Rain Rain... Rain Rain Rain

I am learning what the monsoon season is all about. It has been overcast, windy, and very rainy. Sounds like winter in the Pacific NW… eh? Except it rained, really rained (not just misted) for over 24 hours. Water was gushing down the streets at the school and flowing onto the main road outside. I was getting very restless from being stuck inside, so I decided to go for a run on one of the very rainy mornings… I can’t remember the last time I was so soaked, I mean completely drenched! It was a lucky thing to be out that morning though despite the rain, because I got to hear the mating sound of some of the biggest toads I’ve ever seen! There must have been dozens if not more out in the marshy ditches on the side of the road. And I’m not talking about the mating call, because I could here a few courting croaks by those few toads who hadn’t found a partner yet. I’m talking the hot and heavy synchronized pulsing (of course) sound of toads getting’ down. It’s hard to describe the sound, but I think it was somewhere between the roar of a swarm of bees, the hum of a weed-whacker, and a cow’s moo.

It’s sunny and very humid again though and the monsoon winds and rains seem to come either in short and sudden bursts if it’s coming off the water, or in 3 or 4 day periods if it’s coming from inland. When the winds and rains come through though it gets down to about 70 degrees F, which is down right cold! I never thought I’d say I was cold in 70 degree weather! With overcast weather and cooler temperatures being more frequent has brought the beginning of football (soccer) season here at R35. I’ve been able to get out of work a little early the last few days and practice with the students for a while.

Other updates… I have been teaching several classes on my own because a handful of my co-teachers were away at a conference. It was exciting and exhausting. Working through lesson plans was good for me though and I am learning more about the subtle finesse required for teaching, especially for teaching English to students who speak a language of which you understand very little. I am studying Thai in my free time though and slowly making some progress.

Other news… Ian, my co-worker tried to adopt a street kitten that was in bad shape and bought a bowl that was sturdy and big for his meals at school, which makes sense right… he’s a big guy and almost all the bowls we've seen so far are pretty small. But as soon as we walked into the open air teachers dining lounge for lunch, he was promptly informed that the bowl he was using to eat was the kind that is typically used for scooping water to flush the toilet! He bought it at the store a day earlier, but I’m sure it passed through a few wondering Thai minds that this hungry farang (foreigner) must have been sitting (or squatting, rather) there on the pot looking around, saw this nice big bowl floating in a pool of freshly run water next to him, and grabbed it saying out loud, “perfect, just what I’ve been looking for…”.

As for the kitten, neither the landlord of the bungalows or his dogs, who are normally very sweet, cared much for the cat, so Ian took it to one of the restaurants on the beach that has a resident cat and asked the owners if they would take in another. It was a successful adoption and Ian felt better leaving it in friendly hands instead of just dropping it off back on the city street where he found it.

I spent the weekend working at “English Camp,” a weekend school program created by a few of my co-teachers. This meant I spent Friday night and Saturday singing songs like:

“Hello! How are you?”, “Carrot”, “Chicken white butt,” and some more familiar ones like “Happy and You Know it” and “The Hokey Pokey.” All the students have shorts will the most colorful and wild patterns. It's the popular thing to wear outside of class I guess!

Some choice lyrics from “Carrot”: la la la la la; la la la la la la; Those are carrots for you; to make it’s juice and drink; it’s high in vitamins; don’t think KFC.

And from “Chicken white butt”: chicken white butt; it will be grilled Oh! ; it will be grilled Ah! ; grilled to the left; grilled to the right; very hot, very hot, very hot.

There were also some very competitive games of “Freeze Dance” where you bust a move until the music stops, then freeze. It was a fun opportunity to use some of those skills learned over four years of college dance parties!

Needless to say though, it was time for a massage after such a weekend, so I got my first of what will be many Thai massages.

If you’re interested, here’s an article about transgender bathrooms in a Thai school.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7529227.stm

I have noticed several of the older male bodied students at R35 who subtly wear make up to class, but have not yet had the opportunity to investigate any transgender or third gender issues at this school.

Some other pictures:

My motorbike is actually yellow, the blue one from the last post was borrowed while

mine was being cleaned.

Sea shells by the sea shore.

Abandoned boat on the coast.

The ESL office having dinner at a sweet do it yourself BBQ joint. From left to right: Nate, Mark, Ian, and Lak.

An elephant we saw from the road while cruising around. We stopped thinking it was our first wild elephant spotting, but it unfortunately had a chain on its foot... 0% wild, poor guy.

Me getting in on some of the photo ops with the students.

Some of the students playing around in the vines and trees on the outskirts of the school grounds.

