English camp

In Thailand, student are required to take English as a second language from 1st through 12th grades. A few times through out the year, they hold what they call English Camps. This is where they gather students from surrounding schools, and for 3 days they have intensive English lessons. If they can have native English speakers participate, it is a huge plus and it just plain old looks good on them! I will reserve another post to discuss its effectiveness and my actual thoughts on it, in this one, I will just tell you what goes on. We did one in March to prepare the students for the English portion of a standardized test that is administered annually, I am not quite sure why we did this one. Last week, we were in Mae Sot doing a training for the English teachers representing 3 different districts. We were to train them on how to run an English camp and this week in Umphang, we ran an English camp for the kids. At the camp, the kids are put into different groups and rotate through about 5 different areas of instruction. The teachers are assigned one area to teach, so we teach the same thing about five time in 2 days. One the first day in the morning, There is a grand opening ceremony with "important" people in attendance. Someone important gives a short speech (no, I do not know what is said, it is all in Thai) and then the important people leave. Then the kids are taught songs, play games and are put into groups. Next they are administered a pre-test. This is to test their current knowledge of the material that will be taught during the camp. Throughout the 3 days, there are a total of five sessions. Each session last 1.5 hours. In the afternoon on the first day, we have two sessions. On the second day, we have two sessions in the morning and one in the afternoon. More games after the last afternoon session on day two. Then on day three, more games in the morning. In the afternoon a post test is administered. Then certificates are given out to the teachers and the students for participating in the camp and prizes are given for various things. Afterwards way too many pictures are taken! No lie, they take pictures for like 5-10 minutes of all of the students from each school with the teachers. Never mind that through out the whole camp pictures are taken constantly! Being native English speakers makes us some sort of celebrities... all of the teachers want pictures with us, it's comical! Overall they make it very fun for the kids and I enjoy it kind of. I like getting to meet new kids, but there are many other things about it that frustrate me, but more on that another time. The camp we did for the teachers followed the same format, since it was to teach them how to do a camp in their respective schools. Overall it is quite exhausting! After each day, I have no energy to do anything but sleep!

The Mae Sot English Camp

The instructors

English speaking friends

Them taking pictures of us.

I did it!

Umphang English Camp

Re-adjusting

I have been back for almost two weeks now and it has not been easy. I think most people go through this but I am no expert on the subject. What can I say, my trip to America really spoiled me. I got used to all of the comforts of home and the ease in which we live. People spoke English, I was not misunderstood, relationships were easy, getting around was easy and many more things like that.  I was very happy to have a variety of food to eat, pizza, hamburgers, Jamaican food, Chipotle, and many other good things! Although I love Thailand, it is not my home country or culture and at this point things are starting to wear on me. I am finding that I have less patience with being misunderstood and at times even hearing Thai makes me annoyed. I am bothered that I do not have easy access to things. Returning to a "basic" lifestyle has been hard too. My toilet doesn't flush, I have to pour water down it. Since returning home for some reason the water that serviced my pipes is brown.... and I must shower and wash my clothes in it, we really don't have any other choice. So now we brush our teeth, wash our face and cook with bottled water.  I did not have ANY asian food while I was home and that was for a reason. Everyday we eat rice or noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now that I am back, I have totally lost my appetite. I do not want any Thai food. Doris will ask if I want to go out to eat and I just can't do it. So what have I been eating?  Tuna fish, bread, crackers and pasta. I'm sure this will wear off soon, but for now, I'm not interested. Yesterday all I had was a bagel in the morning and by dinner still had no interest in going out to eat. It is now the beginning of rainy season here in Umphang and I knew it was coming, but living in it is a different story. When it rains, it pours! So now, life is dictated by the rain. Going out in general and doing laundry all depend on when it will rain. It's not something that you really want to be out in and considering that I ride a motorbike, it is not ideal to be driving during a heavy down pour. What I did not know was that many bugs accompany the rains and I do not do well with bugs! We live in a good house, meaning cement and not wood (so no holes) and screens in the door and all windows. Ideally we should be virtually bug free! Not so much. There are so many bugs in the house now! We have no idea how they are getting in but they are.

