the next chapter: Australia: English Camp in Takhli, Nakhon Sawan

As stipulated in our contract, we must do 1 English camp/ semester. Mediakids gave us a taste of English camp during orientation, and from there, I decided that I wanted to do more than just 1. The benefits? Well, all transportation, accommodation and Lunch are provided. Even though I don't have time to see sights in a given area, the drive alone offers a great opportunity to see more of Thailand. Plus, for each extra camp you do, you get paid! So, I told Pai, one of the MediaKids consultants, that I wanted to do more English camps... so on Thursday night, I got a call asking if I wanted to do one in Nakhon Sawan, in north/ central Thailand. Despite the last-minute notice, I said "yes". Tok and Nu, two of our region's consultants, were heading down to Sri Racha on Friday afternoon, so after school, I went back to the apartment and packed a weekend bag, and then they drove me to the MediaKids office in Bangkok. We stopped there for about a 1/2 hour, and then got into Pai's car, as he would be Emceeing the camp. Also in the car were Nu and Bomb, two other MediaKids consultants.

We got caught in some heavy Bangkok traffic on our way out, but made it up to Lopburi (monkey town), where we picked up Liz (another MediaKids foreign English teacher from Connecticut) at her apartment. We then drove onto Takhli, Nakhon Sawan and arrived at "Takhli Resort" at around 10:30 pm. They provided Liz and I with separate rooms, while the 3 of them shared one!

8:00 am on Saturday morning, we headed off to the local 7-Eleven to rev up and then to Takhliprachasan School, where we met up with the 3 local MediaKids foreign English teachers: Bridget from Connecticut, Jan from San Diego and Richard from New Zealand and Australia. Jan and Richard are a couple that met while teaching in Korea.

English Camp was a lot of fun, as expected, because the kids (~200) that were there were the best students! Either they chose to be there, or their parents made them. But, it seemed as if every kid wanted to be there, and actually, many of the older ones, who had previously done MediaKids English Camps (this school has worked with MediaKids for a few years now) were actually looking forward to this weekend. They had memorized the dances and songs, and even the activities, for which they had prepared songs and dances, like for the teams.

The students were split up into 5 teams, each of which were led by one of us foreign teachers. The first big activity was to create team names, team flags and teams songs and dances! Many of the older, more experienced students had already thought of these, so it was up to me to execute their ideas. We were Team Clever (which is one of their favorite words), and we chanted to "We Will, We Will Rock You". Flags were posted up along with scoring meters.

We sang a lot of silly songs and danced a lot of silly dances throughout the weekend, such as "Chicken White Butt", "Papaya Boc Boc" and "Banana"... which I have videos for, but they are not uploading! Help anyone?!

Saturday night, the English department took us all out for one of the most fabulous dinners ever! It was possibly the best dinner I've had yet in Thailand! Liz and I then went to Jan and Rich's house, along with Bridget. It was interesting to see how differently they were living, as compared to our apartment in Sri Racha. They had a full house with more room than they could even fill. They also had a kitchen -- oohh, I am so envious. Pai then actually picked us up and drove as back to the resort after midnight -- very nice.

We started camp the next morning at around 8:30 am, did some more games and activities, including the Powder Game. You either love or hate it, depending on where and who you are! Everyone gets into a big circle and music is played while about 20 or so baby powder bottles are passed around. Think "Hot Potato". When the music stops, students that end up with the baby powder bottle have to put some in their left hand and then follow Pai's (the Emcee) directions, which starts off with "Put the powder on the face of the person to your left!" In the second round, the person must put it on their own face! This escalates to powder the foreign teachers! Powder your Thai teachers! Powder the Chinese teacher! Powder everyone! It is loads of fun, and the powder wipes off pretty easily, leaving your skin all smooth. After scores were tallied, with Team Clever coming in 2nd place, camp ended at Noon. We said our goodbyes, and Pai, Nu, Bomb, Liz and I all got back into the car and headed back to Lopburi.

Pai drove us around Lopburi for a bit so I could see all the monkeys. This town is famous for its monkeys that take over the entire town! I plan on spending at least one weekend there, maybe soon, so I will get some photos then. After we dropped Liz off, we drove on. We stopped to have lunch (freshly grilled king prawns, king prawn fried rice, and tom yum soup) at an open market in Ayuttaya (the ancient city) - another place which I hope to visit soon. They took me to the bus station in Bangkok, paid for the ticket, and I arrived back in Sri Racha around 7:00 pm.

I was then picked up at my apartment by one of my school's Thai English teachers, Ms. Mon, who drove me to Ms. Bpun's house for dinner. Ms. Bpun is the head of the English Department and had invited us all (Jacqueline, Howard and I) to a home-cooked dinner at her house on Sunday evening. Wow! This was not any ordinary house or ordinary home-cooked meal. First off, she lives in some sort of mansion/ estate. Her husband is some big-wig at some Thai Bank, and they clearly lived very well. Dinner was all set out on the table with more dishes to choose from than I could even count. They had a karaoke machine and speakers set up, which was very popular. There were about 10-15 teachers from Sri Racha school, not all in the English Department, and then Ms. Bpun's husband and his employees sat over on the side at another table. She has invited us back weekend after weekend, as it seemed like Ms Bpun and her husband have dinner parties every weekend.

So... a weekend full of amazing food, endless fun, white powder, singing and dancing, travelling and I spent under 200 baht (~$5)... yup! English Camp was definitely worth it!!