Straws & Spoons

I’ve taught my last day of 4th grade at Watmethang Karawas, I’ve said my goodbyes to teachers & students, my room is packed into suitcases, and I’m leaving the sweet city of Phrae in just a few short hours. As my time here in Thailand comes to a close, I can’t help but to suddenly remember all the things I never want to forget. 

Forget-me-not Cultural Events: 

• That time we went to the Yi Ping Lantern Festival in Chiang Mai and saw thousands of lanterns float into the night sky, creating a man-made milky way 
• Being in a parade in full-on Thai apparel through the streets of Phrae for Loi Krathong  
• Running into Nongnoot, a teacher from the school, outside her house and having her take us to her mother-in-laws house, and then leaving with Thai hair-clips from her sister-in-law
• Witnessing a monk’s cremation, dangerous fireworks show and all 
• Having dinner with our middle-aged neighbor who spoke no English, and us no Thai (a lot of whiskey was consumed that night) 
• Overseeing the production of Cinderella by our 4th & 5th graders who are off to perform it in Malaysia (“The prince is giving a barrr” and “Imporrsible” were my fav songs) 
• The goodbye ceremony put on for us Foreign English Teachers during which our students gave us countless roses, gifts, and hugs 

Forget-me-not Cultural Tidbits:

• The numerous rides in the back of pickup trucks (a normal form of transportation)
• How absolutely every meal comes with a spoon and every drink a straw (even if both items are purchased at a convenience store)
• The 7/11s up and down every single street and alley 
• The ease of buying meals from street vendors 
• How every restaurant is simply the front portion of someone’s house 
• The phrases “Up to you,” and “Where you go?” 

Forget-me-not People: 

• Towns people
• The immense generosity, friendliness, willingness to accept, and genuine care that comes from Thai people is something I will always remember and attempt to incorporate into my daily life back in America
• Students 
• Even though they drove me nuts, my students will forever hold a special place in my heart for having taught me patience, language learning compassion, and the ability to game like nobody’s business 
• Friends 
• As always, before this experience, I never expected that the people in the coming phase of my life would have had such a grand impact on me, but they did just that. I didn’t even know there would be five other English teachers living with me, and once I found out, frankly, I was a little overwhelmed. But as time went on I grew to learn life with only them. We taught together, ate together, traveled together, and really shared life together for five months. It turned out to be the best, most intense community I’ve ever been blessed to live with. 

To sum it all up: thank you, Thailand. 

Now it’s off to Vietnam & Laos for a month, then back to Thailand for the Songkran festival, then to reenter the Western World in Spain with Wendy before going back to America on April 30th. Here’s to the next adventure! 

Wai Not?

Thailand is a very respectful country. The most common way of showing respect is by wai-ing to one another. “Wai” is when you bow slightly to someone with your hands pressed together in front of you (like praying hands, but the height at which you hold them denotes differing levels of respect, so your hands are held higher for figures such as monks, The King, and Buddha). At school, all the teachers wai to one another out of mutual respect, and our students wai to us to show respect for their elders. While wai-ing is a kind gesture, it’s also something of a cultural requirement, so Thai people go to extreme lengths to make sure they get their respectable wai in, this results in hilarious varying kinds of wais. For example: 

The One-Handed Wai:

Often times around campus teachers will be carrying papers or coffee or something with one hand, but then they see another teacher they haven’t yet seen that day, so they’re required to wai. In this scenario, they just lift the one free hand and pretend the other one is there, like an invisible place holder. 

The Umbrella Wai:

The other day it was pouring down rain in the morning, so everyone was clutching tight to their umbrellas. This did not hinder the immense number of morning wais. Teachers either opted to do a one handed wai, or they struggled to balance an umbrella between their respectful gesturing hands.  

The Driving Wai: 

A lot of the teachers drive to school in the morning and park on campus. In order to get to the parking lot, they must drive through the gate where all the students walk and where two teachers stand for gate duty. Despite the need to navigate through the narrow gate area & avoid hitting students, the driving teachers always manage to take their hansd off of the steering wheel and wai. Dangerous? Yes. Culturally unavoidable? Also yes. 

