Familiar scene in every class:
Stand Up, please!
Good morning, teacher!
Good morning everyone, please sit down. I am Aajarn(teacher) Jo from Singapore......
I survived my first week as a farang English teacher in the countryside of Nanongtum. Sometimes clueless about what I'm gonna teach each class, I just breeze in, smile, sing the "Hello!" song and play "Draw the teacher" games with the kids and then waltz out to go to the hong nam(toilet) and wash my chalk covered hands. Some classes are very smart and reacts very quickly to what I say but some classes are simply from another planet. Age ranging from 13 - 17, these kids are split into M1 to M6 levels. Those in the class like M1/1 are the smartest whereas M1/6 are kinda slow and sometimes very cheeky. Teaching the older students in M6 is kinda tough for me cos I consider them semi-adults and it's so wierd to sing the Banana Song with them!!! Haha...ok, can't blame me for the first week's teaching blunder...at least now I can judge their standard of english and switch the games accordingly to fit their level.
Slowly running out of steam after singing the "Hello!" song for 4 classes a day, I requested to teach only 3 classes a day. Teaching is tiring cos it can be repetitive and some students are simply not interested in what you have to say or they don't understand what I'm trying to say. Mostly a chicken-and-duck game. I have to take my hat off teachers who do what they do for 20 - 30 years. I would rather jump off the Tokyo Bridge. ;)
My teacher host/mentor in Nanongtum Wittaya School is Ms Supawadee, aka P'Pui(nickname). Everyone has a damn long and sometimes unpronounciable Thai name and a short n cute nickname. I gave up trying to remember their long name. If they are older than me, then I will call them Pee ABC, if they are younger than me, then they are Nong XYZ. Luckily, there are more Pees than Nongs around me...hahahaha.... One thing I noticed is the rapport between the teachers and the students. They have a very informal relationship and always joking with one another and laughing. Taloke! Taloke! (joking) Some of the male teachers are like jokers and always taloke with the kids.
For the first night, they invited me to a baby shower party with lotsa food n drinks. My first cultural mistake: I tried to scoop some rice from a bamboo basket but everyone was shocked at what I'm trying to do. It's actually glutinous rice and you have to reach into the basket with your hands and pinch some rice off the huge lump, roll it into a big marble size ball and eat it with whatever dish is in front of you - be it fish, vegetables, chicken, pork, or their Isan all-time favourite, Papaya Pop Pop(somtum)! Glutinous rice is their staple in Isan area, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I think my digestion system is gonna get screwed up... For the first 2 nights, my host student family's mother(meh) was so worried I won't get used to eating glutinous rice she cooked white rice for dinner. But I can tell everyone seems to be eating it with difficulty so I told the student they can cook glutinous rice if they want to, otherwise I very pai say I screw up their digestion system instead. Today, I learned to cook one of their dish called Tod Moo(fried pork) and it is so simple n delicious! Their kitchen resembles the chicken shed area with lots of mosquitoes, sandflies and flies of every religion. On the sandy flooring with a small charcoal stove and chickens running around within 5m of me, I cooked the Tod Moo and "fed" the mosquitoes at the same time. I was thinking of cooking them some of my dishes(whatever I can whip up) but after this humble experience, I am not sure I can in this chicken style kitchen. Too bad they can't taste my tiramisu...
I spent my first night at the teacher's apartment in the school compound. The government provides free lodging for teachers who are not from the province, which I thought was pretty thoughtful. At first glance, it looked like a small 2-storeyed house from the outset, but upon entering, it is rather tiny inside, and quite delapidated(to be very honest). The toilet is world class "prison-style". Once Colgate white, the now yellowed and decaying tiles made me cringe for 10mins when I realise I had to shower in the prison-style toilet. There are 2 tanks in every house toilet - a large one for shower, and a smaller one for flushing the toilet each time you pee or take a dump, using a water scoop. The trepid waters in the tanks is a hotbed mating ground and birthing ground for the mosquitoes. I can't concentrate when Im taking a dump...so busy swatting away the damn mozzies!!!! Stoopid yun(mosquitoes)! There is seldom a sink in any house here...I had to squat and use the trepid waters to brush my teeth in the toilet...I wasn't sure where to focus my eyes on(so as not to get a violent retching reaction while brushing halfway) so I focus on the only pleasant thing I could see - the cartoon covered water scoop. I hope I didn't swallow any mosquito eggs accidentally while brushing my teeth!
By now, Im almost used to the cold showers. My host family has a spacious and newly tiled toilet, and it comes with a SHOWER HEAD!!!! I was almost overjoyed to think they have hot showers but no they don't have... and amazingly, not a single sink in the whole house at all. Maybe I should set up a business selling sinks in the countryside...it could work, I think! To make myself endure the cold shower better, I take a jog before showering. Luckily for me, there is a medium sized "reservoir" with a a jogging track near my house where I can jog everyday. I have been eating so much pretzels, kanohm wan(dessert), mooncakes, etc, I feel overweight by now. If not for the jogs, I think I can't board the flight home in a month's time cos I'll resemble the Michelin Man. I am becoming WAN(FAT!!!)!!!!.
The first night I spent at my host family's house, the 2 host students - Sunny and Thom, gave up their bedroom for me and slept in the hall instead. They forgot to give me a mosquito net that night and I spent my first night in a comatose sleep. First, the mozzies kept buzzing near my ear singing their own symphony, then the rain was beating down hard on the zinc roof with every pitter-patter, and the wild dogs(it's mating season now) outside kept barking the whole night, and lastly, the damn roosters are crowing away even when it's not morning! It feels like I'm sleeping in the ZOO!!! I certainly went to school the next day bleary-eyed and zombie-like. I almost begged for a mosquito net the next day...am so so glad I brought my ear plugs along! Life-saver! For once, Im glad to live in a HDB flat...no mozzies/roosters, with hot shower and 4 SINKS, with breezy aircon and even if it rains, my concrete roof will not disturb me at all!!! Life is such a breeze back home...I'm glad for this humbling experience indeed...
From the house, it takes about 20mins ride to get out to the province's main road, where the internet cafe Im hanging out now is located. Life is simple here: Wake up at 6am(earlier than when I work in Jurong! &$#@%$*), shower n dress, eat aahan chao(breakfast), hop on the motorbike with Sunny and off to School, teach n eat, go home n run, shower, eat aahan yen(dinner) and read/sleep by 8pm. There is absolutely nothing to do on the weekends here...no shopping malls, no cinemas, no aircon. I went to the next big city of Khon Kaen with P'Pink on Saturday, about 1.5hrs away by car. Aimed straight for the Pizza restaurant and gorged on a hawaiian pizza and cheese garlic bread. Was shocked their supermarket didn't even have a box of cereal but was later relieved to find it in Makro hypermarket. Today, I woke up at 6.30am(thinking it is 10am), jogged, then had a huge brunch with sticky rice(again), napped for 2hrs (then it got baking hot inside my room and I had to wake up) and escaped to Kaeng Kro province seeking asylum in the internet cafe.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is life in the countryside.
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