The Thai Visa

A month ago Codie and I had to have our photos taken at a photo studio to make pictures that would go in our Thai Visa. We went to the studio not wearing T-shirts but also nothing particularly fancy. We were told not to smile..... wait smile, but no teeth.....wait too big of a smile and we went on our merry way. This week we got our Visas.
The photo studio superimposed a suit on me, a businees suit on Codie, and airbrushed both of our faces to make us look more "professional" (including putting pink lipstick on me). Here are the results. I look like a linebacker heading to clown college. God I love Thailand.

Teenagers!

My level 5 students in their normal uniform (16-17 year olds). Thai kids love to flash the peace sign, take note.

Team Uno!

My adorable team "Uno" who won this weeks team point challenge. Winners get a photo taken with the trophy as well as one, yes one, jellybelly jelly bean imported for the United States. They love them so. Notice today was there one hour a week "sports day" so they are wearing their Thai sports uniform.

The King's sister's funeral

A couple Fridays ago, all of Thailand was in morning because the King's sister was having her funeral. She died over a year ago but Thailand needed a year to allow foreign dignataries to pay their respects. Everyone was sad, memorial services were everywhere, children read poems and... first period was cancelled!

The Thai Office: The Decor

Hanging in our office are strange signs like, "A kiss after a kick", "All cats are grey in the dark", and "Call a spade when it's a spade". Interesting.

The Thai Office: Kasorn!

Oh how I love Kasorn! The Thai teachers at our office LOVE to tell us about themselves and Kasorn is the best at this. She is the BEST cook, has the BEST garden, lives close to the BEST market in town, has raised the BEST and SMARTEST children (I am supermom)... She is wonderful and wants us to try her food from home everyday. Eating in Thailand is an event and lunch at school is no different. She is holding some sort of homemade elixer in a whiskey bottle. She made me drink it and said I would be young forever if I did.

The Thai Office: Napping!

Notice the Thai teacher sleeping behind Caleb. Yes, frequently the Thai teachers take naps back in our nice airconditioned office.

The Thai Office: Leisure Activities

Hard at work in the office...
Matt checking sports scores or writing his memoir.
Dez playing games on his cell phone.
Lizzy on Facebook. Another favorite activity at the Office.

The Thai office

Some of the Thai teachers as seen through our glass partition. Yes, the farang teachers are on one side of a glass wall and the Thai teachers are on the other. Our side has air-conditioning, there side has a computer. Frequently we venture on the other side and mingle.

More Photos of Loi Kratong

Loi Kratong: Banana leaves, boats, and discarded body parts

If last week was supposed to be the moment of shedding all the bad luck of the previous year, well, it looks like the gods have decided to scoop an extra helping on my plate for this year right from the get go. Like some sadistic lunch lady of bad karma, this has been a tough week of bad luck.
Last week was Loi Kratong, the festival in Thailand where people build small boats made out of bananas and sugar cane stalks and sail them down the river. Now, these aren’t just empty vessels to race down stream. Some people go for the simple green leaf boat shape but for most Thai families the boat you build is more like an episode of “Pimp my Loi Kratong Boat”. The most lavishly decorated are covered with flowers, plastic hearts, bead work, ornate pins, and sparklers. At the bare minimum they need to have three sticks of incense, small coins, and discarded body parts. The coins are put in to bring wealth in the next year and the discarded body parts (a healthy sprinkling of fingernails and hair) are the physical shedding of all your bad ju-ju from the previous year. At the actual festival you can launch your boat at the riverside or hire a longtail boat to drive you out to the middle of the river where you can light your incense, birthday candles, and sparklers to give your tiny S.S. Bananarama a proper send off. The overall effect has the river glowing with smoke and the red eyes of incense sticks while above your head people are launching paper lanterns that give the same speckled effect to the night sky. The only way you know up from down is from the constant lapping of water into the boat on each side rhythmically reminding you that the longtail boat could fill and go belly up in seconds. You got to love that about Thailand. Each festival we have gone to has at least one moment of “Wheeeeee…this is fun” followed by a moment of “Wow, we almost just died in that boat” or “Jeepers, that firework almost blew off my ear” or “Hey, that tree is on fire.”
Well, we sent off our bad luck twice this year. Once with our friends from SUper English and once with our Thai neighbors across the street. Maybe it was the double dipping into launching the boats but I have not been having a good week.
It started with an eye problem (see: eye infection/allergies/pink eye/ glaucoma) that has made my eyes feel like they are being inflated from behind by a pressure hose. This was manageable thanks to glasses and constant blinking that I think students are mistaking for some type of cryptic Morse code to help learn English. To make matters worse my eyes are bloodshot making me look like some creepy prize bunny at the state fair.
This was followed by a bout of disagreeable food (see: tapeworm/ giardia/ food poisoning/ hours in public squat toilets that won't be discussed on this blog). All these trials have been minor compared to my Thursday night.
Now, I have blogged before about the dogs in our neighborhood and around Surat Thani. Some are just your typical third world fast breeding dogs that seem to swagger on every street corner dodging motorbikes, lounging in their own feces, and randomly chasing other dogs but for the most part not bothering humans at all. Other dogs are not so nice. One in particular lives by the furniture store that lies between our house and the houses of the other teachers that teach at our school. It has, on more than one occasion, chased Codie and myself down the street nipping at our pant legs and sliming our heels with its big scary dog drool.
So, now when we near the furniture store we get ready. We pick up a rock, swing our bike lock, or pull up a hood so it doesn't have the immediate thoughts of "Oooooh farang (foreigners)! Mmmmmmmmmmmm!". We're like a giant hamburger in a world of curry and pad thai. This Thursday night we had spent the evening playing a heated game of Apples to Apples and were on our way home in the rain getting closer and closer to the "giant evil furniture store snarling demon of doom" and we got ready. I pulled my coat up, took out my bike lock (the kind that is made of metal with rubber wrapped around the coils) and we began our descent down Amphur Road. Twenty feet away Codie gave the battle cry of "Ready?". I shouted "Ready, Captain" and swung my bike lock mockingly like a mace. That's when the night turned into a white flash and I almost toppled over my handle bars.
Had the dog jumped through the air and sunk its teeth into my cranium? DId an angel come down to protect me from Cujo? Nope. I had swung my bike lock, full force, right into my left eye. I'm talking "fully opened, hyper aware of dog" left eye. Codie stopped her bike and the outpouring of sympathy gushed out of her newly blinded husband with waves and waves of laughter. That's right. Codie came seconds away from having a pirate husband with a patch and all she was able to do was laugh. I guess that's the best first aid in a country where you need to laugh off many of the scary things that happen to you and smile at the craziness (rabid dogs and eye infections included). I'm not blinded but I think I'll stick to tiny rocks from now on when fending off Fido.

