When I woke up in the morning, Pen had already made me breakfast and was waiting for me. We ate together and then drove (across the street) to school. I hung out in her office for a little while in the morning while she made some phone calls and collected papers. She handed me off to the primary English teacher named On to go to the student's morning gathering.
The first thing On told me on the way over (after she asked my name and how old I was of course): "I have many foreign boyfriend so I know English good! I no like Thai men. Black skin. I no like black skin, like white skin. Foreign men very sexy, white skin. Do you like black skin or white skin?"
I was still processessing. "Yeah. I like all skin colors," I told her.
She responded laughing at me like I was insane, "Not me! white is much better!"
I caught myself immediatley judging her and tried to keep an open mind. She obviously liked talking about men. "Do you have a boyfriend now?" I asked in a feeble attempt to bond.
"Sort of, not really boyfriend. He likes me alot thought and will come to see me soon I think."
I asked where he was from.
"He live in England. We talk on internet almost every day. He thinks Thai girls sexy!"
I breathed a sigh of relief when we got to the field. All the students stood in lines based on their grade and at attention like they were in the military. They sang the school song and made some announcements in Thai that I couldn't understand, then someone cam eover to me, pulled me over to the microphone, and handed it to me "introduce yourself." I went though the same routine I had already gone through 15 million times making sure to say my age. I'm pretty sure at least 90% of the students had no idea what I was talking about.
On the way to On's classroom where she tuaght first and second grade we passed the playground which looked like it was straight out of a get-your-tetnus-shot commercial. "what do you like to do when you are not teaching?" I asked her trying to avoid contractions. Her English was good but not that good. She kept asking me to repeat things.
"I like to read magazines like Cosmo and watch fashion on Tv and go shopping!" She had just made a list of everything I hated to do. I braced myself and waited for her to ask the same question, the proper reponse. She did.
"umm, well," I tried to pick activities I thought she would know the words for, "I like hiking," She gave me a confused face (bad choice). "walking up mountains." I charaded until she acted like she understood. "Climbing, swimming, reading, writing, and teaching." She looked perplxed when I said teaching as if I had misunderstood the questions. I couldn't possibly ENJOY that could I?
When we got to her classroom, she opened a workbook up and pointed to a page. "Can you teach this page to.... (she flipped forward a few pages).. this page?" Sure. That seemd easy enough. Some direction was greatly appreciated instead of just heading "ok, teach" The page was talking about the days of the week. The lesson was very boring and the students wern't very interested. On stayed in the room the whole time and kept interrupting. She translated a few of the directions. The first graders didn't know any English yet. She was keen on sticking to the worksbook and kept pointing to the page and saying, "you read...." Maybe I liked having no direction better. At least the students were engaged then.
Her second grade class was about the same. This one was one sports with more workbook pages to fill out. They would forget it the next day. I tried to have them stand up and act out the sports but they didn't understand what to do and On said it was better for them to stay seated. I checked their workbook pages to mak sure they were all correct. one little boy had barley done anything. I offered to stay and help him for a little while since we had a break. "Oh don't worry about him," On told me, "he is lazy." I was pretty sure he had Downs syndrome but chose to ignore the comment instead of getting into an argument.
We went back to the teacher's loungue for a short brek where I met up with the secondary English teacher I had worked with the day before. Pinky (yes that's relaly her name) had me administer an exam on numbers to a 9th grade class. The students could spell out numbers over a billion but couldn't converse with me in basic english. Next she had me teach her other 9th grade English class again. This seemed to be the remedial english class. Pinky had given me the workbooks the students were using and this class was supposedly on the 3rd one. I had picked some vocabulary from the first one to review and play a game with. The vocab was on shapes and directions including under, over, next to etc. The teacher had told me the students like art so I tried to incorporate it. After I reviewed all the vocab with them, I had each student draw a simple picture with shapes and a few lines (she would only give each of them 1/2 a piece of paper) and then they had to sit back to back with a partner and describe their picture so their partner could draw it without looking. Though in theory this was supposed to be a review, they had no clue what was going on and the entire activity was a huge failure. I abandoned it quickly with the thought to move onto something simpler. The teacher had stayed this time. and told me " they are not very smart, they don't remember anything." I suggested the simpler directions game I had played successfully with the third graders the day before. "You should teach them some art in english." She said. "They like art."
"ok... what do you mean?" I asked, trying to get an idea of what she was thinking. I thought she was talking about art history or something along those line which would have been hopeless. She clarified. "You will draw a picture on the chalkboard and they will copy it." Okeydokey. No enlighs. no originality. "anything in particular you want me to draw?" I asked. She said, "some cartoons, maybe the tazmanian devil." Instead, I drew, a dragon, a turtle, a pig, and a dinosaur (by request) all of them with speech bubbles saying something in english. Then I had one of the kids come up. A boy that was rather flamboyant, liked to dress as a girl, and I had discovered was very popular with the whole class and loved to be in the spotlight. I had her/him pose for me and drew her portrait. She loved it. The kids were totally into it and copied my cartoons exactly onto their papers. They were very talented but nothing was embellished, alteres or original on any of their drawings.
After lunch there were no more english classes for the rest of the afternoon. There was some sort of boy scout camp going on the next day and the teachers had to prepare for it. On asked me to go shopping with her for supplies for the camp so she could practice her english. Since I didn't have anythign else to do adn no one else coudl talk to me, I agreed to go with her. We went to a huge supercenter- something liek a super walmart, then down the street to the street market vendors. She stopped again on the way back to school and told me to wait in the car. She was gone for about 25 minutes and I tried not to imagine her performing sexual favors for an old foreign man in exchange for drugs or money or makeup. I redirected my scandelous thoughts to daydreaming about nicer things.
We went back to school and as I started to walk home, Pen called out my name. She was heading back too and wanted to go together. Her pleasant prescence was a relief after spending the day with On. i told Pen it seemed that even after many years of learning enlighs, the children didn't know any. She explained to me over about an hour of attempts that the children learned english and chinese in school. Most of them were from hill tribes and had to learn thai as well since the hill tribes spoke an entirely different language. Learning 3 complex and very different languages at he same time woudl stump me too! She said that most of the students were very poor and came here from the hill tribes because they got a scholarship for free schoo. They stayed in the dormitories next to the school because their homes were too far away. She said that the students being poor was the first big problem adn the seocnd was that the school also did not have much money. She said the next time I talked to my mom and dad to ask them to pray for the school adn the students (I think she assumed that I already was). I told her I would try to raise some money when I got back to send tot he school and she told me praying was better. I thought maybe both would be nice. It only takes about $230 to sponsor a student for one year- school fees, books, uniforms, food, dormitory costs, everything. any takers?
Pen and I sat at the table in her kitchen and snaked on oranges and fried sweet potatoes (i think) She went to run errands and I asked if I coudl take a bike for a ride. I had seen a few behind the house. I rode in steadily increasing rain exploring for about an hour. Enjoying the cool drops on my face. I passed many houses and small farms before I decided to go back. Pen and I cooked dinner together Stir fry veggies, soup, and rice. She tuaght me a few Thai words and phrases and quizzed me on them repeatedly, pointing at different foods on the table and body parts. When her husband got home from work, we sat with him while he ate. Pen wen tto go take a shower before she left for evening worship at the church (she didn't think i choudl go since I wouldn't understand... thank god) and left me with he husband who barley spoke any english. I tried to keep a very simple conversation going but gave up after about 15 minutes when he turned on the news and it became clear that he was much more interested in that than talking to me.
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