The My-Hands-Are-Full-Of-Heavy-Things Wai: 

Even when teachers’ hands are full of boxes, papers, storage containers, small children, what have you, they still feel the need to wai...sort of. This is the laziest of all wais. It’s more of a head bob and shoulder shrug to mimic the other body elements needed to wai, minus the actual hand motion. 

The Group Wai: 

This particular wai happens to me a lot. I often climb the multiple levels of stairs in order to get to my 4/5, 4/6, and 4/7 classes six times a week. On each level, there are teachers’ desks. And, of course, I must wai each and every one of the teachers occupying the desks. On the very top level, there are several teachers who are constantly eating a large spread of food. This naturally attracts more teachers to the area. When I approach that level, I adjust my papers & pens and get my hands in optimal wai-ing position for a big group wai. This consists of me wai-ing and holding it for the duration of my walk through the eating area. As I hold one constant wai, the women each wai me and utter a low moaning sound until I pass. It’s a good time for everyone. 

Sometimes when I approach campus in the morning and think of all the wai-ing that’s about to occur it seems scarily daunting. Then I think I’ll only be a teacher in Thailand once in my life, so wai not? 

Happy Walentine’s Day!

The morning of Thursday, February 14th my fellow teachers and I rolled up to school ready to start the day like any other. We had a little extra love in our hearts because, after all, it was Valentine’s Day (or as our students mispronounce it, Walentine’s Day). We hadn’t, however, prepared anything special for the morning assembly. But that didn’t stop the Thai teachers from forcing us to all stand in front of the entire school while dancing to some contemporary English love song. Twice. 

Then they told us to call students up on stage and ask them questions about the history of Valentine’s Day, which had just been read to them...in Thai. Sadly none of us knew the history of V-Day (Although one of my classes asked me and I made up something I vaguely remembered about Saint Valentine helping people in jail write love letters. Teacher fail.) Instead we asked them the most general questions even semi-related to Valentine’s Day in the simplest English possible. It was torture attempting to get the first student to volunteer to come answer an English question in front of all their peers, but after the first student answered the question correctly, didn’t die, and received candy, then the rest of their little hands shot up eagerly. 

We struggled to come up with questions easy enough for all these kids because there’s this secret agreement going on between the students and ourselves. The agreement: the foreign English teachers will pretend to teach English if the students will pretend to learn it, but really we’re all just playing games all the time. The other teachers and administrators don’t know this secret and have much more faith in the students and our teaching abilities than is accurate. So our impromptu, semi-relevant, simple English questions were as follows: 

• What holiday is today? (the word holiday tripped that student up) 
• On Valentine’s Day, what is your favorite color? (that question was used multiple times and one time a student said purple, we were going for red & pink, but whatever, candy for everyone)
• Valentine’s Day is a day about...? (I asked this question to my 4th grader whom I’d taught that to the day prior, but as he looked at me confused I held up my hands in a heart shape to which he yelled “HEARTS!” I was hoping for love but close enough) 

It was a morning of ridiculousness, and pictures of course, but the rest of the day only got better. We all received Valentine’s and roses throughout the day as well as dozens of stickers smacked onto our chests by tiny children. All in all it was an a-okay V-Day.

Unexpected Education: Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge Experience

Hey everyone. Something happened in our world’s recent history that you most likely don’t know about. I certainly didn’t. Many of my travel companions didn’t. My parents who were alive when this history was a present weren’t entirely aware of it. This looming it I’m speaking of is the Cambodian Khmer Rouge genocide of the late 1970’s. 

Before traveling to Cambodia last week, my friends and I cracked open our Lonely Planets and checked out which cities were big-ticket items in our neighbor to the east. Phnom Penh, the capital city, was of course listed. It claimed to be full of historical museums documenting the Khmer Rouge events that occurred in the city thirty-some years ago. I glanced over the descriptions of the events and skipped right to where to eat & sleep in the city. Some of my travel buddies read up on the Khmer Rouge and even watched a documentary the night before leaving. I opened the wikipedia page but quickly clicked over to Facebook instead, and I passed on watching the documentary as well. Describing me as ignorant doesn’t even scratch the surface. 