All good (sort of) in our hood

Our teaching schedule has us getting up for school at six but thankfully Surat Thani has provided a fail safe way of making sure we don’t miss class. Alarm clocks entirely unnecessary! What a score! Instead of using an alarm we have our initial wake up call of the 37 roosters that our neighbors keep in their yard. It’s pretty easy to hit snooze on the roosters so thankfully our neighbor in the next flat like to start hand scrubbing their laundry outside of our bedroom door at 5:35 sharp. The vigorous scrubbing of clothing, after a ten minutes of listening, actually takes on a soothing rhythm, like ocean waves. You hit a second snooze. At 6:30 the cacophony really begins. Cue the barking yipper dogs dressed in sweaters across the street, now slowly bring in the putting and whizzing of tuk tuk, motorbikes,and song thoews (mini trucks with benches in the back to carry passengers), build the final crescendo by adding our creepy German neighbor across the street blasting THE ONE mix CD he owns. If the track list of Steve Miller’s “Abracadbra”, Celine Dion, and crappy German techno do not wake you up, consult a doctor.
The alley we live in is quite a mix. Poor neighbors who collect bottles and seem to have barely enough to get by. Kids who wash themselves outside out of a garbage bin used to collect rain water. Rich neighbors with huge gates and expensive TVs inside. The internet cafe owners who have invited us over to have guitar jam sessions to Thai pop songs. And, our creepy German neighbor who has said fewer than 15 words to us since we moved in. He is about 55 years old, has a younger Thai wife, and runs an ice cream stand from his living room. It’s just a giant cooler where school kids grab a cone on their way home from school. His hobbies appear to be staring out of his house into ours (which became evident when nine of the fifteen words he has said to us included “I can see you at night in your house”), staring at his TV, and drinking an excessive amount of alcohol. Not really into the music, but kind of scared to question his passion for Kraut rock.
Our alley is also home to an adorable dog that follows us everywhere, two dogs that want to bite us, an unknown number of mice and cockroaches, a teenage girl who we pay to do our laundry (who has a dog so mean she makes us hand the laundry through a side window so the dog in the front room won’t eat us) and a small store that sells cups of noodles, jugs of water, and various canned and dried ocean products. Ahhhh! Home sweet home.

Our Students!

Here are the winners of the first weeks' English Showdown.

Rafting in Northern Thailand

Pictures from our raft trip on the Pai River. Fun! I even got to guide! In one picture we are digging out a hot spring on the side of the river after a long day of paddling.

Coworkers!

Here are some pics of our coworkers at a Halloween party and just hanging out. You can also see Codie in an original scarecrow outfit and me reprising my role as Chairman Meow.

Vote!!! (even if you're overseas)

Codie and I doing our patriotic duty.

