Life outside of school

Although most of the day is consumed by school I'm trying to do something new every day outside of school that helps me get a little more settled or knowledgable about my new life in Thailand. The week days are often exhausting and I'm so tempted to take a long nap as soon as I get home (which sometimes I do..) A normal week day doesn't involve anything too exciting, especially because it's been storming most evenings, but I have managed to get down somewhat of a small routine. 

School finishes at 3:30 each afternoon and Emily and I stand near the gates to greet parents and say goodbye to our students. We're home by 4 each day and take a quick shower to rinse off the day. Our school has many windows and fans, but it's no competition for the days that quickly soar into the 90s and a shower is greatly needed before doing anything productive. Because we don't have a kitchen we always go out to eat. Sometimes we'll just dash across the street to the market, bringing stuff home to eat in our room. Other nights we make a trek to the mall which is about 10 miles north of us. We hop into a song taew (the trucks mentioned in a previous post) and arrive at the mall within 20 minutes. Although I'm doing my best to adjust to this crazy asian culture it's kind of a breath of fresh air to have the mall nearby. There are some decent restaurants inside where we can find american food (salads, pasta, pizza) and there's also a great food court that offers a wide variety of Thai foods. It's nice to be able to find everything we need all in one place, and it's also a joy to be inside air conditioning. Even at the mall we still stand out and many people have asked if we're teachers; it seems that tourists just never make it to this area, so it's the only logical reason that we would be here. 

The clouds as seen from Koh Lan Island

Ferry ride home from Koh Lan Island

Our weekends have allowed for more free time and exploration. Last weekend the 5 AYC teachers in the area took a trip out to Koh Lan Island, which is a 25 minute ferry ride off the coast of Pattaya. A lot of the water near the mainland is polluted and filled with fishing boats, but the beaches and water around the islands is pristine and clean. It was a surprisingly chilly day (by Thai standards) and rather overcast, so we didn't swim, but we still enjoyed our day wandering around the beaches, eating fresh fruit and doing some shopping. The islands are the stereotypical views that most people conjure up when they think of Thailand: small stalls selling coconuts, shops selling beach gear and everyone walking around in bathing suits and hats. I love that some of these islands are so close to us and I look forward to returning soon.

I couldn't resist a picture with Ronald doing the typical Thai greeting of a "wai"

Our school provides all of the teachers with free lunch each day which has given me the opportunity to try countless new foods over the last two weeks. The majority of Thai foods are spicy enough to turn my face red which is always a source of amusement for the other teachers. We're often told "this isn't spicy for us, so it's kind of spicy for you, don't take too much!" Most teachers can't translate the foods into English, so I'm never fully sure what we're eating but each day there's always one or two things that fills me up.

Observations

- Whenever we go to a restaurant the waitress hands us the menus and then stands at our table until we're ready to order. At first this stressed me out because I felt pressured to pick a dish quickly, but now I'm able to ignore them until I'm actually ready.

- "Restaurant" is a lose term for where we often eat in Thailand. It's usually just a small outdoor or three-walled hut type thing with a handful of tables and a tiny kitchen, sometimes just a hot plate and mini fridge. The food is often made one dish at a time and comes out whenever it's ready. That being said, I've quickly ditched the habit of waiting to eat until the whole table is served. Here, you eat whenever your food comes out because it could be a full 20 minutes until everyone is served. 

- Practically every store and restaurant I've been to in Thailand has been overstaffed. Because restaurants don't have full kitchens there is really only room for one or two cooks, yet you'll see five people standing behind the counter. A visit to the cellphone 'store' (a corner with a desk) staffed six employees. There was barely enough room to fit a customer into their area. I've been employed for over seven years and every job I've had was a follower of the rule "if they're not necessary, send them home." Money is tight here and I'm very curious about minimum wage/general payment information, because everywhere I go seems they can afford to pay employees to stand around. I'll have to do some scoping and get back to this later! 

- Thais value light skin. Those who are tan have obviously been in the sun a lot, which often means they are working class. The children at school are fascinated by my white skin and countless teachers have called me beautiful because I'm "white, and not ugly tan like Thais." I'd heard of this stereotype before arriving but was somewhat startled with how seriously it's taken. The darker your skin the less you are valued. The popular kids are the lighter kids, and those who are shunned or bullied are almost always darker. Our visit to the beach last weekend also proved this theory strong because the majority of the Thais there were swimming in their clothes. Even on the beach in 90 degree weather the only ones we saw in normal beach attire were foreigners who aren't afraid to get tan. 

