Rice Farmer

After I finished teaching on Wednesday I was offered the opportunity to go learn how to plant rice with the lady who helps cook lunch for the students at PlaPak Noi. The small village of PlaPak Noi is a sub-division of the larger PlaPak and is where one of my schools is located. This village, where my students come from, only consists of farmers and I thought that it would be a great experience to see what my students help with and learn more about how they live. Rice farming is an important and large part of everyday living here and I would soon learn is incredible tiresome and tedious.

I was not prepared for heading out to the field considering I was still in my teaching clothes. Who says you can't plant rice in a dress though?? I think it made it that much more funny for the farmers who stared at me most of the time giggling to themselves. I'm pretty sure I was the first farang to step foot into those fields. Throughout the 2 hours I was out there I was continuously being corrected in the proper technics of rice planting such as the way you hold the bundle of seedlings, what way your hand should be facing at when you insert it into the mud covered water, and what is sufficient spacing between each row. Lets just say I wasn't the most graceful. My feet kept sinking so far down into the mud I'd almost fall over if I tried to pull them out and my lines of rice were zig-zagged throughout the field. The lady I was with moved so fast and effectively never wasting anytime popping the seedling in only hearing a small 'plunk'. Her seedlings never tipped over as mine did and always made perfectly straight rows. I hope when it comes time to harvest the rice that the field the farang girl planted turns out okay!

It amazes me that all the rice fields in my village and surrounding area are planted by hand, and trust me that is a lot of rice fields! I wish my Thai was in better shaped to learn more about the exact logistics of it all and the correct way of planting and harvesting. I did manage to find out that they do 4-5 of the rectangle patches a day. Walking around the village you see many older people with permanently hunched backs from spending years in the field. Now that I have been in Thailand for 9 months I've made it through to see all the different phases that the fields go through. When I first arrived it was harvesting the rice which I got to participate in during our orientation month. Then, burning the fields to plant vegetable gardens in the cold season. Now, in raining season replanting the rice.

The fields in dry cold season and harvesting season!

Wai Khru

This past week on Thursday was Wan Wai Khru the equivalent to the American Teacher's day. The previous day the students were practicing their perfect wai position for the event. The perfect wai consists of hands in prayer position with thumbs touching their nose as they bowed down touching their heads to the floor . They also were making intricate flower arrangments called Kratongs to present to the teachers the following day. On Wai Khru, the school stage was decorated with different colored clothes and once all the students were seated Khru Khem and the Principle started making a 45 minute speech on a microphone that was way too loud. I of course had no idea what was going on but have gotten really good at zoning out during long thai speeches. The students sat paciently listening, yes even little kindergardeners. They were watched by the careful eye of a teacher who was protrolling with a bamboo stick giving students little hits on the legs or a tug to the ear if they were not paying attention. At one point they had the students close their eyes while they continued their speech to help the students focus and not play with their neighbors. After the speeches were finished the students said a few prayers and sang a song. Each grade then came up on stage where the teachers were seated and presented them with their flower arrangements and gave a deep wai. When the students were bowing down the teachers touch each students head giving a small blessing.

After the Wai ceremony was done, school elections started. This was for the position of lead student of the school. They are like the president of all the students, in charge of leading the morning prayers and assembly. I thought that this came at perfect timing since right now in Thailand is election season and is a good way for students to be familar with the process. First, all the voting stations were set up and the older students assigned roles. The positions included: passing out the voting paper, a table monitoring the voting, a student guarding the voting box, a student who would individually call out each vote, and a student tallying the votes on a board. It was completely student run which I was impressed by and they even let the kindergardener have a vote. In the end 6th grade girl Wiew won the election by a landslide. She is also my top student in english class. Once everything was finished I was told multiple times the day before that there would be no teaching on Wai Khru so I didn't plan any lessons or bring my teaching supplies. I heard the Principle on the microphone after telling students to go "rien pasa angrit" (study english) and I then knew that I would be expected to teach all 4 hours of my class. uuhhhgg okay here we go....

Voting box

6th grader ,Em, in charge of writing the votes

1st grader writing her vote

students cheering as

the votes are read

Winner, Wiew, being announced.

Rainy Season

The color of Thailand has changed completely within the past few weeks going from a dry brown to every shade of green. It is hot/wet season in Thailand now and it has brought on a whole new set of beauties and challenges. Temperatures have been in the 100s and teaching in the heat is gruesome. My students seem to be like wilted flowers in the afternoon (and so am I!) as I stand in front my classroom trying to encourage them to hear the differences in vowel sounds our latest english unit. Showers have averaged 3 a day; 1 in the morning, 1 after school, 1 before bed. Mine and Amanda's bedrooms have been still sweltering hot after we come home from school, being on the second floor (even with our two fans), so we stay downstairs till after dinner.

With this heat has come intense thunder and lightening about every other day. The thunder crackles so loud it hurts your ears and shakes the house. Thais are extremely weary of the lightening for some reason making everybody turn off their cell phones, all appliances unplugged and even refusing to drive in their cars. I was stuck at my school for an hour this week as all the teachers waited for the storm to pass over. One of my classrooms isn't fully enclosed making it possible for rain to come in. This has left puddles of water that I now teach around, of course the students aren't phased at all by this. The beauty of the heat and rain has been the vegetation turning wonderful shades of green and rapidly growing. The newly planted rice fields have sprung up almost overnight in their flooded fields.

What has also been rapidly reproducing is the mosquitos, flies, and insects. My legs are once again covered in bites despite my twice daily applications of repellent and lighted mosquito coils. My bedroom floor is covered nightly by little black bugs that drop down from off the ceiling. I take refuge under my mosquito net and use a headlamp to do any reading. My gopgays (huge 12 inch lizards) have been in a hunting frenzy on my bedroom windows snatching up all the moths which make my window screens shake as they bounce up against it.

With all the rain more dangerous creatures have come out, mainly snakes and scorpions. Last week I woke up and went down stairs to use the bathroom and I open the door to see a little tail that was way too long to be a lizard. Pi Yok, my thai roommate, had warned us about snakes in the bathroom, so I walked no further. Amanda had woken up the same time and saw me standing outside the bathroom with a broom in hand. I told her about the very long snake like tail I saw. Being from Florida, Amanda has seen her share of snakes and isn't scared of them so she took the broom and went in to investigate. She calmly swept the snake back down our bathroom drain hole like no big deal. The next day I again saw a seemly harmless snake slither by my classroom. Where ever I walk in my house I always make sure to never step in the dark because you don't know what will be there. A more harmless but pesky intruder has been the swarms of ants that have invaded the house. They climb into the water heater making my morning cup of instant coffee have floating ants in it and have even managed to get into a peanut butter jar. We have been fighting back with ant chaulk which seems to do the trick. However even if you brush up aganist a wall you will probably have a few ants crawling on you!

In other news, here are my new ADORABLE kindergarden student hard at work in english class. They are by far my most motivated and intense students repeating every word that comes out of my mouth.