Coming to an End

Well, our volunteering at school is coming to an end soon. We've been teaching at the Sirimongkalajarn school for 6 1/2 weeks now. The Thai teachers told the students that we will be leaving soon and there has been a surge in their love and affection for us. We have been introducing two new volunteers to our kids this week and they will take over for us after we leave. The 2nd graders have been especially affectionate. I think it's partially because they are Oye's class and she always takes care of us.

Today, the students were giving us notes and cards that read, "I love you teacher." They would fold the notes up really small and put them into paper purses that they made! It was so sweet. Two of them even wrote, "I will not forget you teacher." That almost made me cry because I know I won't forget them, but they're so young and they see so many different volunteers, it would be naive to assume they'll remember us forever. After all the notes and paper purses filled with pieces of gum, little figurines, and necklaces, about eight or nine kids... gave us stuffed animals. Oh yes. Their own stuffed animals. You can definitely tell that the kids have been sleeping with them because they are all matted from years of being carried around and drooled on. Robbie and I felt bad taking them with us- but you can't refuse a gift like that! Giving someone your stuffed animal is like the ultimate way of showing your love as a kid. I remember giving two of my favorite stuffed animals to friends (Lang and Kate.) We'll need to get a picture of our new collection of bears, because it's pretty hilarious. Today Robbie and I had to take a taxi home from school and we weren't the least bit embarrassed of our arms full of stuffed animals. : )

We've come to the conclusion that it's going to be bittersweet to leave Chiang Mai. The worst part is definitely going to be saying goodbye to the kids and teachers at school. We've become friends with a lot of volunteers while we've been here, but they've mostly all come and gone. A group of new volunteers just arrived and we won't really have time to get to know them. I will not be sad to leave the actual city of Chiang Mai though. It's too crowded and polluted for our taste, or at least for an extended stay. And I certainly won't be sad to get HOME!! Robbie and I both are looking forward to relaxing at Sunset Beach with our families. We really just can't wait to see everyone. We talk about it every day. And just as a side note, we're especially sad to be missing the 4th of July at Sunset this year. But don't worry, we'll represent the USA with pride in Thailand! We've been planning to cook out and wear our red,white,and blue.

Okay, we miss you all and can't wait to see you!!!!!! LOVE,
Maggie and Robbie

A Typical Day in Chiang Mai

Today I thought I would describe what a typical day is like for us here in Chiang Mai. We wake up around 7:45 to catch our truck ride to school at 8:20. We rotate who gets to sit inside the truck to enjoy the air conditioning and who gets to sit outside and risk the rain and heat. We usually get to school by 8:35 and wait around until 9:00 for our first class to start. Our school is called the Srilimongklatan School and it is a very poor primary school. Here's our schedule:

Monday/Wednesday

9:00- 3rd grade

10:00- 4th grade

11:00- 5th grade

Tuesday/Thursday

9:00-Pre-k (On Tuesday) and Kindergarten (On Thursday)

10:00- 1st grade

11:00- 2nd grade

Friday

10:00-6th grade

11:00- 6th grade

We usually spend the first 30-40 minutes of each class with some sort of educational intruction and activities, while spending the latter part of the class playing fun review games or in some cases just playing fun games.

There are between 13 and 20 students in each class, with only one class per grade. I think there are about 120 kids in the whole school. We each every student and there is only one teacher per grade.

At 12:00 after we have finished with our classes we eat lunch with the teachers. I mentioned before how the teachers sometimes leave the students unattended for long periods of time, well, it's because they're always cooking lunch. On Friday at 11:00 I saw the 4th grade class helping the 2nd grade teacher (Oye) and the 4th grade teacher (Wat Nit Da) cook us lunch. We have huge spreads of food and it's always way too much. This time is definitely our opportunity to eat our fair share of local Thai food. We eat with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade teachers, the school principle and the school "manager." For the main part of the meal we usually have some sort of fried rice with meat and vegetables or Pad Thai (fried noodles.) We also always have a soup, 3 or 4 different Thai fruits, pork rinds, sticky rice, some sort of chili dip, and about 5 other bowls of food that when I ask what they are, Oye says "local Thai food." I put up a couple pictures of fruits and noodles at the top of the page.

We really appreciate how much Oye and Wat Nit Da look out for us and we love eating lunch with them every day. It is a little hard though because their English is very limited, so sometimes we just keep saying, "Ohh, it's soo good!!" or "It's spicyy!!!" Oye always wants to make sure we are completely full and repeatedly during the course of the meal tells us "One more! One more!" The school principle hardly knows any English but apparently one day he'd learned the word "fat", and was quite proud of it, because he kept pointing at himself and the other male teacher and saying "Fat!!!! Yesss, fat!!!!" We thought this was hilarious because they aren't fat at all and he was so excited and proud to be calling everyone fat.

