Sports Week and Parade...

We didn’t have school the first week in November because of the flooding. When we did get started back up, we had sport week, which was really two weeks long! It was a big disorganized mess! It appeared as if hundreds and hundreds of kids were just running around playing all day everyday with no teachers in sight!
While walking around the school to check out all the different sports activities, I ran into my student June, who was no long in the MEP class because of problems at home. I was very sad to not have her anymore. She was the ideal student!

This next picture is of Thailand's national sport...the name is escaping me...but it originated in Thailand. It's kind of like volleyball but you don't use your hands.

These are my students, March, Earth, Copter and Grill.

I got approached to teach a dance/cheerleading routine with a song. WHAT?!?! I got out of that right quick and got involved in teaching some sports! At the end of the two weeks we had a big parade, in which I was told I would be dressing up in a traditional thai dress!  At first I thought it would be fun, but then as I was walking down the street to the parade, in my attire, I was quite embarrassed and was greeted with smiles, snickers and laughs by the locals! Once I got to the parade though, I felt like I was a movie star, for not only were my students’ parents taking pictures of me, but random people would throw their kids next to the big, white foreigner dressed up so they could get a picture with me!

 All the students were equally as dressed up as me, if not more! I heard some of them had been up since 4am getting ready! I couldn't get over how big of ordeal this whole thing was!

Some little stud muffins!

Laura and I were leading the Loy Krathong section of the festival. We were the Loy Krathong princesses!

My beautiful students Bonus and Mine.

All the MEP teachers, Tuk, Laura, Pete, Ann, myself and Shampoo.

We even got to be blessed with the "almighty" director's presence in a picture!

Laura and I showing respect to each other with a wai.

Odds and Ends....

For the first time since I had moved to Thailand I had beef…..a beef steak in fact. I was a bit nervous about it, but my school people were taking us out so I had to give it a try! Let’s just say that it was not Graber beef quality!

 Here are a few other great dishes here in Thailand....Nong Khai and Moo Young.

Steven got a grill and we put it to good use right away!

 Steven also saved the day for me when I discovered that I had a very large lizard in my kitchen! He was able to corner it and trap it in my tupperware container! I was very grateful! He kept telling met that it wasn't a big deal and that it wouldn't hurt me, but I'm sorry I just didn't want something that big in my house that moves very quickly! It was about 1 foot long.

I had an interesting conversation with this older gentleman who lives in Thailand now, but had been in the military for many years. After talking a bit about the subject of war and the military and sharing a few of my thoughts, he told me that it’s not the military that is bad, it is the higher ups and the politicians that make the decisions of what the military has to do.  As with every other aspect of life, in the military, there is every way of thought and thinking. Also, as with every aspect of life, we cannot judge someone before knowing their whole story and finding out who they are. I might think that I could never ever relate to or get along with a military person, because of my upbringing and my beliefs, but if I think like that, then I would be the one in the wrong. Judging another human being is one of the biggest flaws a person can attain, I believe. 

Here is a big monkey statue from monkey town, Lopburi and the picture after that is of Laura and I waiting for the bus with our sticks to ward off the monkeys!

Here was a strange site I saw while sitting having lunch one day. The dog looks like he is really enjoying himself!

To keep himself entertained, Pete bought a remote control car and decided to put all my empty water bottles to good use and we set up a little race car bowling! Not to brag, but I got a strike on my first try!

This next picture is for my dad and brothers and those other farmers.....I thought it was quite an impressive stack of hay! 

This last picture was taken at the Bangkok airport. They have them all over.

The end of a chapter....

The moment I got back to Thailand I got a call from Ann, my Thai assistant at school, saying that the director had to go to our house to move stuff because of the flood waters. What a lovely surprise to come home to! It turned out that our house didn’t have any water in it, luckily. Others, however, were not so lucky.
Here are some pictures of the flooding that happened in Singburi.
This is at my bank. You had to crawl on a chair over a cement wall to get to the ATM!

This next picture is of the road that I usually ride to school on! Obviously I had to find another route!

This next picture shows a restaurant (the right of the picture), that I would frequently go to....but was closed for a few weeks because of the water.

This was outside one of our classrooms to protect it in case the flood waters came to the school.

Unlike the local children, I decided NOT to swim in the flood waters!

Another surprise when I got back to Singburi, was that we had 2 new teachers! Pete and Laura were from the UK and were very enjoyable people. I was sad that they had just come, now that my time was coming to an end. Their presence helped make a very tough decision, a little bit easier. The decision I was faced with, was whether I stay until the end of my contract, the end of December, or leave at the end of November and then go and do volunteering at an orphanage in December for a couple weeks.  If Pete and Laura wouldn’t have been there, I would have felt I was leaving the school out to dry and leaving them without the proper staff. I was able to talk to these two about what I was faced with and found support from them. I told them that I have been passionate about volunteer work for a long time and from the beginning of my time at Anuban School, I thought that I would be helping teach kids who needed it, not working for a special English program that parents had to pay a lot of money for their kids to be in. I was not looking forward to sharing the news with my school advisors, who had been bugging me daily about extending my contract. I felt terrible about breaking my contract, but I had worked long and hard for the school and put up with a lot.

When I broke the news to James and Pat, I was met with looks of sadness and plea after plea to get me to stay (forever!).  Pat told me that I was the best for them and she didn’t want anyone else because they wouldn’t be as good. I kept saying that they had Pete and Laura and they will be good. She told me not to compare myself to anyone else because there was no comparison.  Pat said that she never had to worry about me because she knows that I am always doing a really good job.  One of their suggestions to get me to stay was to have my family move out here for a couple months to keep me company! I told them that’s not really an option! I won’t get into all the other things they said to me to get me to stay, but what they were trying to accomplish was for me to sign a contract to come back, before I even left.  It was nice to hear them say all those nice things about me, but I hadn’t heard those the whole rest of the time I had worked at the school.

When I told Pat that I felt that our students listening skills were getting worse and that I felt they just don’t listen most of the time….but that for Thai teachers they always behave, she responded by telling me that it’s because the kids know that because we are foreigners we won’t hit them!  I finally had Ann tell the kids that I was leaving. There was a great uproar in the class and shouting. I guess the one question the students had was about when I was coming back! Over the next couple days students kept coming up to me and saying, “Come back sure?” Also over my last couple days I got many gifts and presents from students.  Unfortunately my last two days were nothing as I had anticipated. When Pat found out that I told my students I was leaving, she was very upset with me. I asked her if I wasn’t supposed to tell my students that I was leaving and just take off. She didn’t even respond.   I was then basically told that I was to have no farewell or say goodbye to the kids.  I was very upset by all this and my whole last day of school, instead of being a happy time and being able to take pictures with and say goodbye to my students, I taught like every other day, but with no smile on my face.  After almost a year of extremely hard work and doing so much for the school, this is how I was to be treated.  I really wish I wouldn’t have left with a sour taste in my mouth….but so goes life I guess.  I will still have many, many great memories of all the great times I had with my students and the progress I made with them.  And that was the end of another chapter of my life.

Before I left Singburi to head to Vietnam to volunteer, I got to participate in the 2^nd biggest Thai festival, Loy Krathong, which is a festival of lights to give thanks and pay respect to the spirits of the water and the nourishment water provides.  One of my students’ parents invited me along to a celebration.

Here is me with one of my students Ninee and her sisters at the Loy Krathong Festival.

Here you can see the Krathongs floating in the river. Krathongs are the flower arrangements.

Here is me putting my Krathong into the river.

An electric buddha!

Agra and the Taj Mahal

When going from Pushkar to Agra, we bought tickets for a special tourist sleeper bus, which turned out to be a local bus with hardly any room for us! Long story short, all 3 of us girls were crammed in a 6 x 3 area with all our big backpacks and tried to enjoy the lovely ride! There were people everywhere lying in the aisle and we had to maneuver around them to get off the bus.

 Agra is a very frustrating place. You are constantly being hassled, harassed and touched by people to buy things.  If it weren’t for the Taj Mahal I would have moved on to another town! We had another 5am rising to be able to beat some of the crowds, which was well worth it. The Taj was definitely worth all the hype. It’s just a masterpiece of a building…flawless.
And here are some pics of the infamous Taj Mahal....

Reflections.....

On my last night before I had to head back to Thailand, Megan and I decided to get some henna tattoos! The detail that these people do is amazing. There were hundreds of ladies getting henna done and we finally figured out that it was because there was a festival starting the next day. Because we weren’t local, the guy did our henna in about 3 minutes flat! You let it dry for an hour and then flake off the mud. It usually lasts for about a week or two.

 The poverty level in India is at a totally different level than any place that I’ve ever witnessed.  Regardless of those that are constantly trying to haggle you, the country is still filled with amazing, friendly people.  On my bus to New Delhi to catch my flight, a woman, who didn’t speak English offered me to sit down next to her and gave me some fruit and had me listen to some of her music. Again, the two words I would use describe India……amazing and disheartening.