Once we got to Phnom Penh, we booked a day of Khmer Rouge historical activities. We went to Tuol Sleng (a former high school turned secret torture center) and The Killing Fields (the actual fields on the outskirts of town where millions were taken to be brutally murdered). Confused? So was I. Let me back up a bit. 

The Khmer Rouge was a Communist Party formed by men in the late 60’s who idolized and lusted after the idea of a completely self-sufficient agricultural society. The KR leaders wanted to purify the existing society and saw anyone who wasn’t on board as a threat to their idyllic future. These alleged “threats” included educated people, industrious people, anyone who associated with foreigners, and, most tragically, any of the listed people’s children. The reasoning behind eliminating these people and their families, children included, was that if anyone was left after the mass extermination they could grow to seek revenge upon the Khmer Rouge. KR leader Pol Pot felt it was better to sacrifice an innocent by accident than to spare an enemy by accident. 

Between the years of 1975-1979, The Khmer Rouge took people from their home villages, interrogated them in places such as Tuol Sleng, aka S-21, accused them of crimes of treason they’d never committed, tortured them until they admitted such fabrications, and then sent them to The Killing Fields where they fell victim to mass execution. The KR felt bullets were too valuable to be wasted on these mass murders, so instead they ordered their soldiers to kill the victims with anything possible--gardening utensils, sheer beatings, palm branches, anything available in the fields. One of the most horrific additions to the death toll was babies. There is a tree among The Killing Fields where Khmer Rouge soldiers would take babies by their feet and smash their heads into the trunk of the tree. 

Gut-wrenching brutalities such as this occurred for four years in near secrecy. At the time, the Khmer Rouge was recognized by the United Nations as a legitimate political party of Cambodia with the simple purpose of re-educating their nation; the UN even gave the KR money to support its efforts. Finally on January 7, 1979 the Vietnamese army ousted the Khmer Rouge and put an end to all genocidal activity. Many KR leaders fled the country in attempts to avoid punishment--and they nearly succeeded. Pol Pot, a main KR leader, died at age 86 on house arrest after living to see his grandchildren born and raised. Another former KR leader with the alias of Duch has since admitted to his hate crimes, but admits to them in such a way as if he were Frankenstein--creating a monster that grew beyond his control. Duch and other former Khmer Rouge leaders are still on trial for their crimes. 

One of the hardest things to hear during an audio tour amongst The Killing Fields was a concluding statement about the reasoning for turning the fields into a museum. The voice through the speakers described the urgency for education on the Khmer Rouge genocide, the need to spread this museum to future generations, because such atrocities have happened and keep happening in our world. He described how no one ever thinks it will happen to their country. Then he listed the previous genocides of humanity’s history: Germany with the Nazis, Russia with Stalin, and...The United States. I had forgotten how our country started. I’d never thought of the discovery of the Americas as a genocide upon the Native Americans. Apparently you never think genocide will happen to your country and occasionally you (or just me) fail to acknowledge that it has already happened. 

Bracelets and a plumeria offered at a mass grave in The Killing Fields

Cambodia was an eye-opening experience for me. In the middle of the audio tour in The Killing Fields, the headset tour guide spoke the word ‘ignorance’ in his accented way which emphasized it as ‘ignore-ance’. Despite ‘ignore’ being the root of the word, and me having a degree in English & Linguistics, I’d never thought of it that way. But that’s exactly what’d I’d been doing with the Khmer Rouge--ignoring it. So please, don’t follow in my footsteps of ignorance, but rather take it upon yourself to read the wikipedia pages you open, listen to your history educators, and go beyond the classroom. You’d be surprised what secrets the world’s been keeping. 

More info: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

http://www.cambodiatribunal.org

http://www.yale.edu/cgp/

The End. (..of my 366 album)

A year ago I started a little project. I set out to take one picture a day for an entire year. The year happened to be a leap year, so my final product would result in 366 photos. On January 30th, 2012 I began this endeavor with a picture of a street near my home in Independence, Oregon where I was living with three friends and worked part time in a daycare. On January 29th, 2013 I took my 366th photo at Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia while on vacation from teaching English in Thailand. 

