Oct 2009

There are no words to fully describe the feeling that encompassed me before I walked into a classroom on the other side of the desks for the first time. In the van ride over to our adoptive Bangkok school (who graciously allowed us to practice on their students), we passed through various stages: verbally expressing our nerves, going over worse-case scenarios, lapsing into nervous giggles, and then eventually the silence came as we realized that we are going to be teachers. Within the next 10 minutes, depending on traffic.

Over the past few weeks, we had been given lecture after lecture regarding teaching English in Thailand, some of them more helpful than others. The end. They paired us with the other ETA who will be in our province and assigned us Matayom 4 (about ninth grade) and wished us luck. Go. When I hear what my sister is doing to be certified to teach Pre-K to 3rd graders, I am amazed that they even allow us into a classroom in any capacity, let alone as the principle teacher. Yet Monday found Anna and I standing awkwardly in our most professional outfits (it was very important to feel like a teacher, if nothing else), having written "Teacher Anna" and "Teacher Rachel" on the board, waiting for our class to arrive. Moments later, we were inundated with 25 students—20 of whom were boys—all of whom stood to greet us: "Good morning teacha. How are you?" "I am fine thank you, and you?" "Fine, thank you." "Please sit down." And for the next two hours, we fumbled through what we thought were good lesson plans, reviewing introductions and the vocabulary found therein. Within 30 minutes, we had gone through what was supposed to have taken us an hour and were suddenly faced with the monumentous task of trying to hold the attention of twenty 14 year old males. At the end of our two hour block, all the ETAs gathered in a room to discuss our trial by fire.

I really wish someone would have taken a picture of us at that exact moment. The worry had transformed into exhaustion from the previous two hours and the deer in the headlights look was only compounded by the realization of the daunting task we had ahead of us. That, and most of us were covered in this fine chalk dust that sticks extra well to our sweat soaked skin. Day one, and no casualties.

The week got progressively better—we slowly began to understand what worked, what didn't, and more importantly, how long everything would take. Worksheets, mixed-up sentence lessons, games that teach grammar without mentioning scary words like demonstrative pronouns. Day two was more introductions and descriptions. Then came hobbies. Day three was by far the best day for me—I had them creating sentences in front of the class (check out this photo Marie snuck as she was observing) and then they grouped up and made sentences out of words from an envelope.

This yielded such beauties as "Teacher Rachel is very smart and young" and "Owat is shy and not smart" (which we changed to 'very smart' before putting it up on the board). Today was all Halloween. I stretched my art skills, drawing zombies and mummies and even the verb "eating brains." Take that, every art teacher who ever felt sorry for me! Apparently all I need for motivation is no internet, a classroom with no available technology, some markers and computer paper. I was taken aback by the amount of Halloween vocabulary they not only knew, but could recognize from my poorly executed drawings. Before I could even introduce the words, I had cries of "werewolf!" and "skeleton!" But then the most random words would garner nothing more than blank stares, and these were the most unexpected of words. I came into class today prepared to have to mime out what a zombie is, when in fact the most difficult word ended up being "party." Go figure.

The things we took for granted as being understood ended up being the most difficult concepts. The first day, we all shared the awkward experience of not being able to get our students to leave. We tried to tell them class was dismissed in every way we could. We're finished. Class is over. You may leave now. Done. Even a clever miming of "you can all stand up and leave the classroom now" wasn't understood. Finally, literally 5 minutes later, something somewhere was understood and they left the room. Definitely one of the more confusing problems I've faced.

Teaching only in English, while definitely having language acquisition merits, is difficult. Some basic things like asking everyone to form two lines can end up taking 5 full minutes. Today, we managed to get them to form two concentric circles. When we played the music, one circle would walk one direction and the other in the opposite. When the music stopped, they had to whip out their newly created Monster ID cards and introduce themselves to the person in front of them as the 1,330 year old ghost who lives in San Francisco and likes to drink blood and play basketball. Explaining this activity was nothing short of draining. I have found myself looking at activities and writing them off immediately because the instructions would be too difficult to explain. This language barrier should prove to be one of the more intriguing classroom hurdles I'll be facing. Let me just say that the respect I have for teachers, especially those who frequent the immersion method, has jumped exponentially this past week. It should be interesting to see how I will be adjusting to teaching in a technical college after having my training wheels on in an early high school level.

