Waikru

Waikru is a festival that occurs all throughout Thailand, once every year. It is an incredibly thoughtful day in which students celebrate, thank and worship their current and past teachers. Even teachers give thanks and celebrate their past teachers from many years ago. It was an amazing experience to both witness and be a part of. The whole day was very moving, and was full of smiles and tears. Tears, that is, of joy and memories, of giving thanks and celebration, and of the past and Thailand's future.

The morning opened with the usual assembly, but took place on the actual field. Jacqueline, Howard and I performed, as usual on Thursdays, but this time we did a skit on different ways to respond to "How are you?" We are tired of hearing the monotonous, homogenous response of "I an fine, thank you, and you?" So, Jacqueline was the Emcee, and Howard and I acted as students, with backpacks, entering a classroom. We gave different example responses, such as "Awesome!", "Fantastic!", "I'm hot!", "I'm tired!", "I'm bored!"... etc. We informed them that for the rest of the day, we did not want to hear the traditional response of "Fine", and it seemed to work, as most students used different responses throughout the day.

Waikru took up the first 3 periods of the day, and occurred in different buildings, depending on the grade level. I went to my Mattayom 1's Waikru. Amazing! All the students lined up in their sections, and by student number. Despite some chair confusion in the beginning, I was quite impressed by how well and how quickly the students got organized. An older, female student (probably an M-6) led the beginning introduction, for which I have no idea what was said. Then about 10-15 teachers, including myself, sat up front on chairs. Students came up to us one-by-one on their knees and bowed to us, giving thanks and giving us these amazing floral arrangments. Each student has spent the last couple of days working on these arrangements, for which some won prizes for the best design. For these, you must just look at the photos.

After a few rows had gone, we switched out with another group of teachers, for which the procession continued with the other M-1 sections. Because I am the special foreign teacher, they put me on twice! So, I ended up with a huge pile of flower necklaces and arrangements, draped in the smell of jasmine. Many of the teachers touched the students' heads and whispered encouraging words, which often brought tears to the eyes of the students. The ceremony closed with a long-winded speech from one of the four vice-directors. I asked one of the Thai teachers what he was saying... and she said something to the effect of "... as Thailand's future, they must study hard and listen..."

Even though the formal part of Waikru had ended, the festival actually continued throughout the entire day. I have four classes on Thursdays, two back-to-back right in the beginning (which of course were cancelled due to Waikru), and then two back-to-back the last two periods of the day. And, my second to last class, where I am supposed to be teaching M1/10 was cancelled because all of Mattayom 1 goes to the temple after the initial ceremony. By the way, this means that my M1/10 class is now two weeks behind, because their class was cancelled last week due to Cleaning Day! Again, we were heavily forewarned about this during orientation, so I just have to go with the flow.

In any event, I had the whole afternoon off to witness this amazingly moving day. Throughout the school grounds, in classrooms, in building hallways and in our office, students came both individually and in large groups to kneel down at the feet of their current and past teachers. Students were embraced by the teachers one-by-one, and shuffled away in tears (and smiles). Even teachers were giving thanks and worshipping their old teachers. One of the older Thai English teachers in our office was headed, after school, to go see one of her teachers from decades ago! Many former students, who had graduated and/or gone off to technical college, came back today to celebrate their former teachers at Sri Racha school. Younger teachers (specifically, Bee) in our own office were embracing and kneeling at the feet of the older teachers, whom had taught them in the past. After the embrace and kinds words, Bee sat at her desk in tears, but with a smile.

Other than my above attempt at describing Waikru and the photo album, it is impossible to capture the true emotions and feelings that this day conjured up in every Thai citizen. And having been a part of this truly incredible day, I am sad and sorry that America does not have anything like it (other than our obscure "Teacher's Day").

The head of the Department of Business, whose nickname is Ood, and a teacher from Home Ec. took Jacqueline, Howard and I to Bangpra for Lunch. Bangpra is a fishing 'suburb' of Sri Racha, about 10 kilometers from the school. Ood and the other teacher (whose nickname I forget) always sit with us at Lunch in the cafeteria, and really enjoy speaking with us... as her English is so-so, but gets better each day. They took us to this amazing, fresh seafood restaurant on the beach in Bangpra! Afterwards, they drove us up one of the mountains a bit to view the lake/ damn/ reservoir (we're not sure which). We had all seen signs for this supposed lake throughout Sri Racha... billboards that advertise property on the lakefront, in which a white/ western family is portrayed having a picnic by the lake. So, it was interesting to finally see what all these billboards were about, and it was much larger than I had imagined. There were kayaks and canoes for rent, as well as a lot of fishing.

When we arrived back at the school, Ood took us on a mini-tour of her classroom, which is one of many in a part of the school that I had never even known was there! She showed us photos of her and a man from Germany, informing us that they "lay together"!! Hahaaa...

Last period (2:50 - 3:40 pm) finally rolled around. It was my M4/3 class - full of attentive, fun, well-behaved, eager and smart students. Although, of course, due to Waikru, almost half of them were missing. But we did Family Tree presentations today, so it worked out that half the class was gone, as they can just present next week. Plus, due to Cleaning Day last Thursday afternoon, this class is already one week behind all my other M-4s.

Please see the photos both below and in the album -- it is my sad attempt to capture this amazing day full of emotion, and really a celebration of education in life, of growing up; a day of acknowledging life and all that one has learned, and paying respect to all teachers, in any manner, on one's life path.