First week of teaching

I've been so focused on just surviving in Thailand that I forgot why I'm actually here: to teach. Orientation went through a lot of useful lesson plans, games and ideas to keep our class entertained and out of trouble. However; all of these games and worksheets only work if your class actually has an understanding of English, and mine do not. I will be spending the next five months teaching 3-8 year olds how to speak English, and week one has shown me that this is not an easy task. Most kids have a general understanding of the alphabet and colors, but getting to the next step is harder than I imagined. I was advised by many teachers to not teach more than 3-4 words in a day but I have an entire hour with each class. So I teach them "chair" and they repeat "chair" and then we do it two more times. Okay good, they know chair. 30 seconds have passed, at most a minute. Now what? I walk around the room and point at things and they tell me the name. Quickly the class is losing interest, I went from having 40 kids paying attention to maybe 10 or 15. The other 25-30 are just goofing off in their seats or running around. There are two forms of relief in my day, the first and most obvious is when I'm done teaching and I get to go sit in the teacher's room with my book. The second is when a kind Thai teacher pops into my room to get the kids to quiet down, which buys me about 30-45 seconds of quiet. I'm at a loss. Keeping the attention of 40 kids at one time would be a struggle even if they spoke English, but add in the language barrier and it's 1000x worse. I'm working on some worksheets and coloring activities, but I'm not quite sure if I have access to a printer/copier and it's unclear if the kids have markers or anything with them.

I'm only teaching 3-4 classes a day but I have never been so drained. I spend the majority of my day making tangled small talk with the Thai teachers and then screaming at the top of my lungs during class. To keep the kids quiet and gain respect the teachers use whips and sticks on the children. When I'm having a particularly rough moment a child will run up to me with the stick and start motioning to hit the kids, but that's not something I'm willing to do, so I have to figure out another way to get either respect or fear from my students.
This job is stressful. I've tried playing a few games in the classroom but the kids can't understand my instructions, and they start talking to each other instead of attempting to understand me. They have another english teacher who speaks Thai to them to teach english grammar, spelling and vocabulary, so my job is basically to just speak with them and make sure they're pronouncing their words properly. This is a challenging thing to do with 40 kids at a time. My smaller classes (25-30 kids) are going better but even then it's still something that I was never expecting.
Some of the kids are amazing and adorable, I have children who run up to me yelling "hi teacher!" as soon as I walk into school. The little ones just want to play and be hugged and some of the older kids just like using their english to ask questions or tell me abut their day. I can tell that many of the students are excited to have Emily and I in their school, and I'm hoping that soon enough we'll find our groove and become a little more successful in the classroom.

Our school has around 1,000 students and somewhere around 30 teachers. Many of the other teachers don't speak a word of English, so we haven't gotten to know a huge clump of them, but the ones that do speak a little English have been kind and welcoming. On our first day of teaching one of the teachers took us out to dinner in Pattaya (20 minutes south) and showed us around the area, which was extremely friendly and helpful of her. There is a bit of awkwardness with some of the teachers though. It's known information that foreign English teachers usually make more money than the regular teachers in Thailand. On top of that, they're very forward when it comes to money and I've gotten numerous questions about my rent and salary. Many of the teachers are at school for 12 hours a day, whereas Emily and I are only there for around 8 hours, and only teach half of our time there. It's understandable that there would be some resentment towards us, and I'm doing my best to just smile at the teachers who seem unhappy with our presence. Besides that small glitch everyone else has been extremely welcoming. Parents say hello and smile as they pick up their kids at the end of the day, and people all over town acknowledge us when we enter shops or stroll down the street. 

We had been warned that everyone in town would recognize our presence, but it's startling how true that is. Basically every time I leave the apartment I am approached by a student or parent who want to say hello. It's exhausting to constantly be on guard with a poker face, even when it's raining and I'm hungry just trying to get home, I still have to smile and pretend that everything is dandy because the people walking past me are students or parents. We get stares for buying beers at the corner market on a Tuesday night and get pointed at when we're standing near the road waiting for a song taew. Emily and I are the only two white people in our town and it often feels that we are on display for everybody walking past. It's been a huge adjustment but has also been kind of cool. Tourists don't come to this area of Thailand so even if they don't know us personally, most already know that we're teachers here and often thank us for coming.
It's only been a week but I already know this is going to be an extremely challenging and humbling experience. This week I hope to gain access to the copier in our school so I can make some worksheets that'll allow the students time to talk during class while staying on task. I'm also hoping to be a little less exhausted at the end of our day so we can use the afternoons and evenings to explore some of the streets near our school and apartment.

Bangkok --> Chonburi

Our time in Bangkok flew by, and all of a sudden it was time to pack our bags yet again and say goodbye to our new friends as we all took off in separate buses to spread throughout Thailand. I'm extremely grateful that we had this time at orientation to get to know the other AYC people, I already feel like I have a huge support system ready to help me out. Emily and I both headed to Chonburi, along with another AYC girl, and then there were two older AYC teachers stationed in this same area ready to meet us when we arrived! So all together there are five of us within about 30 minutes of each other, three who are new, lost, and confused; and two who have been here since April and actually know what they're doing! In my daily life I'll just be seeing Emily, as we're living together and teaching at the same school. But during weekends we'll easily catch up with the other three in this area.

