While I’ve devoted much of this blog to sharing what I have learned about Thai culture, with my service winding down I figured I would give a short round-up of some of the recent projects I’ve either spearheaded or had the chance to be a part of, to give you a bit more insight into what being a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand entails.
Last year, for Christmas, I went to my friend and fellow Peace Corps volunteer Jill’s site. She held a great Christmas camp for the students at her school and I decided I wanted to do something at my school. So this year, I enlisted the help of the teachers at my school and planned out some Christmas festivities. One of the lessons was learning Christmas carols, which you can see here!
Today is Father’s Day here in Thailand, with much of the honor and regard being directed towards the king, the father of the country. In honor of the monarch, Thais are wearing yellow, his color in honor of the day he was born on, a Monday. But today is not the only time that Thai people dress the same.
Last year, in the weekly e-mail that is sent out by the Peace Corps Thailand office, there was a call for people who keep a blog to submit theirs for consideration for the first ever Blog It Home competition. The winners would be flown to D.C. to take part in the Third Goal Conference and to give a presentation on blogging and their country of service. At that point, I had been in country for about seven months, but was making regular posts and decided to submit for the country director to choose which one would best represent Thailand.
I wasn’t chosen. My friend, Sara, was chosen as the finalist for Thailand and then the people at the Office of the Third Goal selected her as one of the winners. She finished her service in March, and I have kept on blogging.
In Thailand, a bpai tiao is a trip of any length. I’ve written about some of my more significant bpai tiaos to tourist destinations here, to be used as travel ideas and tips.
Thailand may be 98% Buddhist, but Christmas is a big deal here. Christmas has been all over the advertisements and the big box stores have been decking the halls. Of course, many schools that have a Peace Corps volunteer see this it as an opportunity to get “the real deal” American Christmas experience at their school and enlist their volunteer to plan Christmas Day activities. My friend Jill was one of those volunteers whose school wanted some Christmas activities and she asked me to come and help her out. Happy to have to chance to spend the holiday with a friend, I agreed. Check out some of my Christmas Day activities!
Yesterday, after hearing about it since the beginning of the semester four weeks ago and watching the kids practice sometimes during class time, was finally Sports Day. This Sports Day just involved the students at our school, not other schools like the Sports Day I briefly attended when I visited back in March.
I recently had some visitors come to my rural village in Thailand. Since school had recently started up again, I decided to have them come and help me out in my classes. We played a bunch of games to review what was taught last semester. Everyone had a ton of fun!
Yesterday, school “started.”
I put “started” in quotation marks because, while all of the key players were at school, nothing of consequence actually happened. The teachers were there. The students were there. Even the principal, who is rarely at school, was there.
But I did not teach.
I’ve posted about the field trip that I went on to Chonburi with the 4-6th graders, and last week Wednesday was the 1st-3rd graders turn for some end of the semester fun.
I got a message from my co-teacher the day before telling me about it, since school has been out and I wouldn’t have known about it. She told me that they were going to go to the museum and the Korat Zoo. I figured, I haven’t been to the Korat Zoo before and it would be a good opportunity for me to spend some time with some of the other teachers at the school, so I went along.
My first semester of working in Thai schools in now on the books and completed. Last Thursday the students had their second of two days of testing and the school shut down for the semester after that. Officially, by the government, school was supposed to go until October 10, but I’m not complaining. We’re supposed to go back on November 1. It is officially bpit term, literally meaning “closed term.”