We have done so much since we last posted. Many trips, school is flying by, friends are leaving, new people arriving. Some highlights have been a trip to the village of our principal's wife - a very traditional village in the Northeast, an ice cream eating contest and a trip to Cambodia.
We went to visit Burriram (Boo lee lamb) at the beginning of July. Our principal's wife is building a traditional Thai home. She has literally done everything, from cutting down the trees to putting up the house.
In Thailand 99% of scaffolding is made of bamboo. We had the opportunity to climb the ladder and check out the interior.
While we were there his wife, Muang took us to a neighboring village where they weave silk during the off season (meaning not rice season). Rice planting had just begun, so no one was weaving, but we got to see the silks they produce and the looms, etc.
While we were having a coke the neighbor boys put on a little show for us. They loved the attention.
We took a stroll through the village and got to see the looms.
Everyone was walking and biking around.
Then we headed back to the house for some Masaman curry and watermelon. Delicious home cooked meal.
Here's the whole gang of us enjoying the meal next to the hay stack. It was the single largest quantity of foreigners ever to visit the village at one time.
So we decided to take a stroll and meet the locals.
It was really neat to see the rice fields. Rice is planted in small fields, once the seedlings get bigger they pull them up and plant them in larger fields, spread farther apart. This field was probably planted within the week.
Here are some of the actual locals - on their way home from the fields.
Loren decided to help out by pushing the planter home. It was really funny and the people thought he was wonderful and crazy. The tires are just put on top for on the road, normally the wheels don't have the rubber on them.
People travel around on the back of these trailer sort of things.
Just a normal day in the village. A fire to burn some palm leaves on the side of the road, some cows heading down the street, you know.
The next day Muang's neighbors were planting rice. The grandparents and kids were planting. In Thailand what often happens when people have children is the children live in the villages with their grandparents while the parents work in the city.
Anyway, just a taste of village life for you. More to come on Cambodia in a later post.
In terms of daily life we have just completed our first semester at school. This week is exam week and everyone from K1 (2 and 3 years old) to P6 (grade 6) is writing exams. I am finally getting into the swing of things and I am looking forward to making some changes for next semester. I am beginning to realize how long it takes to get to know your students. It's hard because there are 47 students between my two classes. Some of my teaching goals for the coming semester are introducing more cooperative learning to my classrooms (with such big classes it is hard to plan the logistics), getting my students to do more formal oral presentations - I think now that they are more comfortable in the classroom this might be more realistic - and trying to do more projects. As it is I'm just trying to get though marking.
During the past three months there have been 6 students from the U of M teaching at our school. They had their last day yesterday. This means that there are also new staff members who started today. It's really hard to go through these transitions. One of our closest friends here in Thailand is now leaving - someone that we have spent a lot of time with and done a lot of our traveling with. I've been so busy it's been easy to avoid thinking about it, but this sort of transition is spurring on some homesickness - something that I haven't experienced at all thus far.
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