Biking 'round Burma

We spent half a week on motorbikes hanging out around the Northern Thai border. We could see the mountains of Myanmar in the distance. The sign illustrates the joys of slash and burn agriculture..... :(

Caving in Northern Thailand

After black water kayaking (kayaking in pitch black with flashlight helmets through caves!) we stopped and explored some with our guide. There was a ton of bat poop,we had to crawl through some pretty tight spots, but it was worth every second. We also got to see coffins that have been stored in the caves for hundreds of years that people in recent years discovered. Way cool.

“I’m fine thank you and you?”—Meeting your 850 high school students

“Stand up please.” Looking down the aisles of a Thai classroom at the start of class on your first day is a bit daunting. The promised Thai teacher (“who will be in your class to handle any discipline problems”) is not there. The students, all 55 of them, are standing behind their desks wearing their school uniforms and they begin “the chant”.
“GOOD MORNING, TEACHER” and they stare at you expectantly. I’m confused? I’m anxious? I’m nervous? I’m a little freaked out bv how all 55 of you rose at the command of one student and chanted a greeting in English that sounds like it came out of a Speak and Spell?
“I’m excited to be your teacher, class.” They stare at you.
“And I am happy to be here at Suratpittaya School teaching Matteum 1.” Still staring. No one is moving. No one is sitting down.
“…and I am hot because Thailand is very warm……” Pins drop. Crickets begin to chirp.
“Ummm………how are you, class?”
“I’M FINE THANK YOU AND YOU?” they bellow back in unison and keep staring.
“Ummmm….I’m fine?” Staring. Shuffling of feet. “You can sit down.”
“THANK YOU, TEACHER.” Finally…..they sit down.

During our first week teaching in Thailand we’ve become accustomed to “the greeting”. The robotic mantra each Thai student has had drilled into them since they began taking English classes in Kindergarten. We’ve become accustomed to the flag raising ceremony in the morning where The entire school of some 3000 students goes outside and recites a prayer and sings the national anthem as the marching band plays along. We’ve become accustomed to the Thai nicknames of our students. Names like “Mai”, “Jeat”, and “Ta”. But also more American names. I teach three students whose nicknames are “Beer”. We have students named “Poo”, students named “Earth”, and students named “Watermelon”. There are also “Shampoo”, “Pee”, “Rain”, “Ice”, “Oat”, “Honey”, “Cat”, and “Moo”.
“Beer, will you please pair up with Poo while Shampoo and Pee collect the papers?”
This year is going to be awesome.

The Beach and Halloween.....Thai Style

Close to our home in Surat Thani is the small port town of Khanom. It looks like every other Thai small town, with a market and a 7-11. It has a small harbor filled with fishing boats, the foul smells of fermenting fish sauce, and the “fresh” catch decomposing at various stages emitting scaly, slimy smells as you cruise by on your motorbike.
Not much to write home about until you jet out about ten miles from town to the coast. Now, we have seen our share of beaches here in Thailand. They are stunning. The sun melts into them or rises up from them streaking the sky with colors you believe only exist in cheesy pastel hotel art you would find at a Super 8 Motel. The sand is mostly powdery and the water is perfect. Bathtub warm.
But, these beaches are on the tourist circuit. That can’t be kept a secret. So they have the usual debris and parasites that come with any tourist beach town. Garbage washing up on shore (plastic bags and juice boxes reflecting that “perfect” sunset even more), backpackers posing on their blankets, and at night the inevitable thump, thump, thump of bass that will be sure to keep you “taking sexy back” in your sleep.

This is where the beaches of Khanom break trail. They are clean, quiet, beautiful and usually empty save for a few Thai tourists who avoid the shore for most of the day and seem to come more alive at night when Karaoke and Thai whiskey are flowing. This is where we spent our final days before teaching a week ago, watching water overtake the sand and scanning the horizon for pink dolphins, and this is where we spent the last weekend meeting our fellow farang English teachers at the annual Halloween party at the “One More Beer” Restaurant. The restaurant was the chosen location for the British, Irish, Australian, Canadian, US, and Chinese teachers to descend and celebrate a holiday that has not yet caught on in Thailand. I was a cat (shocker) and Codie was a scarecrow using the straw from the broom from our house. The party freaked out the Thai neighbors and locals who were already bewildered by the farang (foreign) teachers much less farang teachers dressed up as Batgirl, Thai school children, ghosts, and cats.
It was the perfect setting to meet the other teachers in our town but was also the perfect place to relax on a sandy beach and swim at night. The water at this time of the year is filled with phosphorescent plankton that glow when you disturb them, making each stroke when you’re swimming feel like you are the Sorcerer’s Apprentice spraying stardust and sparkle across the water in front of you. I have a feeling we will become well known in Khanom by the end of the year if our cat and scarecrow impressions have not already cemented us in the minds of the locals.