The Smart Kid in Class

So here’s a recap of the past few days (with some hilarious side comments included):

On Sunday, we decided to create our own “Spa Day”. Like I briefly mentioned in my last post, we started it off by tubing down the river. For some reason, I didn’t share this, but now that I’m thinking about it, it’s truly hilarious. As I’m floating along, minding my own business, I hear a few kids yell, “HELLOOO!” I look up, and there are four monks on the riverbank. They then proceeded to say something in Thai, the only word of which I caught was “phalong” (white person), and then raced me on foot. Because this is a fairly slow moving river, they clearly won. Yes, I lost in a race versus four monk children in the jungle. Monks – 1, Meg – 0.

Then, some of us painted our nails and got Thai massages. Although it felt fantastic, it was a bit awkward. See, we basically laid down on mattresses in this woman’s living room. With that being said, I can’t complain as I paid $8 for an hour long massage. Between tubing, painting my nails, and getting a massage, I would consider Sunday Spa Day to be a success!

On Monday, I taught English at a new school in order to fill in for another volunteer that had left. I’m pretty sure that this is the school where I will be volunteering for the remainder of the summer, which is perfectly fine by me! Christie, the other volunteer at this school, is great and we got to team teach all day.

Today, Shawney and I were invited to a conference on Teaching English so, naturally, we decided to go. Needless to say, I felt like the smart kid in class as we were the only “phalongs” in the conference and they would have us present things just so the Thai teachers could “hear our accents”. I found it very interesting to see the staff development that these teachers are receiving, and I think I want to organize a training for the teachers once we finish our list of activities and games. We’ll see though, as only time will tell!

On that note, I think it’s time for me to go get a chocolate roti from my favorite Thai person so far, the street vendor named Mr. Honey. And no, I’m not joking. If you can find a better name than that (or “Boss” who was at the conference today), then I’ll give you a high five. Good luck!