We Have a Lot of Fat Boys

Tuesday

So in Plaboo one must expect the unexpected. Lam told us last night that we would be going to a meeting this morning with a teacher in town. The meeting ended up being with the head government official of the town, who is appointed by the elected president. He met with us to go over the possibility of having us teach at the school in town two days a week. It was a bit overwhelming because all of a sudden he said there were 180 kids at the school and he wanted us to teach them two days a week from 9 am to 1 pm. It was a little more than we thought but doable. After our meeting he showed us around the government offices and then all of a sudden we were in the school, which ended up being more like a preschool. There were 200 three and four year olds split into four classrooms. We met the eight teachers that work in the classrooms, who were extremely friendly and funny. We decided that I would take the 4-year olds and Stephanie would take 3-year olds. Then all of a sudden, I was in front of my two new classes singing Twinkle Little Star and taking them outside for lunch. The teacher I was working with the most, Kru Nit, explained that the 4-year olds already know the ABC’s, numbers (1-10), body parts, and how to say Hello, my name is. I thought that was pretty amazing for 4-year olds considering how different Thai is from English. Kru Nit then told me how they have lots of fat little boys and proceeded to point out each one to me and say, he is fat, he is fat, he is fat, and so on. She would probably get sued in America.

The kids couldn’t stop staring at us and got pretty shy when we tried to talk to them. But there were a couple kids who warmed up to me right away. They are adorable. After we met the kids, the teachers all met with us again and we determined that we would only come from 8am to 10am and Tuesdays and Thursdays. That made me feel a lot better because I don’t know what I would have done with them for 4 hours, two days a week. Also, all the teachers told us they want American boyfriends and wondered if we knew anyone! They would like them to be handsome, smart, and rich. I guess some things are the same everywhere!

So we finally have a routine in place for the week. On Mondays we will be teaching in the village next to Plaboo, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the school in town, and on Thursdays, the children of Plaboo will come to our schoolhouse. I’m excited to be busy, as some of the days can drag here with not much to do. 

Wednesday

The school wanted us to start right away, so today is our first day. We came in to all the kids running around, and again staring at us. We talked to the teachers for a bit and then all the kids from each class come into the main lobby to sing the national anthem and a few other songs. It was really cute; they all stand in lines and do these motions with the songs. Then we were introduced to them and we had to each sing a song; I chose Twinkle Little Star again because I totally blanked on kid’s songs. For my first lesson, I decided to do animals since we brought a book worked well with the lesson. One class was chatty and slow to learn, while the other made it through the whole book. Oh and again, when we got to elephant, the teacher pointed out that a lot of the little boys in class are fat, much like elephants. It makes me feel awkward. All in all, the teaching went pretty well for the first day and I’m excited to go back next week. 

When we got back to the village, I colored some signs to use in my next class to teach them numbers higher than 10 and colors as well. And then we got to learn to ride the mopeds. Oh yea. There was a small learning curve on them; I had difficulty starting out and Stephanie struggled with stopping. We got pretty good at it after a few times around the block. What’s real funny is that by the time we had gone around the block about 3 or 4 times, people started coming out to the side of the road to watch the Americans try and drive the mopeds. They were all laughing at us, while at the same time we were laughing at ourselves. I did manage to get one big scrape on my leg from a false start. Leg on tire. My first battle wound. 

At night some of the high school girls came by and they showed us their boyfriends on Facebook. They were all giggly and embarrassed when we looked at the pictures. Again, some things are the same everywhere.