Getting Ready for Morning Assembly: Cleaning the Field of Excess Grass?

Kick (M1/1), one of my favorite students!

Some of my M1 boys... so cute!

So perfectly organized! This is M1's Waikru Ceremony

Some more of my M1 students!

Mrs. Ood keeping them in line

Me with the M1 winner!

Some winning designs...

H, J and I with some of the Foreign Language Dept. Teachers

L to R: Piow, PiBen, Madam (Thai English Teachers)

Where we ate Lunch in Banpra with Ms. Ood

Notice the dramatic tide out again...

Dogs at a Funeral

The mother of one of the Thai English teachers, co-teacher PiBen, passed away last weekend. She was 91 and died of natural causes. We were invited to the funeral, which in Buddhist/ Thai tradition lasts five days. Ms. Bpun, the head of the Foreign Language Department, picked us up at our apartment at 7:30 pm, as the funeral was to begin at 8:00 pm and last about one hour. When we arrived at the temple, there were actually two ceremonies occurring next to each other. Tables were set up on the outside of the temple, where the body lay in a closed coffin, covered in flower decorations. There were quite a lot of people there, maybe one-hundred or so. And this was the third night of the funeral. The same chanting occurs each night of the funeral, as it is the guests that change. Tonight was for PiBen and one of her sisters. So the crowd included many teachers from SriRacha school, as well as teachers from a school in Pattaya, where her sister works. We were sat at a front and center table, where once the chanting began, we held our wai for nearly half an hour. Orange soda (Fanta) was served, followed by a soup and fruit.

In the middle of the monks' chanting, which were prayers for PiBen's mother to safely enter the next world, dogs howled and growled all around us. Only a few faces in the crowd turned around to see about all the commotion. Honestly, I thought it was disturbing and could not focus on the task at hand - my wai. All of the sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two dogs attacking each other at the throat! Ms. Bpun whispered to Jacqueline that they were fighting over food -- "too many dogs, not enough food". A bit sad and a bit scary... and while there were some crowd giggles and tsk tsks, most were able to ignore the dogfight occurring only a few feet away! But, this is the bit of culture that I took away from the experience.

Oh, and as Ms. Bpun backed up out of her parking spot, she hit a tree... Yikes! And although her van was dented, her response was "Mai bin nai ka" -- "no worries"! And that was tonight in Thailand - The Land of Smiles.

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!!

Bridget leading her team in song and dance

Fluk: He was super serious about English camp, in a very funny way

"Chicken White Butt" Dance Competition


The "Caterpillar" Game

Can you find me?

My Team: Team Clever

The "Monster" Game

The Powder Game

Fluk, all powdered

Bridget and I, powdered

Nu and Bomb

Cleaning Day at School!!!

One of the coolest experiences I have yet seen...

We were supposed to do assembly this morning (we had planned on "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes..."), but there is no assembly when it rains; and, mind you, it is the rainy season (meaning, it rains/ downpours every day at some point). When it rains in the morning, the students line up in the hallways throughout the five buildings, and listen to the school and national anthem, and any speeches from the microphones that are blaring throughout the school grounds. But, since students cannot watch the stage, we silly 'farang' don't perform during rainy mornings. When we arrived at 7:45 this morning, it was lightly drizzling, so we were not sure if we were to still perform. We were told morning assembly was occurring, so we headed over to the field. Students lined up. After about 5 minutes, it started to rain, so the students were called off the field, and ran for cover in the buildings' hallways. After 2 minutes, the rain stopped, and the students were called back out onto the field! At this point, we were already informed that we would not be performing. We were also told that we would not have any afternoon classes due to "Cleaning Day". Yes, this messes up my lesson, as some classes will now be a week behind (but somehow, they'll catch up due to holidays and festivals throughout the semester... or I'll just to have to create 'filler' lessons).

After lunch period, all the students went to their respective buildings and started deep-cleaning... and I mean deep! I don't know how they were organized, but in our hallway, M6 students (17/18 year olds) were cleaning. I was out in the hallway cutting up 144 rectangular pieces of paper from large paper rolls. It is for my M1 classes for the next couple of weeks. I will be doing lessons on the months of the calendar, and have decided to split each of my 12 M1 classes up into 'monthly teams', thus 144 large pieces of paper were needed, as they will each create a month.

Looking out onto Building 3, we could see students hanging out of windows, cleaning and wiping down the outside of the building and the tops of the windows. Meanwhile, students in our hallway were sweeping the classrooms, scrubbing the walls, and moving furniture! It was quite a sight, and one very hard to explain in writing or through photographs -- but I attempted -- see photos at right and in my Picasa album.

The hallways were full of laughter... even though they were cleaning, they seemed to be having a lot of fun with it. In a way, I completely understand! No classes, and you can clean while hanging out with your friends. Sweat poured down from the poor boys who had to move furniture, girls took out their hand fans and were fanning the boys, perhaps, boys they liked. Teachers were walking up and down the hallways swatting at those students being lazy. M1 and M2 students were hanging out of windows and pulling chairs out to stand on to reach the top of the outside windows. Younger students shared the task of carrying buckets of water up and down the stairs. Fans were dusted. Grass was groomed, bushes cut with scissors. I even got a whiff of varnish at one point.