My Name IS...

Maybe you noticed from the pictures that 2 weeks was plenty of time for me to already have a favorite--Siriyakorn (I only learned how to spell it correctly from one of teachers, from what I could understand I had previously written 'Siliakon' on her notebook.) She's the cutest thing and would poke her head into the teachers' office everyday and just watch for a while. Her English was limited to "apple", "banana", "My name IS..." (they all say the "is" with a rising tone and then pause before their name, it's funny) and "sticker", but she used those words as often as she could.

I had a wonderful time teaching at the school. The teachers were really welcoming, especially Kai, who in addition to teaching her own class of 30 1st and 2nd graders, doubles as the English teacher for the whole school when there are no farang volunteers. It was difficult sometimes to keep the attention of some of the younger kids, especially because they really didn't understand much, if anything, of what I said. But we played a lot of games, like Bingo, memory and a special version of tic-tac-toe to help them with numbers and colors, and we sang lots of songs. Grades 3 and 4 really liked the Itsy-Bitsy Spider, which they always called Spiderman. (This is also the same class where a few of the boys convinced me the first day that their names were Gamalui and Omba, which I found out later are actually names of some fighting action heroes.)

The older kids were certainly easier to manage, but with them the problem was getting them to speak any English. The little kids would happily repeat anything I said and try it on their own too, but the older kids were more embarassed I think, and just thought of English as another boring subject. But we did some games and songs which I think they liked, and as I mentioned in the photo caption, making a fool of myself generally worked pretty well too.

I usually left the guesthouse around 7:30 in the morning and walked down the hill, arriving at school at about 8. Most of the kids would already be there, cleaning up the school grounds or playing around a bit, with Thai pop music blaring through the loud speakers. At 8:30 they would gather for the morning assembly to raise the flag and sing the anthem. Classes started at 9:00. I usually ended up teaching about 3 or 4 one hour classes per day, with time in between to prepare lesson plans and materials. 12-1 was lunch--the teachers all eat together sharing food that they take turns paying for. The atmosphere at the school is friendly and relaxed, and all the teachers seem to get along well, a nice change after the tension we would often feel in the teachers' office in China. The school day ended at 4, with another assembly and then it was time for the sweaty trek back up the hill. Sometimes I would walk with some of the kids, but usually they would trail off to pick some jungle plants for dinner or catch some fish. It's a really interesting mix up there between modern technology (computers and TVs at the school, teenagers with photo-taking, music-playing cell phones) and traditional village life (most of what people eat still comes straight from the jungle--people go out hunting animals or collecting plants and fruits). One morning I went into the kitchen at the guesthouse to make myself breakfast and I found two dead birds lying there in front of the toaster--I decided to stick with my toast and jam.

We're now in Chiang Khong. We decided to stay an extra day since we didn't get here till after dark last night and the town had a nice, relaxed feeling that we didn't want to miss by leaving early this morning. Today we just walked around, shopped at the market for some boat ride food, and did some reading by our guesthouse, which has a nice view of the river. We'll cross the border tomorrow and hop on the slow boat to Louang Phabang, with an overnight stop in Pakbeng.