In the afternoons, I did some more sightseeing like things, which will come in a later entry. On Monday, a van comes to pick me up at 4 am and I head out to Ubon to do this for real. Packing is a bit too daunting to imagine at the moment, so phone calls as distractions are definitely welcome! Send me an email, let me know how life is going! This weekend is also the beginning of the Loi Krathong festival—a festival of lights. So whilst you are out trick-or-treating or ghost roasting, I'll be watching an illuminated boat parade down the Chao Phraya River, thinking about packing.

This past week has been just as full as the last (and, fair warning, this entry is full of photos). Monday was Marie's birthday so all of us gussied up and headed out to the sky bar (the State Tower, google it for some photos; I didn't have my camera with me). Perched sixty four floors above the normal dirty and busy Bangkok, we were able to just look out over the city and the river… holding the most expensive gin and tonic I have ever had. This marks the first time that I saw this city as stunningly beautiful. It was definitely a good way to begin the week. Classes. Evenings spent dining and talking. Then yesterday, Kelly, Andy (another Fulbright Researcher) and I went to Ayutthaya. The getting there was quite the process. Kelly and I left the dorm around 8:30 and walked to the skytrain (BTS) and rode till the end of the line. We thought that we would then be able to walk to the bus terminal. We were bit hot, and confused and slightly lost, using our Thai skills to ask random people where was this hidden bus station. Finally, after wading through a collection of vendors, we made it to a bus terminal. Bus stations are normally pretty crazy places—a lot of activity, information, and noise. Hold that thought in your mind and then put everything into a language you cannot understand. There were signs representing 100 different booths on each of three separate floors. Finally some kind man at the information desk pointed us to the ticket booth for the bus to Ayutthaya. Once Andy met us, we bought the tickets, jumped on a bus and for 50 Baht were headed out of the city.

Now, I don't like being incommunicado (incommunicada?). Probably the most frustrating thing about living here for me is the fact that I cannot communicate like I want to, if at all. The overabundance of signs that I could hardly attempt to decipher at the bus station was a disheartening way for me to start this day. This is why when I heard French across the aisle from us, I switched seats to strategically place myself in a better position to eavesdrop, or maybe join in. After an excited 5 minutes of listening to a conversation that I understand, I casually turned and asked the three ladies where they were from. The one who spoke up said that she was from Marseille and threw the question back at me. When I responded with "La Louisiane" I got the sounds that that one aunt makes when she sees you for the first time in 5 years. The woman explained that from my French (all one sentence of it) she had thought I was from France, but that she has heard so many good things about Louisiana. The other two ladies ended up being from Lille (!) so we all chatted on and off for the whole ride… it was such a nice change of pace to have control over the language I was speaking.

Our arrival into Ayutthaya was low key; the bus just pulled on the side of the road and let us off. We were then swarmed by tuktuk drivers in the style of what my mind feels is similar to the seagulls of Finding Nemo going after a crab. We ended up hiring one for the day to see the sights of Ayutthaya. It was a good call as things were pretty spread out.

Everything was beautiful. The weather was slightly overcast, drizzling every now and then, which is almost always preferable to the heat. You kids back in Louisiana and Arkansas might be having all this "gumbo weather" and "kite-flying weather," but here it's like August every day. It is disgustingly warm most of the day, then maybe cools off toward mid afternoon when a thunderstorm breaks through. So the need to pull out an umbrella on occasion is a welcome respite from the heat. Our tuktuk driver would pull out the map and his postcard pictures so we could decide where to go next.

To quote the guide book: "From 1350 to 1767, Ayuthaya was the cultural center of the emerging Thai nation. Throughout Ayuthaya's domination of central Thailand, Asian and Western foreign powers eyed up this strategic city and successive Thai kings had to foil coups and play foreign powers off against one another. But the river defenses were unable to repulse persistent attacks by the Burmese. After two years of war, the capital fell; the royal family fled to Thonburi, near present-day Bangkok, and the Burmese looted the city's architectural and religious treasures" (LP 716).

What we saw ended up being a good number of ruins, Buddha statues, and chedis. Unfortunately, many of the names of the different wats escaped me, but I'll do my best to label what I can.

This is what we saw upon entering… a large wat that has been restored. It was lined with Buddhas and trees.

We climbed to the top, as we did with most things.

We continued wandering around that area for a bit, then headed to Wat Phra Mahathat. There, we wound our way around the mud (which sometimes involved balancing on ruins) to see the Buddha head engulfed in roots.