It’s crazy to see how far you can go in just one year. A year ago I had no idea that the following year I would be in Cambodia. It wasn’t even on my radar. In fact, if someone had told me I’d end this photo journey in Cambodia and I was in Southeast Asia because I was a teacher there, I would have outwardly laughed at them and been sure they’d confused me for a more adventurous individual. But that’s where I’ve ended up. 

And in between I documented so many other unpredictable moments: Chelsea and I road-tripped to Idaho to see Kelly Clarkson in concert (shortly before I followed Chels to the other side of the world), I traveled to Scotland & Ireland with my dear friend Wendy, I contracted the stomach flu from my daycare children multiple times, I witnessed three beautiful weddings, I captured the beginning moments of blossoming love, I celebrated life of those passed on as well as life brought into this world, I saw Mumford & Sons in one of the best concerts of my life, I completed two organized races (despite considering myself to not be a runner), I drank & documented more cups of coffee than can be healthy for any one person, I said goodbye to old friends before greeting new ones, I moved home before moving across the globe, I became a teacher...in Thailand, I have traveled more than I ever thought I would, and I’ve experience more unique moments than I could have ever dreamt. And I must admit, I’m not sure I would’ve remembered or cherished all these moments had it not been for this photo a day project. 

With that said, I encourage everyone to pick up a camera (or your iphone-- shout out to the 4s camera as 75% of my photos were taken on it) and discipline yourself into taking one photo a day for an entire year. You’d be surprised at how much life can occur in 365  (or 366) days.  

P.s. while this is the end of my picture journey, it is not the end of this blog. I shall attempt to keep posting about my real Thai world, so no need to panic you faithful few readers. 

Children’s Day

Saturday, January 12th was Children’s Day in Thailand. So, naturally, Watmethang celebrated it big time on Friday. Initially we were told we would have to teach during the morning and then our afternoon classes would be canceled for Children’s Day activities. It slowly became apparent that none of our normal Friday routines would be occurring. 

The day started off with the usual morning assembly, which then led into the unusual visiting of a slew of monks. About ten monks came to our campus, draped in their fabrics of orange, in order to bless the children with chants and in return receive offerings from the kids. So instead of teaching my first period, I watched all the students line up and unload bags of snacks and gifts into the bowls of monks. This ritual went well into second period. It was adorable, to say the least, and quite the time killer. 

By the time my next period rolled around, many of the English teachers had already returned to the office with bags of goodies from the students and stories of parties occurring in their classes. To be on the safe side, I planned a lesson anyway and went with supplies in hand to my 4/1 classroom. When I got to the room, the desks were pushed aside, the kids were having a feast on the floor, and everyone was singing along to Thai music videos playing on the oversized TV in their class. The students invited me to sit, gave me a plate of food & a drink, and attempted to get me to sing along. A Thai teacher then came in and rigged a microphone to the setup, turning the room into a Karaoke frenzy. The kids took turns singing their favorite songs in the mic as students from other classes peered in the doorway making for quite the audience. The Thai teacher who brought the microphone--normally a stern woman with a knack for rule following--was singing each song louder than the kids, and when no one would take the mic readily she jumped on it. Though she doesn’t know much English, she was insistent on getting me to sing. She kept telling students in Thai to tell me in English to sing just one song. Sadly, I don’t speak or read Thai nor do I know any of the tunes to the songs. She didn’t believe me and continued to offer the mic anyway. 

After partying it up all morning, the kids went outside for an afternoon of carnival activities. There were booths of darts (with actual darts, too dangerous in America, but here it’s ok for elementary schoolers), balloon popping, eating races (This one was gross. Kids had to stuff their mouths with powdery sweets, run to a dish, splash water on their faces, eat more food, and then run again. I thought everyone was going to barf.), ring toss, “Thai golf” (students had to tie an elongated gourd of some sort to their waists and then thrust at a ball until they got it across a line, it was a really phallic game that only boys wanted to play), and of course a singing competition. At the singing competition, it was mostly students singing snip-its of songs in Thai and teachers dancing off to the side. But, at the very end of the day, an itsy bitsy boy shyly took the stage, whispered something to the temporary DJ, held the mic with two tinny hands, and started belting out the 70’s hit “I Will Survive.” And he was GOOD. Granted, he probably didn’t know what he was saying. Regardless, the crowd went wild and all of us English teachers couldn’t help but to sing along. After that success, more students emerged with their best versions of English songs. One humorously jolly 5th grade boy even busted out “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. Turns out Thai ladyboys make for excellent Celine Dion impersonators. 

