Monk Visit

I don’t know if the date had any significance, but yesterday a group of monks visited Hang Chat Wittaya School. It was quite an amazing ordeal, and many people from the community joined the students in offering alms. Teachers and students alike lined up around the school with their bags of rice, juice, soymilk, and snacks.

Oh Yeah...Teaching

I realize I don’t post a whole lot about teaching, you know—the main reason I’m here. It definitely has its ups and downs. It is incredibly difficult yet incredibly rewarding. You ride the highs as long as you can because you never know when you’ll hit a wall of frustration and communication breakdown. Believe it or not, it’s totally worth it for me.

Most of my students are at a very low level of English. That might surprise you since they have been taking English classes every year since starting school. There are many reasons for this, some of which I probably don’t even know about. One reason they have such a hard time speaking is that their education doesn’t primarily focus on communication. Most time is spent prepping them for national exams which don’t have a speaking/listening portion. At my school, the other teachers teach grammar and I spend once a week with them working on communication.

Christmas in Thailand

A few days after Thanksgiving, Sara and I headed to Lampang to check out the brand new mall, Central Lampang. We've been in more malls during our seven months in Thailand than we ever were in America, but something was different about this particular visit; the whole place had been taken over by Christmas "cheer". They had a massive decorated Christmas tree, the stores were jammed with decorations and, hardest to swallow, Christmas songs blared through the mall's sound system. Missing out on the "holiday season" and the music that went with it was probably my number two reason for wanting to come to Thailand, so it was difficult to accept their presence here in our home away from home.

We were happy to find out that, for the most part, no one here really knows or cares about Christmas, it is just an excuse to celebrate and spend more money. The exception was at Sara's school. Her students worked for several days decorating the school in anticipation of the holiday, including an honest to Godness manger scene that included a baby Jesus doll that was later found decapitated.

Pai, Pai, Love

The morning after Loy Krathong, with three days left of our vacation, we hopped on a dreaded minibus (van) and headed for one of our last wish-list cities up north, Pai. The road from Chiang Mai to Pai is infamous as the Road of 562 Curves, and Sara and I suffered in the back seat through every single one of them. We crawled up and around the mountains for what seemed like an eternity, several times considering jumping out and hurling ourselves over the cliff to avoid hurling on ourselves.

When we finally arrived and were dropped unceremoniously near downtown Pai, we were dazed, nauseous, and had no idea where our guesthouse was (or where we were dropped). After a little over an hour of wandering, having encountered several helpful people who sent us in the wrong direction entirely, we made it safely to Good Morning Pai, a beautiful place to stay in the foothills of the mountains surrounding the city. (Pro tip: Always ask at least three different people for directions. Many times people won’t admit they don’t know and send you in any particular direction.)We had a nice little bungalow to ourselves at Good Morning Pai, and as far as I know we were the only ones staying at the resort. It was the cleanest place we’ve stayed in Thailand.