I do not hate it here and I hope no one takes it that way, I am just being honest about how I feel at the moment. I know that these feelings will pass (at least I hope that they do!) and I will be OK. On a more positive note, the place is absolutely gorgeous! It is so green and alive! Also, the kids didn't forget who we were! It took them a while to warm up to us initially, but we had such a wonderful greeting from them! I really missed them. I am currently in Mae Sot doing an English Camp Training for English teachers. They have paid to put us up in a nice hotel for 4 days, so I cannot complain. I will tell you more about the English Camp in another post.

Home and Away

In mid-late March, Doris and I headed out to Bangkok for two weeks. She needed to get a visa for India and it takes at least 1 week to get so we left Umphang on March 19th. While in BKK, we stayed with a friend of mine who is doing ministry out there. We were not terribly busy.. we only had to go to the office to apply for the visa, so we were able to help out a bit with the ministry. It was a very busy 2 weeks! We went from a very laid back atmosphere to non-stop all day long! They work with at risk children in the migrant communities. They are at risk for being abducted and placed in the sex trafficking industry or entering a drug/alcoholic lifestyle. From there I flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to visit friends. I was in their wedding 4 years prior and have not seen them since. It was so nice to catch up with them and there two new additions ( 2 boys)! As an extra treat, friends from the states were there visiting at the same time. We had lots of good laughs and food. We were busy helping them out with various projects pertaining to their ministry. After 1 week in KL, I flew to the states! I was always planning on coming home around his time. I needed to renew my health insurance and as an added bonus, I planned to attend graduation at Summit International School of Ministry (formerly Mount Zion). I did not tell anyone that I was coming home.... so everyone had a nice surprise. It was so much fun showing up at various places and seeing the looks on people faces! I would knock on doors unexpectedly or show up at gatherings, it was great! I hid out for the first 2 weeks so that word would not spread that I was home. I really wanted to surprise the graduates at Summit and it worked! It took a while to come up with a good plan, but we finally did. Just before arriving at the school, I got into the trunk of the car (yes, I did and yes, it was a bit scary!) and rode for maybe 2 minutes to the school. When we got there a friend from my class that was also attending gathered a few people and told them she had something for them. She popped the trunk and there I was! It was so much fun... the sheer shock on their faces! I had been in regular communication with them and told hem that I could not attend. I did that one more time for another group of people. I was so glad that I had the opportunity to attend graduation. My time in NYC overall was wonderful! I missed the food so much!!! I spent time with friends and family, walked A LOT, which was good. I do not walk here at all really and I miss it. I did not make many plans so I had a lot of downtime which was nice. Before I went home, I wasn't really missing NY, but after being there I felt so refreshed. I enjoyed my stay so much I didn't want to come back. You know, we take for granted the little things in life. I was able to shower in a bathtub, my feet were always clean, I had a variety of food to eat, there weren't bugs everywhere and life is altogether much more comfortable in the states. Now understand that I am comparing this to Thai country living, not Thai city living. If I lived in BKK, I could live just as comfortably as in NY. I was in NY from April 7 through May 8. When I left I headed back to KL for a few more days. While there I was able to attend a Ravi Zacharias conference. That was well worth my while! It was hard to stay up during the night meetings though. I suffered such bad jet lag, but I didn't even have a minute to rest! The day I landed the meetings started and they lasted up till the very day that I left! It was a very long trip back home. My flight to KL had 2 layovers and one of them was 3 hours. When I left KL I went to BKK, spent the night (I wasn't even there for 12 hours) then off to catch another flight to Mae Sot early the next morning. Then upon landing in Mae Sot was the lovely 4 hour drive on the curvy road to Umphang! Thank God my landlord was in Mae Sot that day and heading back. She picked me up from the airport and took me home with her, God bless her! Otherwise I might have ended up on the blue truck with all of my luggage.... nuff said. So 4 planes, 2 layovers, 2 stopovers and a 4 hour car drive later, I was finally home! Needless to say, I was exhausted. However, adjusting to life back here hasn't been easy but I will save that for another post.

I'm back!!!

Sorry for the long absence, I have been away. I will post soon and tell you all about my trip. Things here look so different! I will include pics for you to see. It was brown and dry before and now it very wet and green! Post soon!