Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Anyone Speak English?
Well........
First sorry no pics yet. there are computers here at my school but i forgot my usb port at home. so i'll post 'em tommorow
What a few days. I can't believe its only been 2 days since i was in Bangkok pretty much dominating that city, but alas here I am in Wiang Sa. Ok so I guess I have to start from the beginning:
So our last night in Bangkok together, all of us (with some of the old Gappers who are traveling around Thailand now) went to this other area of Bangkok where we hadn't been before. To get there we took our fav. transport Tuk-Tuks!!! We are sooo good at bargining now "MAING PAAAA means too much" and we try to cram at least 6 people in them for the full effect of tuk tuks. We only had to bribe one police officer the whole time there, so we considered our week of tuk-tuks a success.
We found a karaoke bar and basically dominated it for 6 hours. Every karaoke song you can imagine we did. I even worked the bar for a bit - Sangsom and cokes are my specialty. We did S Club 7 Brits vs. Bryan Adams Canadians. I did a sweet Achy Breaky Heart rendition complete with line dancing WHILE i was singing. Don't worry there are pics. My fav. moment was when Maeve (the girl from Tdot) did some shaggy, and damn that girl has a sweet jamacian accent.
The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed to catch our flight to Nan. Miranda and i to get to Wiang Sa, and Nick and Joss to go to Nan (about 20 minutes from our placement) the flight was incredible. tiny airplane - getting on was very......reminded me of that famous nixon pic.....did the wave to bkok.
At the airport we got picked up by a huge group of thai teachers who gave us flowers and gifts and just made a big fuss over us, we of course had no idea what was going on and no one told us anything since WE ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO SPEAK ENGLISH IN OUR TOWN. its redic. we get taken to some gov't office where we meet with tons of people and the tv cameras and newspapers are there, still no one speaking english!
then we get driven around in some teacher's car with all these other teachers and keep stopping at places but no one tells us what to do or whats going on. once they came back with these bags of the most amazing snack. Deep fried bananas. wow. new fav. food ever. anyways about 2 hours later (after visting some monks, a motocycle repair shop, tescos...) we get to the school which is so great. its pretty big. very open concrete structure with windows with those wooden shutters, no glass in this whole place. i'll send pics asap dont worry. had everyoen looking at us and waving. the kids are just about the cutest things ever. i want to pick them up and throw them!!!!!
more driving and listening to thai people speak and we get to our house wich is on this guys property. our house is in the middle of the rice patty with chickesn and roosters and pigs everywhere. lots of frogs and bugs too...... but its incredible. very big for thai standards. concrete with same open layout. tile floors with wood shutters, no glass. we have a bathroom that doubles as a shower. apparently hot water, a tv with only thai channels. its really very basic but much mroe than we could have hoped for. Our neighbors are this big family with some guy named Uncle Jai wh o comes over to fix everything and cook us dinner each night. he's great. sometimes the little baby who's two comes over and just sits looking at us. its all very very random.
some teachers came by to pick us up for dinner....someone birthday? and we got to this amazing restaurant which is like a wooden fram over a rice patty lake. sooooo thailand-in-pictures. right away they pull out the whiskey and water. ew. but we had to be polite so we had a glass.... but yuck. its funny cuz the first thing they told us in traiing was don't drink if you're a lady and esp if you're a teacher......oops.
then the food comes. thai style with alll us eating. so awkward though cuz we didn't know what's polite, for us to eat first, keep eating. leave some....ahhhh such a cringe moment. miranda and i were dead tired but the teachers were partying. and trying out their english on us...we were just not in the mood (and you guys know my not in mood mood) i felt so bad cuz obvisously it was such a status thing for themt o have us at their dinner....but it was just so wet, so many bugs, so tired, so confused, sooo.....ugh.... we just had no centre. no idea what was goign on. Anwyasy then they take us to Tescos to go shopping. so random it was like midnight and we're at tescos. bought some cofffe and stuff, and they bought us some water and whatnot. gave us our spending moeny. 500 baht a week! ballers!!!!!
then this morning we wake up and get our bikes. soooooooooooooooooo funny. we couldn't work the kick stand so ppl had to come help us. then we tried to get on them in our long ankle length skirts and ride down the road to the school. ohmygod two white gilrs riding bikes in this village must have been redic.
so we get to school and there is a huge outdoor assembly going on. everyone in lining up formation looking at us riding up on the dirt road....sooooo cringe. we are ushered to the front where we have to introduce ourselves and talk about how happy we are about thailand and sriwiang sa (the school)
Anyways we just found out that the only teacher who speaks a bit of english is in bangkok right now. so we're so lost, have no idea where/when/what we're supposed to do. I just ate some lunch which they make for us everyday..... I guess i'm going to get used to rice and cabbage soup.
everything is very messy right now - and i'm looking forward to getting a pattern, and just figuring out what the heck is going on here. also excited just to get some rest. Its all a pretty big challenge, but that's what i signed up for right?