Once the day was done, the kids came away with armfuls of carnival prizes and us teachers came away with bags of Thai snacks. The extravaganza may have been more exhausting than a normal day of teaching, but it was also 100x more entertaining. 

Christmas at Watmethang Karawas

Christmas is usually such a beautiful, blissful time of year. The weather turns to a state  requiring boots & scarves, the lights comes out on houses at night, people grow friendlier each day as the certain vacation time approaches, and general merriment fills the air. 

Turns out that state of bliss is a cultural thing, not a global thing. 

In Thailand, as Christmas approached, the weather stayed hot enough for me to sweat through all my clothing, there aren’t really houses to put lights on, and the teachers surrounding me grew more and more anxious as the days until Christmas dwindled. You see, as teachers from English speaking countries, we were required to take on the task of presenting Christmas to a school of Buddhist Thai children. 

Initially, we were told we would not have to teach classes on December 25th. That moment of relief was quickly replaced by stress as the next sentence was, “Instead you will put on a day of Christmas activities for all the grades.” In true Thai fashion, we all put off planning the day until the week before. The result: a Christmas carnival of chaos. 

Before the chaos, on Christmas Eve, I received a very special present; my sister Nicki came to Phrae! Nicki was visiting Thailand for 10 days, she would spend three days in my town, and then we’d hop on a bus & a ferry to vacation on the glorious island of Koh Samet for five days. But she really had to earn that vacation before enjoying it. Since I’m such a good sister, and because she’d taught in Thailand before, I roped Nicki into helping out with the Christmas Carnival on Christmas Day. 

The day started with the usual morning assembly, but with the addition of all of us English teachers singing Christmas carols in front of the whole school with the special appearance of Santa Claus (one of the older American English teachers had a Santa suit made for the occasion). Then we split off into our stations at the Christmas Carnival. Nicki & I manned the Santa Sack Races. I came up with the idea for the station...and I’m not too proud to admit it was a total flop. The idea was to have five lines of 24 students, each with a sack (pillow case), and then the student at the front of the line would hop in the bag, run to grab a present (wrapped empty box) about 5 yards away, put the present in their sack, and hop back to pass off the sack to the next student in line. Turns out this is a very dangerous game. Students were tripping left and right, smacking their bodies on the ground, and fighting to continue to complete the race. Nicki pointed out that the students didn’t have the good sense to put their hands out when they fell, rather they held tight to the sacks and let their bellies and knees take the brunt of the fall. It was horrible and hilarious all in one. After a morning of 1st-3rd graders racing their hearts out, the pillow case sacks and empty presents were absolutely destroyed. During lunch, all the English teachers regathered, haggard and beaten, to discuss the morning. Most of us decided we needed a revamp. So for the afternoon of 4th-6th graders, Nicki & I hosted a Christmas carol singing and dancing station, which really just meant we spent the allotted 20 minutes per group splitting the kids up into circles of 10 and then individually explaining the rules. This was also a bust, but it was a great station in terms of crowd control, which counts as a success in my book. 

At the end of Christmas Day at Watmethang Karawas, we were all exhausted. Attempting to teach a Christian holiday to 1555 Buddhist students in a language that is not their own was more than difficult. But somehow, through a Christmas miracle, we managed to survive the day and truly earned our five day beach getaway.

Oh! I completely forgot the best part of this chaotic day. After nearly 6 hours of Christmas Carnival-ing, everyone was tuckered out and even the kids were losing steam. The solution: a school-wide dance party to Gangnam Style. Literally everyone was dancing--students, Thai teachers, English teachers, Nicki--and loving it. It was a redeeming moment in an overall chaotic day.