Now that
our second week and weekend are over I would like to take you with me on a tour
of the wonderful place that is Isaan. Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be
bumpy ride.
You can’t
even begin to compare the Thai school system with the overall Belgian one.
Since you have probably read my former posts, you already know that the lessons
in which the teachers teach ‘English’ are horrible. This + the lack of
communication between the teachers make this a very frustrating undertaking. With
some teachers we have the understanding that we each teach a part of the
lesson, so the pupils are exposed to at least 25 minutes of ‘good’ English by
the volunteers and 25 minutes of ‘very bad’ English by most of the teachers.
When I gave my first part of my lesson about introducing yourself in a fifth
year the teacher just copied my lesson and made the pupils write it all down
again. If such things happen I wonder
why I am still here. But nevertheless, we strive to look past those flaws and
indulge ourselves in the fact that this entire trip is probably a once in a
lifetime thing. And therefore we have to make the best out of it and don’t let
a silly thing like stress get in our way (spoken/written like a real Thai).
The pupils
really make our day, every day. Whenever and wherever we go, there are always
children greeting us and shouting “Good Morning Teacher!” When you respond they
start to giggle like crazy just because you said something in English. On
Thursday it was so hot I was sweating really hard and I was having trouble to
stand up straight because of the heat. A pupil immediately arranged a fan,
plugged it in, offered to write down my lesson on the blackboard and asked if
she could get me drink. I refused the drink and the writing on the blackboard
but I was happy for the fan blowing cool wind in my face. Imagine this happened
in Belgium. Do you think the pupils would react as such? I hardly think so.
Enough
about school, you all want to know how we live now don’t you? To be honest, we
can hardly complain. We have a western toilet, a nice bedroom (although the
mattress is worse than sleeping on concrete), a shower which we can use
multiple times a day and a fan which is in the ON position for the main part of
the day and night. But we have to be careful. On a given morning I was putting
on a shoe and I felt something crawling in it. A big toad had decided to stay
the night in my shoe and was not very happy when he had to leave. On the same
morning we saw millions (not kidding) of ants moving from one part of the garden
to another, more sheltered, part. And when we have dinner, we almost always
have a guest or two, be it a toad, a gecko or a giant flying bug, we love our
new pet collection (except when they sting, then we hate them).
On Friday
night an English teacher (one with whom we can have a decent conversation)
invited us for dinner at her place. She has a sister who just loves to speak
English and that is why she has to invite every volunteer for dinner. We gladly
accepted the invitation of what was to be a very lovely night. We bought a
pineapple and dragon fruit (Flashy pink exterior with a white with black
speckles interior) as presents and they were immediately sliced and put upon
the table. After we helped with the cooking we had a very interesting dinner.
We ate flies (which are carefully bred in special farms) and drank a fish soup
which housed ants. The flies were really good to be honest, especially with the
dip sauce. After dinner we went for a walk with the teacher’s sister and were
invited for soymilk with her brother. Every time we meet new people, we tend up
eating and drinking.
On Saturday
we went back to Surin to book our flights for our upcoming holiday. We are
going to Phuket, Phi Phi Island and other small islands. Afterwards we fly to
Bangkok and to Lob Buri, a monkey Temple. A temple full of monkeys, be honest,
how exciting does that sound?
On Sunday
we went for a walk to a nearby Temple (30 minutes flat) in the excruciating heat and decided to
call it a day. We read a book in our room with the fan blowing at approximately
50km/h and just lay on our beds to relax and fill up our energy bars for the
upcoming week.
One last
thing: I have made it my personal quest to try every kind of Lays Chips Thai
people eat. So far on my list:
Nori
SeaweedPecking Duck with sauce
Lobster hot plate
Hot and spicy crab
Baked bacon cheese with seaweed
Extra BBQ
Chicken BBQ
Sausage and cheese
Cheese and Jam
Hallo Sam het is precies een bordje garnalen,was het maar zo maar ja Sam dat heb je ook weeral meegemaakt in je leven. Die chips is precies zoals hier vind ik .We wensen jullie een zalig en deugddoende vakantie geniet maar .............dikke kus van mij en Luc
BeantwoordenVerwijderenIk heb slecht 1 van de smaakjes op mijn palmares, en dat was omdat die vriendin van Nok dat had gekocht :) Voor de rest is er hier in de buurt geen enkele winkel waar je chips kunt kopen, oh, tenzij je natuurlijk een half uur de auto neemt! :)Dus prop je maar vol vooraleer je naar hier komt ;)
BeantwoordenVerwijderenhey sam vliegjes eten is toch lekker ! den dax doet da ook ! hihihi ! nee serieus de chips zal u meer smaken ! geniet ervan !vele grtjs van ons x x x
BeantwoordenVerwijderenLove reading all this! Keep up the good work, Sam. By the way, I do hope that the material we bought is of some use ...
BeantwoordenVerwijderenAda
By the way, it would be a hard choice: lobster hot plate or spicy crab. I don't know if I would care overly much for the flies though ...
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