Farewell Ajarn Jill & Welcome Ajarn Tanya Dinner

Thursday, 19 August 2004

I taught most of the day after Period 1 today so Jill could get ready for her Thai dance and farewell dinner. The dance teacher at school has been teaching her and others a traditional Thai dance to present at tonight’s special event. It was fun teaching and beginning to incorporate some of my teaching activities into lessons. Some of the clubs were cancelled last period, so I didn’t have an “extra” prep time, and decided to teach the students an additional math game and review spelling and do a phonics review. After Phu had a crying spell, he and I worked together on the math game, and he had fun. After school, I showed his mom the games and how to help him at home, and Phu was emulating being a teacher, using the whiteboard and setting the activity up for his mom to do just like we did in class. After he struggled with a few concepts, I encouraged his mom to talk with him in everyday situations, in the grocery store, in the car, or when they are just relaxing, because she initially said she would only have time to work with him on the weekends. I can already tell Phu is going to be one of my favorites. He needs a lot of one-on-one academically, but he has a lot of behavior issues, and both his parents are aware of them and know it’s probably because they spoil him at home and he is an only child. He is warming up to me, and even though he tries to be sneaky, he asks me for help now, and told his mom, he wants to learn and come to school because he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.

At 6 tonight, we went to join the celebration. It started out very formal, with a program and beautiful carved signs that said “Farewell Ajarn Jill Rode and Welcome Ajarn Tanya Mau” (Ajarn means “teacher” in Thai). We sang Christian songs, the English professors/advisors to the school, Ken Dobson and Linda Sukarat, made speeches, and Ajarn Ong-Ard (the principal and director of the English Program) and his wife Kansinee (the manager of the school) made speeches and presented gifts to Jill. Jill made her Thai dance debut, which all of the Thai teachers loved, she made a speech, and she gave the school a brand new guitar as a gift because the one the chaplain uses for morning mass has been broken for some time. Lots of pictures and video were taken to commemorate the night. The teachers ended up doing Thai karaoke.

We had dinner, which funny enough, consisted of fried rice, French fries, fried rice, and a couple of Thai dishes and coconut drinks. I sat with Linda Sukarat (who is our advisor to the school and a professor in the Master’s in Education program at the local Silpakorn University), Ajarn Ong-Ard and Kansinee. Linda reminded me that I will always have a “special” place to sit as a foreign English teacher, and be given preferential treatment here in Thailand, which is something I will have to become accustomed to. It was nice to meet her and talk to her about living in Thailand, getting to know the town Nakhon Pathom, and her life story of how she ended up here. We talked about Thai culture, the large Chinese-Thai community in this town, and learning the language with a couple of other new teachers who have just arrived in Thailand as well. Linda first came to Thailand when she was 21, and she worked in the Peace Corps for three years. She had a boyfriend (who is her husband now), but moved back to the states for a few years, and then returned to stay after that. She is a professor in the TEFL program and she supervises student teachers. She has been teaching English here in Thailand for over 20 years. The one thing that was nice to hear from Linda is that she feels that this school, Bamrung Wittaya, has a very close knit community of teachers, and there is a lot of support here compared to other schools. She said I will be very supported here as a teacher and have a good teaching experience here. We talked about her 12 year old daughter and her schooling here, my trip to Cambodia, cell phones, and about the hierarchy within Thai culture.

The principal and manager presented me with a lovely bouquet of flowers and had me say a little something on stage (but I ended up saying it too fast for Ajarn Ong-Ard to translate, but I think they all got the gist). By the end of the night, the karaoke was a hit, and Linda and I exchanged emails so we could stay in touch. We will probably get together again when Christy arrives here to teach. They sent me home with a plate of fruit, and Linda sent me with advice to get lemongrass mosquito repellent.

When I got home, I was all set up to take a shower and go to sleep, but what do you do with a frog that has crawled up the hole in the wall (the shower drain) and has decided to keep me company in the shower? I got dressed and went outside, and asked Ku Ai and Pi Charn what to do. At first, they had trouble understanding me, but then Ku Ai asked, “Are you afraid?” I said no, I just didn’t know what to do with it. I can whack a cockroach with my slipper and squash the ants, ignore the geckos (because they eat all the bugs anyway), but what do you do with a frog?!

So, after we couldn’t find a stick, I gave them a roll of toilet paper, and they grabbed it and, after waving it in my face, put it outside. They did tell me that Thai people like to eat frogs, and I asked, “Are you going to eat this one?”, and they just laughed. Jill later told me that the frog is a frequent visitor, and guess what, the very next morning, he must have missed me because there he was again. He hangs out in the drain near the toilet too, so I’ve gotten quite used to him by now.