Sunset from our last night in Bangkok 

Our technical location is Chonburi (still conflicted if that's one or two words), but in reality we're much closer to Pattaya, so it seems that's where we'll be spending more of our time. Our first full day here we headed into Pattaya with all 5 AYC people and set out to explore the area. Pattaya is only about 10 miles away and easily accessible if you know what you're doing. Thanks to the older AYC teachers we simply hopped onto a song taew and headed towards the beach. A song taew is a strategically colored truck with a cage type thing over the back that houses all of the passengers. Each colored truck has a different route, and as far as I can tell you just learn that through trial and error. Thanks to the older AYC teachers they knew which truck to hop into and we were off to Pattaya. Song taews are great because they have no set stops, you just flag one down if you want to hop on, and once you're inside you just hit a buzzer and they stop immediately so you can hop out. A 25 minute ride to Pattaya cost a total of 20 baht, which is about 60 cents. I have now found my new favorite form of transportation. 

Song Taew

Thailand continues to surprise and startle me in new ways each day. Pattaya reminded me a bit of Key West, Florida. A party city situated right on the ocean with open-walled restaurants and bars luring customers in with the promise of cold drinks and AC. But of course there's an Asian flair to this city; motorcycles flying past, song taews honking in the streets and food vendors lining the sidewalks selling every bizarre food you could think of.
It's still a hard adjustment for me. Thailand is not as clean or nice as I have been conditioned to be comfortable around. Most streets have some sort of smell to them, there are stray dogs everywhere you turn, the normal place to eat is food stands or small open-air restaurants, but I would run away from anything looking like that in the states. This experience has pushed me very far outside of my comfort zone, and it hasn't even been two weeks. I love my western amenities; I like normal toilets that provide toilet paper and soap, I like food places that actually look like clean and healthy places to eat, I like coffee shops. I am constantly questioning myself and my surroundings as I slowly try new foods and go one block further than I've previously been before. I can't stop myself from thinking "this would never happen in the states", but I'm trying very hard to get that thought out of my mind, because of course I'm not in the states. The culture shock of Thailand has blown me away, but each day I learn a little more and am one step further ahead from where I started.

Pattaya Beach

The beaches in Pattaya are not very clean and there are a lot of fishing boats off the coast that pollute the water, so it's not the best place to be swimming. However, off the coast is an island that is rumored to have the pristine white beaches that everyone pictures when they think of Thailand. This coming weekend we're hoping to take a 30 minute ferry ride to check out the island and beaches. 

Home Sweet Home

AYC usually sends teachers to the same areas, so our new school has already hosted AYC teachers. As a result of that, the teachers usually stay in the same apartments each year. We have the option to find our own living, but I chose the easy way out and decided to sign where the previous teachers lived. Our new apartment is right around the corner from our school and located just off of a main street in Chonburi. We are walking distance to 7-Eleven (a staple in Thailand), numerous markets and restaurants. We can also easily catch a song taew from our corner which can take us south to Pattaya or north to the mall. The street itself is four lanes each way but thankfully we have a pedestrian bridge to make crossing the street a breeze. 

Our pedestrian bridge, decorated with Thai colors and the Thai royal family

Our apartment is very basic for American standards and has taken a bit of time for adjustment. It's not common to have any sort of kitchen amenities in an apartment because most people prefer to eat out (especially because it's so cheap to do so). I know some other AYC people were able to get apartments with a fridge, but we didn't even get that luxury. For me it's a bit of an inconvenience; I'm a big believer in breakfast and was really hoping to have at least a fridge to hold some milk for my cereal each morning. I quickly got rid of that thought and have learned the art of eating out instead. Emily and I will be living together which is great for many reasons, including the fact that we share rent. The grand total comes out to $112 USD a month, which means we're each only paying $56. It constantly amazes me how inexpensive Thailand is. We'll also be paying a water and electricity bill each month, and even with AC blasting all evening long it shouldn't come out to more that $60-70 total. 

Who needs a shower curtain when you can just
 get the whole bathroom wet, right?

As you can see, our apartment is extremely basic. We have a small table, a wardrobe cabinet and a bed. No complaints though! Our bed is a massive king size, we have functioning AC and we also have a front and back balcony. We've managed to make it a little more homey after the first few days with a trip to the mall. We sadly learned that Thai bed sheet sets don't come with an actual blanket, so we went a few days using towels to keep us cozy until we had time for the mall. Today we bought actual blankets, some more hangers, and an electric kettle for coffee.
As weird as it might sound, although I love to travel I'm a huge home body. I don't want to invest a ton of money into a temporary home, but I'm hoping to make a few more purchases to add a little bit of color and life to our new apartment. And as you can see, we have a huge bed and plenty of floor space, so visitors are always welcome!