So after we finish lunch the truck takes us back home usually by 12:45. Then we have the whole afternoon to do whatever we want. Some days we all go home and just take naps because it's so hot outside and the teaching is exhausting. And sometimes we'll go exploring Chiang Mai, or go to the Anodard Hotel to go swimming. We do a lot of reading (I've read all the Harry Potter books and a Jodi Picoult book so far) and a lot of playing cards. We'll go to the Internet or Airport Plaza (the local mall.) Most of the time for dinner we eat out; we either get street food or go to a restaurant. Our two favorite restaurants are EllieBum and Jerusalem Falafel. EllieBum is a cute little cafe/boutique right near our house. It has amazing smoothies,the best french toast, air conditioning and free Wi-fi. What not to love? Jersalem Falafel is a Middle Eastern restaurant we all like to go to because of it's hummus dip and pita bread. We're usually there right at 5:00 when it opens, which is actually getting a little embarrassing.

We've had a pretty exciting weekend. On Friday Robbie and I went with our housemates Jackie and Neha to watch them...Bungy Jump!! It was so cool and we might just have to do it before we leave Thailand. On Saturday we all rented a taxi for the day and drove to Mae Rim (NW of Chiang Mai.) We went to an elephant camp first. There were sooo many elephants, if I had to guess I'd say at least 50. They were every where and not even in enclosures. They would just walk up to people! We watched 10 elephants take a bath in the river and then saw a 1 hour elephant performance. It was so awesome how much these elephants could do. They played soccer, they played the harmonica, they painted pictures with paint brushes... I could go on all day.

Next, we went to the Tiger Kingdom!! Robbie and I did a package deal, where we got to play with the big tigers and the baby tigers! We paid an extra 5$ to have a photographer take pictures for us, and boy, that was a mistake. This guy was crazy. Maybe I've just never had professional pictures like this taken before, but he took 200 pictures in 30 minutes. He kept putting us in these awkward positions (laying flat on our backs, laying with our heads on the tigers' bum etc) Then he would say, "Okay, now, look into each others eyes, now you both look at the tiger, now both of you look at me, now close your eyes and pretend to be sleeping etc etc." It was so hilarious and so awkward!!! I just wanted to tell him to leave us alone and let us play with the tigers, but I couldn't get a word in. Maybeee we'll share some of the horrible pictures with the blog, I don't know though. After about 10 minutes he asked us if we were dating and when we said yes, he took Robbie's hand, my hand and the tiger's paw and put them all together, like we were one big family. It was a little ridiculous. Despite the awkward photographer, we loved playing with the tiger cubs and with Mikey and Pfala the grown tigers. It was definitely scary because we were inside their enclosure with them, but I'm so glad we did it!

Okay I'm going to add some more pictures, miss you all!

LOVE
Maggie and Robbie

Update

The school where Robbie and I teach is on the grounds of a temple and thus is a Buddhist school. All this past week there was a festival going on in the temple, and we didn't even have classes on Thursday. Robbie, Steph, and I went with the students and other teachers into the Wat for an hour and a half long ceremony. We sat on the floor with the teachers in front of the children, and they brought offerings of flowers and candles up to us. We placed the offerings in wooden bowl and then listened to different speakers. On Friday, the festival continued with a free buffet. After teaching the sixth graders for two hours, we went to have lunch with the 2nd grade teacher Oye at the festival. All of the students were loving the free ice cream. Especially a new kindergarten student that was eating his with two fingers instead of a spoon. He was a mess but so adorable.

It's hard to explain our school. It is amazing compared to what we were working with in Africa, but is still very poor. After we eat lunch with the teachers, they give our leftovers to some of the kids that we assume can't afford to buy school lunch. They literally give them the food we pick over. The teachers at our school also don't follow a curriculum, and will leave the kids alone in the classroom with nothing to do for an hour or two at a time. On our first day, at 11:00 we realized that none of the teachers were in their classrooms. I went looking, and found every single teacher in a meeting. The kids were just running wild and it didn't seem to phase anyone! This school is just very different from what we're used to at home. Like I mentioned before, this is definitely a huge improvement from the school we were working with in Africa. These kids have classrooms with desks, chairs, school supplies, chalk boards etc. They all have book bags and note books. They even have "Express English" workbooks, but unfortunately the books are for the most part too advanced for them.

At any rate, no matter what we teach them or what we have to work with, these kids are so adorable and really want to learn. I'm using this experience to get a feel for what grade I want to teach, and I'm starting to lean towards kindergarten. I've always wanted to be a teacher but I've never known what grade I want to teach. Previously I was thinking 3rd grade, but at the time being, I'm just loving the 5 year olds. This is such a big change from what I used to think, and will probably change 100 more times. Who knows?

Last night, Neha, Robbie and I went to a Muay Thai boxing match. We paid an extra $4 to sit ringside and it was intense. We saw seven fights and two different people got knocked out. This was an experience we couldn't skip out on, but I don't think I will ever feel the need to go to another boxing match.

Well it's Saturday afternoon and we're going to go exploring more of Chiang Mai. Happy June!
LOVE
Maggie and Robbie

Just a couple photos

Trying to leave class, but it is suprisingly hard to shake 9 3rd graders!!!


Maggie doing her "Kindergarten thing" The kids love her!!! However, I think they are more enamored with my arm hair.