The ruins themselves were beautiful in their own right and the overcast setting matched the feeling of a sacked city well.

Onward to Phu Khao Thong, a white temple that provided us with a view of the city and the most strenuous climb of the day.

The climbs are always worth the view.

Then we paid a visit to the monument for a King whose name I do not remember but will call the chicken king for the moment. The most common offering for this king is, in fact, roosters. His monument was surrounded by them! Here is Kelly showing off one of the more fabulous versions.

Our driver then suggested we head over to one of the larger reclining Buddhas in area.

I love the faces of the Buddhas. Most of them have this mysteriously knowing smile that is so serene. I love the calming feeling that comes with it. The last stop of the day was to see the largest bronze Buddha.

We then had dinner with our tuktuk driver, carrying on very basic conversations, but conversations in Thai all the same. It felt fantastic to speak with someone and understand their responses. I learned that when he was 10 he moved from Bangkok to Ayutthaya and that he has 3 sons. He taught us some vocabulary, we bought him supper, tipped him well and then caught the bus as it was leaving. Then on the way back to Bangkok.

Saturday was reserved for recuperation and lesson planning. Today is mostly the same. I would love to go out and look at everything that Bangkok has to offer, but I feel like I accomplished a lot travel-wise on Friday and am making it just fine. Plus I have a lot of mental digesting that I would like to do. I had a wonderful talk with a friend of Amanda's family who is here. His stories went from Micronesia, to Russia, to the Caribbean, to his community college; each story seemed to have some hidden insight to my current situation. He suggested neighborhoods to wander and people to contact. His stories are sprinkled around the world, and his contacts seems to come about in the most serendipitous of fashions. So, overall, it was a magnificent conversation over lunch, one that really made me feel like I have a better understanding of being here and being in a very ambiguous state.

So now I am watching Thai soap operas and eating sticky rice and mango. They are both addicting in their own right. The soap operas are surprisingly easy to understand; that being said, they are more entertaining when we have had some gross misunderstanding about the relationship between the characters. And sticky rice (with coconut milk over it) and fresh mango is now my favorite. I'm attempting to catch up on emails and the like and will spend the evening reviewing our lesson. We have no idea of the actual English level of our students or what we'll have available in the classroom. And we've never taught before. These poor guinea pig students.

I have a lot to say and lessons to plan, so this will most likely be broken up into more manageable pieces rather than giving you one lump sum of the past two weekends. Our weeks have been more or less filled with lectures on teaching English and the frustrating and fascinating struggle that is the Thai language (just look up "how to tell time in Thai" and you will gain a greater appreciation for not only the language, but the culture of the people.) Most of the week built up to Friday, the beginning of the homestay.

In Thailand, the idea of host families is not a common concept. TUSEF has arranged this every other year through different organizations, including the rotary club. This year, our gracious hosts were all students at the Pakked school in Nonthaburi, just north of Bangkok. We were all matched up with a family, TUSEF waved goodbye at the gates of Chula, and we were in a stranger's hands until Sunday. My host family was awesome. The experience was difficult and humbling, but overall, good. Introductions:

Pi Ahhw was my host mother. She spoke the most English out of everyone, which still wasn't too terribly much, and she could usually understand me alright. She did take Pi Tip's request of speaking Thai all the time pretty seriously. What made this easier was the 15 year old brother, Nong Pi, who spoke maybe five words of English (If this is an exaggeration, it is not much of one, promise.) The fact that the two of them communicated exclusively in Thai made dinner into a tennis match, with me looking back and forth between the two, desperately trying to catch a hold of whatever I could understand out of the fast exchange. Which was next to nothing. But every time that I was able to grab one tiny word, elation! The daughter, Nong Eung (my host sister, through whom the exchange was set up) was at work for most of the time I was there—that night she wasn't due back until midnight. Thanks to the exhaustion that came about as a combination effect from linguistic frustration, cultural confusion and the long week we had at Chula, I ended up going to bed before 9pm. Upon consulting the rest of the 10, turns out we all went to bed at indecently early times. That is, after supper.

The next morning, I met Nong Eung. Her name is probably the most unpronounceable collection of letters that I've yet to run into in Thai and I am positive that the sound does not exist in English, so the Romanization approximation is terrible. Forgive me. If she would have spoke more English, or I more Thai, perhaps I would be able to provide you with an acceptable spelling of her name. Till then, she will continue to be known as Nong Eung, the aspiring fashion designer who worked at a sporting goods store and made me a friendship bracelet, as well as two, hand-made cell phone holders.

