English Camp

Last weekend was a very full weekend so I am dividing my posts in two. A couple weeks ago we told Wattana (our coordinator) that we would help her friend's school with english camp, which is something all schools here do. It actually ended up being a camp for all subjects and we were just running the english station.

The weekend started Saturday at the lovely hour of 5:30 am since Wattana was picking us up at 6 to drive to her friend's school east of Bangkok. In typical Thai fashion, we didn't end up leaving until 6:30. Wattana brought one of my M6 (12th grade) students to help, also. Nay had spent a year going to school in Norway and her english is a lot better than the rest of the students. The drive was almost 3 hours, but it was fun talking to Nay about Norway. She is super cute and very mature since her year in Norway put her behind here so she is actually 19. I'm going to try to start hanging out with her some days after school so I can help her with her english and she can help me with my Thai, so hopefully that will start soon.

We got to the place where the camp was taking place, which was a really cool center for camps and a preschool set in banana farms. They fed us and gave us some coffee and we hung out for a little while. We were then called over to watch the opening ceremony, which I wish I had taken photos of. Thailand is very proud and focused on its involvement in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), so they had the college aged camp leaders dress up in the traditional dress and do a little dance for each country, most were men dressed as women which is always entertaining. They filmed us watching the ceremony, which we soon realized was the reason they wanted us there at 9 am. Turns out we didn't have anything to do for the camp until 1 pm, so Wattana took us to lunch and a temple near by.

Lunch was really cool where they gave everyone a bowl of broth with a couple things in it and then you added your own sprouts, spice, green onion, etc and this little guy cooked up little pockets of whatever you wanted (bamboo, greens, corn, cashews, and some other stuff). Aroi maa kha (very delicious).

Servin it up

After lunch we went over to the temple, which is known for its huge lounging Ganesh. Ganesh is a Hindu god, but evidently is part of Buddhism, as well. I will have to research this overlap at some point. There is a lot of this type of stuff (meaning relatively gawdy and awful attractions) to make more people come to the temple. I would like to think it isn't to make money, but I can't really think of any other reason since people give a lot of money at temples.

I payed my 20 baht to do a little honoring of Buddha with Wattana and Nay to see what you are supposed to do. It is a series of little rituals (which I don't actually support religiously, but will get in on the cultural experience). First you kneel down in front of the whole shabang and pray, then you light a candle and stick it in some wax to keep it standing, next you take your packets of thin gold paper and stick one on each of the statues, and finally you light your incense and stick it in some sand in front of a statue. It was an interesting process and it was nice to have Nay guiding me through the whole thing.

Eric slept while I honored Buddha.

After the temple, we proceeded to get lost driving back to the camp, but eventually found our way. The afternoon was spent playing english games with five groups of twenty kids at a time. It was pretty fun, but definitely tiring, especially after waking up so early. I think the kids were a little scared of us since they don't have foreign english teachers at their school, but we got some groups to loosen up. They fed us again and then Wattana and Nay took us to the bus station so we could start our trek to Ko Samet (post is on the way)!

Playing Mr. Blobby