School Prayers

I couldn't tell you what this was for exactly, sometime to do with it being a celebration for teachers, praying for and thanking teachers. Whatever it was exactly, there were some stunning flowers and it was all pretty good fun. The whole day had a relaxed (even more then usual) atmosphere about it (although maybe that's because I only had to teach the youngest kindergärtner group for 20 minutes then it was several hours break and class 5 followed by class 6).

So the crowds gathered. The stage had been built. The flowers were ready. The bell started ringing and I was asked to take lots of photo's because the main school camera hadn't been brought for some reason. Luckily I had spare batteries, a fresh memory card and my battery charger.

Then it all began, prayers were said and songs were sung. The first row of kids moved up, handing their offerings and saying their prayers. After four or five more rows, a monk arrived, one I hadn't seen before (we have a fair few monks visit the school, giving morning assemblies and teaching classes). He led some more prayers and talked for a bit before some of the teachers made offerings to him.

There was more singing and the playground began to empty. Normal lessons started up, about half an hour late, but most of the kids actually went around handing out their flowers and making more prayers for individual teachers for the next hour. Over the rest of the morning more photo's were taken and in the afternoon it was very chilled. The kids practiced a play, but it was all cut short and people went inside when it started raining.

The entire album can be found here

And the Vlog will be up this evening

Settling In

At about 1 in the morning I was woken by very sudden, very heavy rain. It quickly turned into a storm that lasted several hours. The thunder never seemed to stop, it just got quieter for a bit, before another massive “boom!” I tried to get back to sleep, I nodded on and off with the storm waking me up each time there was a loud bang for the next three hours.

I was woken at about half nine and was told that I would be meeting one of the directors today. At around midday they decided to take me into the school, but the director never came. I met another teacher there, and stayed with her and Suvanna’s daughters and another student. We went around the area and to the mall.

In the mall we went to the cinema to watch what I thought was going to be a comedy, but it turned out to be some kind of horror film. Really weird, people died and their ghosts would drive others to kill each other and then they would haunt the rest of the villagers. Was very jumpy but not scary.

Prices were so cheap. It’s about 50 Baht to the pound, a ticket cost 30 baht and a combo deal, two large drinks and a large popcorn, cost 55 baht. After the cinema we left the mall and headed back to the neighbourhood. I was told to go to the Wat and get some pictures of the river. Some of them came out really nicely. Then I headed back to the internet cafe to get a hold of some documents and send for some for the schools tomorrow. After a blast online I headed back home, we chilled and watched TV.




Three people live in this house. It’s really small, I really don’t know where everyone sleeps and feel a little bad as they have given me my own room. But it’s Suvanna’s daughter who lives here with her two daughters. I can’t begin to describe how friendly they are. I am writing this blog as we watch TV and they do homework, I’m helping them with their English spelling (I’m probably not the best person for that!!) and I’m going to shower and head to bed soon since it will be a much earlier day tomorrow.

Over the last couple of day’s we’ve been out into the surrounding provinces to looks at schools and rooms. The schools have all be really nice, but the rooms have all had some kind of problem. They are also in really isolated areas. As much as I was fine with the small village last time, this time I want to be near the action, to be able to move around without needed to get someone to drive me, and all the places we’ve looked at have just been like that.

The walkway to one of the rooms

Yesterday evening we headed back to Bangkok and looked at one of the schools nearby, about a 10 minute bus journey away from the suburb I’m staying in now. It was a great school and we had a good talk. They offered me a job there and then, and I said I’d love to but first I need to check for a room.


Side note: For those who don't know I've started filming vlogs, my first two are up and I'm working on the next couple. I won't be putting updates on this when they go up, but you can subscribe to my channel here;
http://www.youtube.com/user/CorduroyO8

Build up to New Year

So in the week between the Christmas and New Year weekends there was a lot of teaching carols, like Jingle Bells. I was also invited out with various people for various things across the 4 day holiday that was coming up. So I spent the week trying to work out what I was doing with who and one what days/night. I wanted to share a collection of some of my favourite pictures of the kids in that week.