The setting: a small house in Nonthaburi, comprised of three main rooms and a bathroom. There were two bedrooms for four people (I was given the kindly kids' bed while they were relegated to a mat on the floor); a bathroom with a bucket shower, a non-flush toilet, and a sink that was not connected to a pipe; and one main open room that served all social purposes. One full wall of this room was made of floor to ceiling screened windows. The other side had a connection to the semi-outdoor kitchen.

After a breakfast of chicken and rice porridge, I was dropped off with another family as both Pi Ahhw and Nong Eung had to work. So started my crazy day of Thai transportation. Nong Fa and her adopted ETAs, Kelly and Erica, said that we were going to head to the island of Korket for some shopping and to see several wats. We met up with Veronica and Pi Lek, her host sibling (who, at 26, is our Pi, where as the others were 18 and younger, making them our Nongs)

Marie, her nong, and me.

Cue walking, bus ride, tuktuk and ferry. Having reached the island Kho Ket, we do a bit of the meandering market, learn how to pray to Buddha and then Pi Lek offers the idea of a boat tour—that was delightful. Being on the water was the calmest feeling I've had since coming to Bangkok. It felt ddly like Louisiana at times. Blame it on the brown water, or the raised houses, or what have you, but I like it.

There were also tons of catfish

but then there'd be things like overly large Buddhas hanging out.

Two hours on a boat tour with stop offs for food and nick nacks. Lunch and wats, you know, the usual.

We then made a valiant attempt to see the grand palace back in Bangkok, only to miss the opening times.
A view of what we missed.

A boat bus, a smaller boat bus, a ferry, and a taxi later, we are at somewhere to eat, back in Bangkok. I'm pretty sure that at this point in time, my frustration had gotten the better of me… but with food in my belly I was a much more pleasant person and more than willing to take the metro, a cab, a bus, a minivan and finally Pi Lek's car to get home.

Once home, though, things were very different—I was back to very little English. Only the second night, after having spent the day doing my best to learn as much Thai as possible, I felt more prepared, prepared to be confused, granted, but prepared all the same. And I began to talk with Pi Ahhw for the next 5 hours. We discussed everything that our limited vocabulary allowed. How I am messy, same as Nong Eung, and how Nong Pi spends all his time on the computer or playing football or other games, same as any little brother in the states. So many things were "same same" between the my two families. Sitting in the one room that served as dining room, living room, and office, on the bench that doubled as a couch and seating for dinner time, we exchanged stories and confusions as old fans provided us with their background noise.

I received gifts, mostly random beer paraphernalia as the father of the family works for Heineken. I gave out Hendrix-themed items and Tabasco sauce in exchange for a yellow hat with the king's symbol. This family, who did not have what most Americans would consider necessities as far as living situations, was so generous with what they did have. The meals, while simple, were delicious, similar to how the conversion was basic but delightful. At one point, Pi Ahhw explained (I think) that she was nervous about what an American would think of her house and was grateful that I was paired with her. She was really relieved that their lifestyle did not bother me. This statement, whatever halfway language it was in, was one of the lovelier compliments I have ever received. Even though I did not get to spend the days with them and was kind of pawned off on another family, the generosity and kindness that I did experience was beyond my expectations. Before I was given to another host family again on Sunday, we exchanged contact information and promises to see each other soon.

My new adoptive host family brought us to a mall, which for some reason or another seems to be the pastime of choice for all Thai people. Then came a movie!!! We sat down in this cushy theater and watched previews for about 10 horror films while waiting for the main feature, Bangkok Traffic Love Story, to come on. Check out the preview with subtitles...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHAtiE7sAas

After rising for the King's anthem and montage overlaid in gold, we were treated to a Romantic Comedy that was more than a bit ridiculous at times. But there were English subtitles and it was nice just to sit and relax and let someone else do all the language finagling for me.

As fantastic of a weekend as it was, to be back at Chula was a relief. I have come to realize that I like having certain familiar things around me, more so in a foreign place. To establish myself somewhere is important to me, much more than I ever thought it was. That's partly the reason why I've found these three weeks to be so difficult—come this time next week, I have to be packed and ready to go. Not looking forward to the packing, but ready for the going.

