I'm finally getting into the swing of things at school (apart from the early mornings...that's going to take a while) and my classes are going well. This week, I have been focusing on "introducing yourself" and "describing yourself and your family" - I've been adopting different methods to see what works as every class is different but I'm not starting to get to grips as what classes you can do more advanced tasks with and what classes I need to maybe simplify things. In each year, the classes are subdivided by level (or as I've learnt that's not always the case) so I have 4 classes in secondary 2 (year 8) and 5 in secondary 3 (year 9). The 1st sets are the best but I've realised that the 5th set is better than the 2nd set so it really depends. The worst class of the week came from 3/2 who just did not listen at all to what I was saying, only 6 out of 44 students bought any paper to write with and they were just doing their own things for the entire lesson. I just shouted for 50 minutes (plus one kid put a condom on his hand...yes you read that right...) But, I've learnt not to get too downhearted by it and just deal with the fact that I'm going to have great classes, and I'm going to have crappy ones. But overall, I think my students like me and I am starting to be recognised on campus so that's quite a nice feeling; they still haven't mastered the name Matthew yet but like I said before Master Mattoo will do :). During the week, a few of us visited the expat bar we hung out at for Halloween. Apart from being a bar, they also serve western food and some of my colleagues had beans on toast and a bacon sarnie with brown sauce (what torture!) - I was trying to be good so I just stuck to Pad Thai but I definitely know where to go if I'm craving British food. It's barely been two weeks but I already get times with I could murder a cuppa or some bacon and sausage; my weak spot is visiting fast food outlets instead...I've been eating so much fried chicken it is beyond a joke. My kids even compared me to Peter Griffin because of my "belly" - the cheek! ;)
Thursday saw a massive celebration being held on campus. Loy Krathong (pronounced L-oi Kra-tong) roughly translates to "to float a basket" in Thai and it is where people make krathongs (one shown below) and float them out on a river. These krathongs are usually decorated with banana tree trunk and leaves and held together with pins and flowers (traditionally a spider lily plant) but some are made with bread too. There is also a candle and some incense on it and it is floated out on water and people will make a wish hoping it will come true (kind of like Dreamboats at camp if any of my friends from Sealth are reading this!).
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| My very own Krathong. |
The kids at school used a small swimming pool to do it but in the evening the English teachers went to Bunt ta lua lake where there were thousands of people floating their krathongs. In addition to that, the school held a pageant known as "Queen Krathong" and there were 25 girls in beautiful dresses and head pieces who stood on stage and were judged; kind of felt I was watching miss world or something haha.
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| Top 5 Queen Krathongs and some of the English Teachers. |
The trip to the lake was followed by visiting an Indian temple for dinner. It was the first time I'd had Indian food here and it was amazing. Despite all the dishes being non meat, it was delicious and was definitely a welcome change from eating chicken fried rice all the time. Walking back from the temple, we came to the gates of the city (Champion Gate I believe its called?) which were lit up and surrounded by crowds all still celebrating the Loy Krathong festivities. In the main square, I was mesmerised by a hip-hop troupe and break dancers just busting it out to a remix of tracks - it made me really miss dancing and I just wanted to join in with them! In addition, we were treated to the spectacle of many people praying and worshipping the statue of Thao Suranari ('The Brave Lady' - who helped regain control over Siam from Laotian vessels), a popular object of devotion here in Korat. Archna, Grace, Natalie, and myself each purchased a candle, a necklace of flowers, and a little piece of gold paper which you rub on a statue below Suranari to make the wish come true. We all knelt before the statue and made wishes and prayers for our loved one and people in our lives. I'm not a spiritual person but this was truly eye opening for me and I definitely felt how important this was to the local people who were praying around me - it was a really refreshing and meaningful experience. (Wish I had taken more pictures really...)
At the end of the week, a few of the teachers needed to go to immigration to get either our work permits re-validated or to apply for re-entry permits (mine was the latter). Because I'm going to Malaysia to see Syafiq and Fila next month, I needed to get a re-entry visa so my Thai one would still be valid upon re-entering the country. We were originally told this would only take a few hours...turned out to be more like 7 hours all together; it was such an incredible ball-ache to get sorted, one official said we didn't have the correct documents, the other one said it was fine, then we had to wait more to get a stamp in our passport...(you better appreciate all this effort I've gone to Fila and Syaf! haha). The major downside and only slight regret was applying for a multiple entry permit (setting me back ฿3800/73) which then turned out to be only valid until mid-January, whereas a single entry would only cost ฿1000/£19, so I've essentially got to leave the country 4 times in the next 3 months to get my money's worth...challenge accepted?
As we were waiting for our visas, we had a browse at some of the local stores near the immigration office, and all of them were selling beautiful pots and ornaments, even one of a giant sheep (which we all felt necessarily that I have a picture with being Welsh...yes, the stereotypes have even carried themselves all the way here...)
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| Like being home away from home... |
Overall, a good second week at assumption. Visa finally sorted (Roll on Malaysia December 5) and my first real experience witness Thai celebrations and culture. Hopefully more like that to come!
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