School Days

We’ve made it to the school where we will be teaching English. We got a bit of a surprise when we arrived because the school was not where we thought it would be. We were told that the school was in Bueng Sam Pham in Phetchabun province. Since we couldn’t find Bueng Sam Pham on any of the maps of Thailand that we had, we just marked Phetchabun as our destination. Bueng Sam Pham is a small town and to get there we had to go to Chaiyaphum first. We stayed overnight on January 9 with a very nice family in Chaiyaphum (their daughter and son-in-law are the founders of VolunThai). The next morning we were on a bus to Bueng Sam Pham through the mountains on some winding roads. It was an interesting ride. They drove with the bus door open and many times the person that collected the bus tickets was on a jump seat right in the doorway. There was one time when the bus had to serve and we wondered if the poor guy was going to fall out the door! There were also several stops and a couple of times the bus really didn’t come to a full stop. The new passenger just ran along with the bus and then jumped on!

The surprise came when we arrived in Bueng Sam Pham and met Tang and To. They are two teachers from our school and the surprise was that the school is not in Bueng Sam Pham but in a village 20 minutes away. If Bueng Sam Pham is hard to find on a map than this village will be impossible to find on a map! The school’s name is Wangpikun Pittayokon which is also the name of the village. This small village is a very nice farming community and we have felt very welcome here. In fact the picture is Karl standing next to a sign at the school that says “Welcome”.

We are staying in a small house on the school property so it is very easy to get to school on time. We share the house with two other teachers and it is one of several houses that the school has for teachers. We are very well taken care of as the other teachers make sure that we get lunch and dinner. We are on our own for breakfast but they stocked us up on soy milk and the Thai version of Ramen noodles!

On January 11, there was a parent-teacher conference at the school and we were introduced to the parents. The following day we were asked to say a few things to the students at the morning flag raising ceremony. That was interesting, I was supposed to speak in English which isn’t a problem but I had to keep what I said simple and speak slowly. That was the challenge for me. I survived and Karl translated so if they didn’t get it in English they got it in Thai. Karl said a few things and then we were glad to be out of the spotlight. In the picture, you can see the principle of the school, Chira Thatsanasiri, is standing with us.

Today we are in Chaing Mai for a weekend visit. One of our house mates Tun is completing her Master’s degree at the university here and has class on the weekend. We came along for the ride and hope to go to the “World Flower Festival”. There should be some beautiful flowers there and we expect to share a picture or two on our next post. On the ride here, we stopped at Tun’s parents’ house for dinner. They have a lovely home and in addition to Tun’s parents we got to meet her sister, their two dogs and two cats. This picture is of Tun and her puppy also called Tun. The puppy is blind in both eyes but gets along quite well. He was very happy to see Tun and would run to her when she called. He didn’t recognize our voices so he just barked whenever he heard us talking.

We start teaching on Monday and will be taking some pictures of our students to share. We aren’t sure when our next post will be; the internet connection at the school is currently down.