to us, Teacher Ann's crazy 5 year old son and her 12 year old niece, and Teacher Wandee's daughter.

We had a great time sharing our American/Italian dinner with them, and it was topped off by all of the fruit that everyone brought (typical Thai style).  We got everyone to play a few games as well, including charades, in which Dana did an incredible angry bird.
The dinner party set-up:

 The whole gang:

 Teacher Angeli (who has a bark to threaten any out-of-hand 2nd or 3rd grader) and me (the inexperienced foreigner):

Fourth of July Festivities!

Class parties are so fun. I nearly forgot.  All of the English teachers were sporting our finest red, white, and blue today and handing out oreos with peanut butter-as American as we get. I started class today by teaching This Land is Your Land (well, actually just one verse), and a few kids got really into it with hand motions, but in the end, the Thai teacher was the only one as interested as singing it as me.  Typical.  But I brought in my banjolele for the first time and they loved it! I think it will have to make special party appearances.  I tried playing some J Biebs, and they caught on right away. Instant success.  For the rest of class, we made 4^th of July hats, sang some more, and then everyone busted out insane amounts of kanom (i.e. snacks)! I brought in oreos, but they were nothing compared to the bags and bags of chips, boxes of cookies, dried squid, and seaweed that all the students brought. They take their parties seriously.

Tonight, we will continue the celebrations at our house! We are attempting to host a Thai potluck, but we’ll see a) who ends up coming, and b) what kinds of food turn up. Last night, I told our friend P’ Benz that we were having a party (and by that I meant a dinner party), and she got so upset because her shift at work was scheduled for 4 pm to midnight. She wasn’t about to miss the farang party though, so she called her friend, told her she was sick, and offered her 600 baht (around $20) to take her shift! Such a dedicated farang friend. 

This weekend, we are headed to the big city: Chiang Mai! It will be a long, windy bus ride, but I’m looking forward to visiting the other PiA fellows and my old host family.

Pha Yao

       Our first outing! We had a packed weekend last weekend, complete with teaching, traveling, dancing shrimp, and waterfalls. 

Saturday morning, we taught an English Camp for high school students from the villages of Nan province.  There were about 100 students and each of the four of us led an activity for a bit.  Dana was playing a game involving running and steeling each other’s chairs, and during one of the rotations, her group was sooo loud that I had to move my group outside.  The Thai English teacher who was with me said, “That group has a lot of bisexuals. They have more… ah! oy! (insert dance move here)!”  Sure enough, Dana had a lot of lady boys in-the-making in her group. That was the highlight of the day.

After English Camp was finished, we ate lunch with the other teachers, then came home to pack for our trip to Pha Yao, a neighboring province.  Kim, who is Thai/Indian/teaching English at a nearby school, was driving to visit her friend from Chiang Rai, so we hopped in her tiny car and made the three-hour journey. It was a doozy of winding roads and beautiful scenery, with lots of sudden stops for stray dogs that ran into the road.  We finally made it into town, turned the corner, and saw a huge body of water- surprise! Turns out the town was intentionally, then unintentionally flooded around 40 years ago, so now there is a large lake in the middle.  Just a casual landscape transformation… We met up with Mateya, Kim’s friend, and had a feast of fish, seafood, and “dancing shrimp” at a restaurant next to the water. The dancing shrimp are tiny little guys that are tossed with spicy sauce, then served still jumping around in the dish. It’s like seafood poprocks! Kind of.  Post-dinner, we walked around a little night market, then stopped by the BM Pub. Needless to say, bowel movement puns were out of control and only added to the amusement of the night.

Sunday, we took a little boat out into the lake to a small shrine that stood out of the water.  Apparently, 20 years ago, some people discovered the remnants to this temple/Buddha shrine, so they excavated it.  It was a small but beautiful statue on a little dirt mound in the middle of the lake, and the trip was even better with our bright orange life jackets and fishermen hats.

That afternoon, we drove outside of town to a waterfall.  We started hiking up a trail alongside a small creek, waiting for a huge waterfall and pool to pop up around each bend in the trail, but it turned out to be more of a rambling waterfall with lots of levels.  Even better! We hiked/scrambled up until level 5, when the trail got too sketchy.  It was so good to get out and see the crazy jungle foliage and move up an incline! I had missed it.  Don’t worry, we took a lot of self-timer pictures.

Cross-dressing youngsters, all in the name of poetry, of course

This Tuesday was a holiday to celebrate a famous Thai poet.  Naturally, a three hour assembly followed.  Every grade performed a song or a dance or a skit of some sort, most of which involved some wild costumes.  Here is a personal fave:

 so glamorous right now.

Check out Dana’s blog for some ridiculous videos of the event, which was complete with first graders in tutus, voluptuous fifth grade boys, and tiny kindergardeners as what looked like characters from Toddlers in Tiaras. We only stayed for an hour or so, but what a show!

Aerobics, Thai s-tyle

This Monday was round two for Thai aerobics- what a show!  Everyday, about 30 Thais show up everyday to the park down the road from our house for 45 minutes of microphoned fitness.  Most of them are middle-aged women, but there is the occasional old man or high school student who comes along to move their feet.  I saw them groovin’ everyday in passing, so naturally it was something I had to try.  Last Monday was a doozy—joining in with the others really made me realize how uncoordinated I am (similar to me trying to do Zumba in America).  The instructor stands on a cement stage with a microphone and two side kicks on her left and right.  We got there a bit late the first time, which didn’t ease my learning curve.  But round two was slightly more successful. And everyone is dressed in color-coded polos to match the day of the week. On Tuesdays, we wear pink.

Suki Night

Last Tuesday, P’ Benz took us to the market and we bought the necessary supplies to have a hot pot suki dinner party at our house.  

This included: $6 worth of mushrooms, 2 heads of cabbage, cilantro, and a bunch of morning glory, rice noodles, nam cheem sauce, shrimp, chicken, chicken carcass for broth, pork, eggs, a whole durian, watermelon, mangoes.  A feast to say the least.  A whole crew came over and we cooked up soup in the electric wok. Sanuk mak!

Knees and Toes

The past few weeks have been filled with learning the body parts.  Or I guess, the students have been learning them, I have been teaching them.  We’ve sung songs galore, including the Jellyfish and the Hokey Pokey, and we have been exploring our artistic side with some monster drawings.  Here are some highlights:

 So this was drawn by a seven-year old crazy girl named Ben. Check out her artistic additions: