I love Mae Sot: September 2009

I saw a crab outside the Grade 6 class room.

Su Pone Chit held it..

Grade 3 working hard.

Baby crying in her little towel longyi.

Glasses.

Meme, baby, louise.

I saw a frog at baby's house.

KGB were fighting on their cows..

As was baby..

Mon So came to visit baby's house.

On tuesday ater lunch I was heading to teach Grade 3 when I saw Yan Yan and Ma Lei talking, I asked them what was wrong and Yan Yan said that I should go and sleep because I looked tired. I said nonono I'm going to teach Grade 3, I'm not tired, I'm fine. And then he told me that Thazin said not to teach because the 'Thai's' were back. So I went to baby's house and slept for about 2 hours. When I woke up, Yan Yan said they were still there, so I played with baby. Then Thazin came to the house and said that there was a Thai VSO lady interviewing everybody - Thazin, all the teachers, 2 children from each class and when she left she was going to interview children from the school's families. She said the woman was very nice and had also heard that that Thai police had been to the school and she was asking for me. Thazin told me I couldn't teach Grade 3 that day, so I stayed at baby's house.

We took a lot of photos, last year we sent a photo album to Meme of pictures I had taken of the baby that year. She loves it and brings it out to show me all the time. We take many photos, so I am going to make her another one this year. It's nice that she can have photos of her baby as she is growing up. I think it means a lot to her.

Lots of pictures tonight. I feel guilty for not blogging as much, but I am knackered!

So, this is roughly my week. I will try to keep more up to date with the blog. Sorry!

Ohhhh, I don't remember when this was. But when I was talking to mum I remembered that last year, the first night i arrived in Mae Sot. We went to the cafe opposite the DK hotel. When we left, Toto hadn't finished his Coke, so he got it to take away..in a bag! Strangeeee, it was so memorable. Anyway, I got my first take-away coca cola the other week, a landmark in my Mae Sot life.

Monday was a holiday for the schools, so I had a day off. Emily, the canadian volunteer, asked me if I would take her class at Say Ta Nar school because she was going to Bangkok for a few days. So on Tuesday and Wednesday I taught the older students at the school, these students are a mix of (I think) Grades 5, 6, 7 & 8. Extremely varied.
Emily had told me about some of the students being much slower than others and that this frustrated her sometimes as she spends a lot of her time trying to help these children and they just don't want to take it in. The children were all fantastic but I found this difficult too and Emily was glad to have someone to share her worries with.

On Wednesday I got told I had to do a 'English Camp' the following day. I got told this last week also, it was apparently the catch to being allowed to teach in Hle Bee again. No details were told, but I was told that I would be the one teaching, along with 4 other volunteers. Last week Thazin told me that I didn't have to do the course and that I could go straight back to teaching again. This made me really happy because the only school I really want to be in is Hle Bee. But as I said, on Wednesday I heard that I had to do the course....the next again day! Oh I was frustrated to say the least. No time to prepare or anything, it wasn't even optional!

I spoke to one of the Canadian volunteers, Skyler, and he said that he'd also been told to do the course. So we went the next day, along with Francois, the French volunteer. There were 169 children. 5 volunteers were supposed to come and we met the 2 other volunteers on the way. They didn't show up and when the teacher leading of the camp called to see where they were they told him they had gotten lost and went back to Mae Sot. So, 3 unprepared volunteers, 169 children. What do we do.....? Sing!

The teacher leading the the camp was extremely fun, really enjoyed making learning english fun for the kids and he was REALLY into it. Singing and dancing. We all got given a booklet on the course which had song in it.
Every time the children walked into the room, he would sing the welcome song..

"Hello Hello Hello,
Hello, how do you do,
It's nice to be with you, and you and you and you.
Da da da da da da, da da da da da da...."

Of course this was all into a microphone connected to loudspeakers. Could the Asians have it any other way? We pointed out that it was very ironic that every time he sang the welcome song, the children left the room and he laughed.

We played a few games and sang many songs from the booklet and then we had a break. During the break, two children came up to the window near where I was sitting with a tiny little puppies! They were completely adorable.

So, naturally. I spent all day playing with them.

This is some dancing.

The singing got too loud for the puppy, so he slept with his head under my booklet. I don't know if you can see very well, but the end of his tail had no hair on it! I don't know why or how..poor wee thing!

I loved this teacher's enthusiasm!

One major difference I noticed between Thai and Burmese students is that the Thai students and very reserved and timid. But when you get them to open up, they're fantastic little learners and they were all very sweet children.

After lunch (I won't mention the lunch, I cannot think about food without feeling ill) we split into 4 groups. Story telling - Francois. Culture - Skylar. Drawing - Louise. I can't remember the last one, but I heard singing coming from the fabby teacher, so something along those lines..

I got the children to do a drawing lesson I did with Hle Bee students. We covered some emotions, which they liked to act out, then they partnered up and drew 2 pictures of each other feeling these different emotions. We only had 30 mins for each group, but that was a good amount of time.

Doing the same 30min lesson 4 times in a row was very tiring though and my feet and throat were feeling this by the end of it.

A student holding one of the puppies.

Afterwards, we got to see some of the students practicing for a performance they're doing at the weekend. It was unbelievable, these kids are so talented. I took a video, but I can't get my videos to upload to this website, I can't even view it on the laptop.

Francois holding the puppy.

A student, Francois and Skylar with the puppy.

Afterwards, I went to Borderline. A woman who used to work at Borderline's son comes after school every day and plays until closing time. I've never met this woman, but mum has. Her son is the loveliest little thing and I can speak a little Burmese to him with is good.

I felt so knackered I basically slept there, my throat was still sore and I was starting to feel sick. When the shop was closing, I knew I needed to eat that night, so GA took me to Canadian Dave's where I got food to take away. I got home and passed out asleep, never had a chance to eat my food, I couldn't even look at it because I felt so ill. Then I woke up and started vomiting in the toilet, I'm glad we have a western-style toilet. Being ill away from home is bad enough without a western style toilet haha.

So, I slept and slept. Every time I woke up, I would need have to run to the toilet to be sick. I had only eaten lunch that day. I was told to drink water, but every time I did, I would bring it back up again. Not very fun at all, I don't like being ill. So I spent a lot of time of the phone to mum asking her to come to Thailand and be my nurse. The next day, I had to call Skylar and tell him I couldn't make it to the English Camp, I felt really awful because I was skeptical that the other two voltunteers would turn up, which they didn't. But I had been up every few hours through the night being sick and I could hardly move without having serious pains in my stomach. Skylar was very kind though, told me to get sleep and to feel better.

Later on in the day, I started to feel better. So I headed out to Borderline to snooze there, I did not feel like walking so I took the bicycle (if you're feeling ill, a bicycle is actually very nice and calming). Kind of slept/relaxed there for a few hours. Afterward, GA told me I should eat and I was craving a burger...now as I have learned, a burger is not the best thing to eat whilst your stomach is upside-down. We went to Dave's and I ate a burger, immediately regretted it (although it was very good) because when I got home I felt so ill I crashed until 1am. Woke up with missed calls from mum, I'd slept right through them. So I chatted with mum on msn for a while, I was feeling much better by then. Then I fell asleep around 3-4am.

Did much the same today. Borderline sleeping, went to Jack and Niamh's house tonight. Jack is Rocky's cousin. It was very nice, although I did feel very ill this afternoon again. Felt better gradually through the night, but I've not eaten since this morning. I want a chippy so badly! Chippy sauce! Loads of it! Ughhh, somebody mail me food! I will eat tomorrow when I wake up. Night.