On Thursday, Shawney and I spent the day working on our songs, games, and activities for the teachers. We started complaining about how tedious planning all of this is, but we got so close to finishing that we just kept on trucking!
On Friday, we started the morning off by visiting a school. Shawney and I were "voluntold" (I hope my CG is proud of this insert) that we were heading up an English camp next week and the school wanted us to visit beforehand. After we asked our few questions, one of the teachers said that she wanted us to meet the students. She brought this up several times and was visibly excited that we were there, so we couldn't say no. We then awkwardly went from classroom to classroom, saying something like, "Hello! How are you? We are excited to teach you on Wednesday. Bye!" I'm still not sure if any of the students understood us, but that's neither here nor there. I really just think the school wanted to take pictures of phalongs "teaching" the class, hanging out with the class, etc. (Side note: I should probably insert here that I feel like a celebrity here... or sometimes a zoo animal being gawked at. I don't keep including the word "phalong" to be funny; I'm honestly including it because I hear it everyday while walking down the street. The Thai love white people and love talking about them because they're such a rarity here!)
Afterwards, Shawney and I went to this amazing coffee shop in Fang to finish working on our list of activities. We thought that we could finish it in a short period of time, but, for whatever reason, it seemed to take FOREVER. If we thought Thursday was bad, it was nothing compared to Friday! My eyes were starting to close, I had to take periodic breaks, and I was getting frustrated. We finished much later than expected and decided to take a song tao to the school to just get this 55 page (Yes, that's right. 55 pages of songs, games, and activities to teach English. For all teachers reading this -- let me know if you want the link as a lot of it can be used for other subjects, too!) document off of our hands. (Another side note: I don't think it's a coincidence that our list of activities to make teaching English fun is 55 -- ha ha -- pages. God has a wonderful sense of humor!)
We arrived at the school at the end of the day on Friday, unsure whether or not the teachers would even still be there. We drudged around for a bit and finally found them in the Literacy Center. We walked in, gave them our document, and explained how to read it and where everything was located. Allow me to say that at this exact moment, I knew that all of the hours Shawney and I had spent over this project was made all the worthwhile. These women were nothing but smiles and couldn't stop saying, "Thank you! Thank you!" When we told them that we would bring a CD by next week with recordings of the songs (shout out to Nicole for organizing the production of this!), they nearly lost it. They were so grateful, that they were literally on the verge of tears. Shawney made the perfect statement as we were walking away by saying, "That's it. That's why I came to Thailand this summer!" I couldn't agree more. Hence, my work here is done... but not really.
As far as enjoyment purposes goes, my work here is also done as I have finally done the one thing that I've been wanting to do since signing up to come to Thailand. That's right, I rode an elephant today! Allow me to say that again as I still can't believe it.
I. Rode. An. Elephant. Today.
We took a longtail boat down the river for about two hours before arriving at the Elephant Camp. After getting there, we spent the next 30 minutes in pure bliss as we rode elephants through the town. Seriously, I couldn't stop smiling and I think I told Shawney probably too many times, "Oh my gosh! We're riding an elephant right now!" Our elephant, Mahdaeng, was the 45 year old mother of the elephant family that we were riding. Yes, it was like our group was taking a family of elephants for a walk around the town... or, more accurately, I guess they were taking us for a walk around town. Tell me that's not the cutest thing in the world!
So my work here is done both professionally and personally! I guess I can come home now, but I'm having far too good of a time to just up and leave. Besides, something tells me that my last week and a half of work here will be nothing short of amazing, also. More stories are bound to come in the very near future... and I can't wait to tell them!
No comments:
Post a Comment