Bang Sak Explorations

Sa-watdii ka!
First, I have one thing to correct from my last post. Upon closer inspection of my guide book I found one paragraph on Bang Sak (even though it’s not in the index). From Lonely Planet: “Pre-tsunami the long, sleepy stretch of sand at Bang Sak had been attracting an ever- growing number of tourists striking north from the more heavily developed resorts of Phuket and nearby Khao Lak. While most areas had recovered from the tsunami by the end of 2006, Bang Sak was still trying to rebuild its tourist infrastructure. Rehabilitation efforts will likely continue well into 2008 (and it seems 2009 as well…). That said, the beach is open for business and the best way to help out the local is to stop over for a night to get the economy rolling again. For the latest on the region’s reconstruction, including details of the hotels that are open, visit www.khaolak-info.net.” I checked to see if the website works… it’s not very exciting but has some useful information about the region and various types of accommodation.
At the end of last week my friend Jeff from college stopped by for a couple of days at the end of his three weeks of traveling around Thailand. He got to relax while I was at school, but we also explored the beach and ate plenty of good Thai food. It was delightful to have a familiar face to visit with and I even got him to go on an early morning (but still very warm) run with me! And in exchange for putting him up for a few days, Jeff rid my bungalow of the giant spider, but of course the day after he left I found another one that I had to deal with myself.
I spent the weekend exploring this place, my new home. I started at the school.

Here are some pictures of what remains of the old school that was destroyed by the tsunami. The I went to the beach, where families were playing in the sand or just lazing together in the shade. These tsunami signs are very common all along the coast.

It has, as far as I can tell been fully rebuilt after the tsunami and is a very pleasant place. There are even some new buildings going up. Check out that construction!
I took a new road away from the beach that wound through a Moken (Sea Gypsy) neighborhood. For more information about the Moken check out this article that a friend sent me…. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2005/04/sea-gypsies/ivanoff-text. Around here most of the houses along the highway are concrete, but on the local roads there are as many wicker houses on pilings as there are concrete structures. And there are usually little glittering houses in front of every structure that are called spirit houses because building on the land disrupts the spirits that live there, so to prevent them from tormenting you, you give them a house to live in. If you expand at all, you need to give the spirits a comperable upgrade too so they don't get jealous.

At the end of a little road I found this large, once beautiful building, that was probably a hotel of some sort. It was an eerie place but magnetic as well. It is located at the end of one of the points here on the Andaman coast with lovely white sand beaches. It’s a strange thing to look at this skeleton of a building from the beach then turn around and look at the stunning water that destroyed it. There were a few smaller buildings with only the foundations left too, which reminded me a lot of the buildings I saw in the 9th ward during the spring break relief trip after Hurricane Katrina.

But just up the road from this place that seems so dead I found these little buddies rooting around. Look Dad- Thai Yorkshires!

I also went on some solo trips to the towns to the north called Bang Muang and Takuapa. There are a few markets in these towns (there are none in Bang Sak…) where I started using some of the Thai I’m learning. In the picture is the lovely couple who sell the best mango sticky rice around! All of these excursions were great opportunities to learn how to ride my new (rented) motor bike!

Mom- please notice the helmet. Yes, I do wear it…all the time actually. Most folks around here just wear their helmets during the period of time during the day when the police are checking.

And in case you were wondering what the inside of a dragon fruit or a mangosteen look like...

Here's a sunset as farwell until next time. Love to you all!

First Days in Thailand

I arrived in Thailand on Sunday, after 27 hours of travel, safe and sound. In case you didn't know, Singapore has given given those moving walkways in airports their proper (and awesome!) name. After the drive from the Phuket airport to Bangsak I started to settle into my new home. Today will be my fifth day in Thailand and so far I am sweaty pretty much all the time but very happy. It is at least 30 degrees C (~80 degree F) with 60%+ humidity everyday despite being “the rainy season.” I looked for Bangsak in my Lonely Planet guide and since the ‘town’ is not in the book, I think it’s safe to say I’m in the-middle-of-no-where Thailand. I think I will like this much better than living in a tourist hot-spot though.

I live right on the main road though, so I will be able to catch the bus to any of the surrounding cities that are on the map such as Krabi, Phangnga, and Phuket. The bungalow that will be my home for at least the next nine months is pretty cozy and my commute to work is about 5 minutes tops.

So far I have spent some time on the beautiful beach across the road from my Bungalow, eaten some delicious but really spicy (the authentic version is much hotter than the Americanized…) Thai food at a local joint, gotten acquainted with the giant spider that lives in my bathroom but only comes out at night, and bought some of the most amazing fruit at a market in a nearby town.

I started teaching classes on Monday as well. An interesting thing about Thai schools is that the students have a classroom by grade level and the teachers move from class to class instead of the students. I also found out that I will only rarely be teaching a class on my own. For the majority of my classes I am paired with a Thai teacher during the English lessons so that they can explain the difficult things such as grammar rules and I work with the students mostly on pronunciation. I am teaching what would be the equivalent of the 4th, 5th 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. I will also be tutoring older students to improve their reading, writing, and speaking skills. The students are so full of energy, very friendly, and all around hilarious.