First impressions of Sawankhalok

I am now in the process of settling into my new home in Sawankhalok, Sukhothai province. After waiting so long, I'm finally here! Sawankhalok is a small town of about 18,000 people and this region provides 80% of the banana leaves in this country (or at least that's what I was told). There are many places to eat here contrary to the boring description provided by Lonely Planet including the night market "Soi Bead" (Soi 8) which has mouthwatering treats as well as amazing local dishes including the famous Sawankhalok pad thai among others. My host teachers have been great, and I feel so comfortable talking to them. Their favorite hobby is eating, just like me, so we get a long quite well and we snack A LOT. There is a table reserved solely for communal snacks in the office. Anything that is on the table (and fridge) is fair game. There are also a few teachers in the English office who are around my age, and I've hung out with them a lot. I thought I would be lonely here, but I've had dinner or lunch dates almost everyday.

My house is luxurious in contrast to my prior expectations (or lack thereof). There are two bedrooms and the one I sleep in has an air conditioner. The living room downstairs is huge with a fridge, table, and decorations left by my really kind predecessor. There are two bathrooms. The one downstairs smells a bit funky probably due to the lack of ventilation and because it is squeezed in under the stairs. It looks like somewhere Harry Potter would live in if he was at his muggle home. There is also a kitchen, but I don't go in there a lot because it's quite dirty. The place was dusty when I moved in, but I think my feet has done most of the cleaning in the main parts of the house so it's quite clean now.

The house has also been invaded by four giant spiders of which all has been squashed by my shoes. There are also many house geckos and I like them for the most part. There is also a giant tokay gecko outside my front door, and I don't know what to quite make of her. I have been slowly filling my home with necessary supplies from local shops and also Tesco Lotus. My host teacher took me today to a plant shop to get some green things for my small 'yard' as well. I have three pots of jasmine and three pots of orchids so far. I'm planning to visit the pottery store later this week to see if I can get one of those ubiquitous water jars to grow some water lilies and fish outside.

Oh yes, I almost forgot about the teaching part, hah. I teach Matayom 1 and 6 which are equivalent to 7th and 12th grade. It's really fun to teach the two extremes of the classes. My school, Sawan Anan (which means 'endless heaven'), is made up of almost 3,000 students from M1 to M6. I'll talk in more detail about my classes in a later post, but for now, I am loving teaching. It's a challenge everyday, but everything is sanuk sanuk. I am so thankful to be in Sawankhalok.

Lana and I on Bangkok Airways, the 'boutique airline of Thailand'

Sukhothai from the sky

Bangkok airways, notice the propellers

My first friend in Sawankhalok: presenting, Simon the gecko. Simon lives upstairs and scared me the first time when he came into the bathroom while I was taking care of bodily duties. Our relationship got off on a bad start because I threw a bucket of water on him, but we made up and we're good friends now.

My M1 students lining up in the morning; Wednesday is scout day

More students

A cool spider I found in my sink

A random large slug that I found behind my fridge?

Fun at Piboonprachasan School

Today was our last day teaching at Piboonprachasan school as part of our practicum. Piboonprachasan school is a large K-12 school and we learned on the first day that it was set up by a progressive but controversial politician for students who were mostly from lower income families. While most schools rejected students if they had low tests scores (students have to take entrance exams to enter high schools, even public ones), Piboonprachasan was new in that it included students regardless of their results.

Early last week, all the ETAs including myself felt a good amount of anxiety about teaching, because (1) almost all of us have never had a real teaching job, (2) we didn’t know what to expect, and (3) we were afraid this experience would void us from ever teaching us again. We were teaching in pairs for the first few days for 4 hours a day and then for the subsequent days, taught individually for 50 minutes with a break in between.  

Our minds were blown. Well, at least mine and my partner, Caitlin.

The first day was nerve wracking, but Caitlin and I made it through while successfully sticking to our lesson plans and melting much of the ice. There were about 15 students in our class the first day who were a mix from Matayom 1-3 (7-9^th grade). Early on, Caitlin and I realized that the students’ English levels were very low to the point that we were sure they didn’t understand most of our instructions. Thank goodness I had two arms to flail around and use all the hand motions imaginable to human beings to get our instructions across. Once Caitlin and I figured out how to communicate effectively, we had a LOT of fun. We had a theme each day and structured most of our lessons in the form of games. Since the system of rote memorization that had been the norm for the past several decades in Thailand (and Asia) did not have much effect on English fluency, our lecturers emphasized using other methods to get students to speak while having fun. I also realized how much my negative experiences with school in my childhood helped me now to create an atmosphere to make students feel included and loved regardless of their struggles.

The kids warmed up to Caitlin and me pretty quickly. I know that 5 days is really not enough for any real growth to occur, so Caitlin and I tried to focus on the words and sentences the students had likely learned before and had them use those tools in new ways. At the end of every school day, I felt much gratification and happiness from teaching. For the first time in my life, I feel like I have a job where I might actually directly impact people’s lives in a positive way. This was one of the reasons I applied for this Fulbright grant. As much as I love biology, I have gotten a bit disillusioned by the memorization of theories, formulas, and systems that I couldn’t see how I could put to practical use. I wanted to do something real and meaningful for once, and here I am in Thailand. A wise advisor once told me that though English teaching seems like it has nothing to do with my field of study, this experience will change me in ways that will make my life better-rounded and shed much light on my future vocation…a very Ignatian remark.

Today was a fun day specifically for the students because they got a lot of treats while practicing selling and buying things. A fellow ETA, Jamie, came up with the ingenious idea of teaching the kids about Trick or treating and having them go to the different classes the ETAs taught in to get candy. The kids had a blast with this, and it also made me remember my childhood trick or treating days. Caitlin and I tried not to think about the possibility that we may never see our students again after today since we are leaving for our actual schools next week. I set up a new email and Facebook account just for student use, and a few of our students have already added us!  I am infinitely grateful to Fulbright Thailand for this experience. Here are photos from the past 5 school days: (Thanks to Caitlin for all the pictures and for her camera that took better photos than mine)

Teaching a lesson on colors and descriptions

Miss K trying out the human knot on the students

Some of the students' awesome drawings from the description class

I had a type of scavenger hunt game using a Skytrain BTS map and the kids really got into it

Market Day: Miss K is making sure everybody is speaking English

Halloween candy

Our amazing class: (Back: Miss K, Fil, Arm, Fha, Wa, May, Nueng, Jal, Pook, Me; Front: Aum, Guide, Eve, and Bens)

In the Jungles of Kanchanaburi

This past weekend, all the Fulbright ETAs were set up to stay with Thai host families. My family treated me with so much kindness and by the end of Sunday, I really felt like I was one of the kids. My host family along with my host father's sister and husband went on a trip to Kanchanaburi province, a highly forested area west of Bangkok. It was about a 1.5 hour drive altogether. I fell asleep sometime during the drive and woke up to vast expanses of green that gently reminded me I wasn't in Bangkok anymore. It was rejuvenating to be among trees again. We visited the Allied War cemetery, the Bridge over River Kwae, and stayed on a resort right on a giant lake/reservoir (Si Nakharin). Here are photos from the trip:

Bridge over River Kwae

Feeding a dog our leftover hot dogs on sticks

My room at the Green Hill River Resort

A friend at breakfast

It brought more friends when I put a glob of condensed milk on the table

With my host mom

Host siblings Dtern and Mink

Thailand family