First sorry no pics yet. there are computers here at my school but i forgot my usb port at home. so i'll post 'em tommorow
What a few days. I can't believe its only been 2 days since i was in Bangkok pretty much dominating that city, but alas here I am in Wiang Sa. Ok so I guess I have to start from the beginning:
So our last night in Bangkok together, all of us (with some of the old Gappers who are traveling around Thailand now) went to this other area of Bangkok where we hadn't been before. To get there we took our fav. transport Tuk-Tuks!!! We are sooo good at bargining now "MAING PAAAA means too much" and we try to cram at least 6 people in them for the full effect of tuk tuks. We only had to bribe one police officer the whole time there, so we considered our week of tuk-tuks a success.
We found a karaoke bar and basically dominated it for 6 hours. Every karaoke song you can imagine we did. I even worked the bar for a bit - Sangsom and cokes are my specialty. We did S Club 7 Brits vs. Bryan Adams Canadians. I did a sweet Achy Breaky Heart rendition complete with line dancing WHILE i was singing. Don't worry there are pics. My fav. moment was when Maeve (the girl from Tdot) did some shaggy, and damn that girl has a sweet jamacian accent.
The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed to catch our flight to Nan. Miranda and i to get to Wiang Sa, and Nick and Joss to go to Nan (about 20 minutes from our placement) the flight was incredible. tiny airplane - getting on was very......reminded me of that famous nixon pic.....did the wave to bkok.
At the airport we got picked up by a huge group of thai teachers who gave us flowers and gifts and just made a big fuss over us, we of course had no idea what was going on and no one told us anything since WE ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO SPEAK ENGLISH IN OUR TOWN. its redic. we get taken to some gov't office where we meet with tons of people and the tv cameras and newspapers are there, still no one speaking english!
then we get driven around in some teacher's car with all these other teachers and keep stopping at places but no one tells us what to do or whats going on. once they came back with these bags of the most amazing snack. Deep fried bananas. wow. new fav. food ever. anyways about 2 hours later (after visting some monks, a motocycle repair shop, tescos...) we get to the school which is so great. its pretty big. very open concrete structure with windows with those wooden shutters, no glass in this whole place. i'll send pics asap dont worry. had everyoen looking at us and waving. the kids are just about the cutest things ever. i want to pick them up and throw them!!!!!
more driving and listening to thai people speak and we get to our house wich is on this guys property. our house is in the middle of the rice patty with chickesn and roosters and pigs everywhere. lots of frogs and bugs too...... but its incredible. very big for thai standards. concrete with same open layout. tile floors with wood shutters, no glass. we have a bathroom that doubles as a shower. apparently hot water, a tv with only thai channels. its really very basic but much mroe than we could have hoped for. Our neighbors are this big family with some guy named Uncle Jai wh o comes over to fix everything and cook us dinner each night. he's great. sometimes the little baby who's two comes over and just sits looking at us. its all very very random.
some teachers came by to pick us up for dinner....someone birthday? and we got to this amazing restaurant which is like a wooden fram over a rice patty lake. sooooo thailand-in-pictures. right away they pull out the whiskey and water. ew. but we had to be polite so we had a glass.... but yuck. its funny cuz the first thing they told us in traiing was don't drink if you're a lady and esp if you're a teacher......oops.
then the food comes. thai style with alll us eating. so awkward though cuz we didn't know what's polite, for us to eat first, keep eating. leave some....ahhhh such a cringe moment. miranda and i were dead tired but the teachers were partying. and trying out their english on us...we were just not in the mood (and you guys know my not in mood mood) i felt so bad cuz obvisously it was such a status thing for themt o have us at their dinner....but it was just so wet, so many bugs, so tired, so confused, sooo.....ugh.... we just had no centre. no idea what was goign on. Anwyasy then they take us to Tescos to go shopping. so random it was like midnight and we're at tescos. bought some cofffe and stuff, and they bought us some water and whatnot. gave us our spending moeny. 500 baht a week! ballers!!!!!
then this morning we wake up and get our bikes. soooooooooooooooooo funny. we couldn't work the kick stand so ppl had to come help us. then we tried to get on them in our long ankle length skirts and ride down the road to the school. ohmygod two white gilrs riding bikes in this village must have been redic.
so we get to school and there is a huge outdoor assembly going on. everyone in lining up formation looking at us riding up on the dirt road....sooooo cringe. we are ushered to the front where we have to introduce ourselves and talk about how happy we are about thailand and sriwiang sa (the school)
Anyways we just found out that the only teacher who speaks a bit of english is in bangkok right now. so we're so lost, have no idea where/when/what we're supposed to do. I just ate some lunch which they make for us everyday..... I guess i'm going to get used to rice and cabbage soup.
everything is very messy right now - and i'm looking forward to getting a pattern, and just figuring out what the heck is going on here. also excited just to get some rest. Its all a pretty big challenge, but that's what i signed up for right?
# posted by Laura Davies : 12:44 PM