Yesterday morning, I locked my keys in the cabinet. Since we have house keepers, we have locks that pass through the handles of our cabinet doors and as I closed mine yesterday, I had a sinking feeling that my keys were inside. And they were. Had this happened any day before Saturday, I would have completely given up, sat down on the ground and started crying, skipping Thai language class where surely I would never learn enough to explain my current predicament. But instead, I went down to the office, (mostly) calm, and with help from a phrase book and some miming, and the fact that I speak Thai only nid noi (little bit), made myself understood and less than twenty minutes later had my keys in my hand.

By Friday, I was about ready to throw my hands up in the air and let Bangkok know that I officially gave up. Enough of your traffic and millions of people and bajillions of shopping centers, I quit. This plan ran into some trouble as we had been invited to go out Friday night with some other Fulbrighters (this network is crazy!), one from Thailand, two who have just arrived on research grants and Rawi, who has been here for a year or so and took it upon himself to show us around a bit. So we found ourselves following this very tall Thai-speaking Fulbrighter into a club that he kept telling us was very "hi-so." For those of you not in the know, that's what all the cool people call high-society. Clubbing is not really my scene, but it was nice to go out with everyone, see each other in something besides formal wear. In the middle of all this crazy dancing, I look over and see a Thai man trying to get this girl to partner dance with him (is there a more appropriate word for this?). She really wasn't getting it—couldn't follow for the life of her. When he gave up, I put my hand out and proceeded to be twirled around and dipped in all directions, thereby proving to my fellow ETAs that I may not be able to dance in the usual ways, but tell me to follow and I can dance. I'd like to thank all my dance partners over the years (the Feis, Brandon, Joseph, Will) for helping me feel accomplished at something in Thailand. With a pleasant exhaustion over us we made it to bed at around 2 in the morning.

On Saturday, Ben Molini showed up. You may remember him from our escapades in France; he's a friend from Hendrix. As I didn't have a phone, he called and woke my roommate up—the next thing I know she's trying to hand me a train ticket. After I realized that she was not, in fact, an attacker of any sort, I took the ticket and inspected it more closely. From Lille to Paris, good ole SNCF. The ticket that I had bought Ben so he could catch his flight back home. The ticket valued at 40 Euros that we managed to keep as an unsettled debt between us. The ticket that announced his presence. (He does have a flair for stories…)

I rush downstairs and there he is, just hanging out, guitar in hand, hair all gone.

If I were to make a list of the things we did, it wouldn't be too terribly impressive to the outsider, but for me it was monumental. I (finally) found a map, used the skytrain, and after quite the frustration with taxis, we stumbled upon the waterbuses that go down the canal for 10 baht. Ben took the lead as needed, forcing me out of my anxiety about this place. And we wandered a bit. Walked toward something pretty, ate a pomegranate. At one point a random fellow informed us what was closed that day and what we should see instead, drawing his own depiction of the 50 m Buddha on my map. Taking his advice, we turned around again and made it to the Golden Mount 20 minutes before closing.

I knew that there must places that are beautiful somewhere in this city—the problem was that I had only ever seen cars, people, and shopping centers. To finally make it somewhere where I could breathe made things indescribably better.

We met the others for dinner at a Japanese restaurant. I've learned that I am not a fan of sushi, really. Then home. The next day was reserved for finding Lumphini park. Our way there was through the Chulalongkorn campus, where I have my classes and lectures.

The park entrance was announced by a statue of the king, and the contrast of green to city was striking.

We found ourselves a bench and just sat making music a bit out of the city's way. Take that, Bangkok! Ben headed out on Monday as we headed to visit the Ministry of Education. Before he left I bought not only a phone (you can call me using skype if you'd like! email me for the number...), but also laundry detergent, the one with the pretty packaging bearing the picture of a sunflower. Overall: success and accomplishment! Ben managed to give me back the confidence and independence that I usually have in these situations—he has more than repaid that ticket I once bought him. His visit is why I didn't burst into tears yesterday upon the realization of the monumentous task of explaining where they were. It’s why this morning, as I attempted to do laundry in the early hours, when I couldn't figure out how to use the laundry machines, I went up to the cleaning ladies, albeit hesitantly, and tried my very best to ask how to turn the darn thing on.

Sometimes thank yous just don't cut it.

So instead I will leave you with some photos around town (well, nearby town. The part that I recently explored, anyway.) and of the World Balloon Art Challenge that I have been wanting to see since we arrived. And, I'll throw in a few from when we learned a bit of traditional Thai dance to break up six hours of language classes!