Daily Archives: October 25, 2012

Miss Belle: Pre-Kindy Teacher

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Ok so after all that complaining about having to make so many trips to Bangkok and Laos and just wanting to chill at home, this weekend I’m off again… Sneaky weekend trip to Bangkok as one of my best friends happens to be making an impromptu trip over. Hey, why not. I’m a working girl now, I can afford it – or more to the point, she’s worth it.

So yesterday was my first day of teaching Pre-kindergarten at one of the top International Schools in Chiang-Mai. I was more excited than nervous, after all the classes are 30 minutes each and the kids are 2-4 years old… How hard can it be? At least if I fall on my face and the kids run riot then all i have to do is just survive for 30 minutes. That was my mentality anyway.

I got to school half an hour before my first lesson, and was shown to the staff office and left to my own devices. Luckily this school has a fully stocked props, flashcards and stationary supply (plus anything else you can ask or think of) so I could throw away my tacky homemade and pencilled coloured flashcards and upgrade to some better quality printed and laminated ones. I’d preloaded all my songs and videos on my trusty iPad, and I just had to hope and pray the little ankle biters wouldn’t snatch and grab and ruin my most precious possession.

Turns out I had nothing to worry about, each airconditioned classroom has computers with Internet and these kids are so well behaved its ridiculous. I could never imagine 10-15 young aged students like these sitting quietly and patiently whilst I set up my music, and then just sitting and watching. It’d be a zoo in a Pre-kindergarten class back in Australia, and I don’t know if I could ever sign up for a job like that! Most of the kids were interested in learning and were either already familiar with the words or could pick them up quickly, so they made my job easy. A couple were tired and bored after 3 weeks of school holidays, and 2 students just clung to the Thai helpers and sobbed the whole time. First time away from Mum & Dad, alright… I’ll let you off today kidlets.

The easy part about my job is I teach the first class of students one target language, and then move to the second classroom and teach the next group the same thing… 2 classes, half the work. Too easy. I finished at 10am, clocked off (Thailand still uses those old school “punch the clock” systems, I’ve never actually used one in my life but it’s such a novelty) and checked my Facebook and went home – This first day on the job after 10 months holiday ain’t looking so tough after all!

I went home and started work on the following days lesson plans, as I’d been given my curriculum that day – what I’m supposed to teach the students for the next 6 months – a sheet of paper less than half a page listing 10 target aims like “numbers 1-10″ and “say the alphabet”. That’s it. I asked one of the other English teachers (3 out of 5 of us are Aussies, I’m starting to think this is maybe why I got the job) if the cirriculum is strictly monitored and is perfection expected, and I was pretty much told as long as the kids are having fun and can spit out a couple of words in English, it’s no problem. It’s very laid back, do what you want… Lots of arts and crafts, singing and playing. This, I can do.

Today’s lessons went even better, now the kids recognize me and it’s not all “stranger danger” when the farang lady walks in the room – I even managed to get yesterday’s criers to participate and everyone had a good time. On Tuesday’s and Thursday’s my schedule says I’m supposed to have an extra class as well, so I prepared 2 x lesson plans last night, thinking I’d have to come up with something awesome to keep them interested and I was a little concerned they would be bored of me by then, but guess what? My extra lessons on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s are simply playing in the sand pit with the kids. I don’t even need to supervise, the team of ever-present Thai handlers are there taking care of any sharing issues, any tears or wet nappies, and I just get to literally, play in the sand. It was actually my favourite part of the job I already love, because the kids got to see me play with them and be fun, they were in hysterical laugh fits at every little sound effect I made and were so proud to tell me their name in English and were all calling “Miss Belle, Miss Belle!” to get me to play with them. Not a bad way to earn a baht.

- Belle

Time to get you up to speed…

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Calling all faithful blog followers, I’m back! And I must apologize for the delay. I’ve had “write a blog post” on both my mental and actual to-do-list for a few days now, but I didn’t realize it has been almost 2 weeks since I wrote, no wonder some of you have been hounding me. I’m gonna make up for it though… There’s been a lot happening the past 2 weeks.

When I last left off, we were blowing off a little steam in Bangkok, undoing 10 months of tight-ass backpacker behavior by making a few expensive purchases… What good is all the blood sweat and tears that went into saving our travel money if you can’t spend big occasionally? So we toasted to our lack of responsibility, lack of mortgage or ankle-biters from the 61st floor of the Banyan Tree hotel in Bangkok, over a $60 bottle of Chilean wine. Panoramic views of Bangkok by night, my boy sitting across the candlelit table from me snapping away photos of everything before us on his new favourite toy… Not a bad way to spend our last night in Bangkok!

The view from the 61st floor @ Vertigo & Moon Bar, Bangkok

When the wine was all finished we headed downstairs and couldn’t resist the buffet dinner at the 5-star restaurant on the ground floor… Oh yeah we went there. $50 per person (we were tempted to spurge the extra $20 for the all-you-can-drink wine buffet but thought that was a bit excessive… It’s one or the other, not both!). Made to order steaks, roast duck, and a huge spread of cakes and pastries were just a few of my main indulgences… We rolled outta that place, satisfied and exhausted. Money well spent.

I love the hustle and bustle and diversity of Bangkok, the amazing food and how much there is to see and do… But I must admit I was missing Chiang-Mai and couldn’t wait to get “home”. So we decided to head home a couple of days early, and immediately moved into our new condo apartment. Our first few days were spent pimping the place out, buying all the necessities and of course a few impromptu purchases of art and new pillows… This place felt like home the first time we stepped foot inside, and now it feels even more so.

Sritana Condo 2 building, 6th floor… Our new home!

So with the condo lease signed, the job secured, all we had left on the seemingly never-ending to-do-list was to buy a scooter and do a quick visa run to Laos so we could get work permits. The timing could not have been better, as our 3-month tourist visa was about to expire anyway. The helpful staff at SEE TEFL had kindly taken care of all the paperwork for our non-immigrant B visa, which we needed to be allowed to live and work in Thailand. And as luck would have it, a few friends from our TEFL course were also in the same boat with their impending Laos visa run, so we all booked the same bus bound for Vientiane. Road trip homies!

We arrived earlier than expected in Laos’ capital city of Vientiane, so we rushed to make the Thai Embassy in enough time to submit our paperwork before the 11am cut-off. Luckily we made it, and after handing over our money, passports and mountains of paperwork, we had the afternoon to explore before returning the following day to collect our passports with the all important Thailand stamp of approval.

After a quick check through our Lonely Planet guidebooks, we chose to dine at the Taj Mahal Indian restaurant close to our accommodation and Brett & I swiftly took charge at ordering our favourite cuisine for the group. Nobody was disappointed – the Indian food is quite good at this joint. I highly recommend a visit or two (we certainly went back the next morning!)

Later we dragged our full bellies through the National History Musuem to get a greater understanding of Laos’ culture and history. We wandered through dusty rooms filled with artifacts and war memorabilia, and we got a taste of how much the Vietnam War affected Laos… But it wasn’t until we took a walk to the COPE Visitor Centre that I really felt and understood the magnitude of how utterly devastating this war was to this country. (See the blog post below for the full story of what I learnt at COPE that day!)

Anyway so after having my brain fed on information about Laos’ history, we decided to get our tummies fed and try Laos most famous export… Beer Laos.

Beer Lao

Beer Laos is made from rice (what else, in an Asian country!) and tastes bloody amazing. We pulled up a table along the river and watched the sunset, all 5 of us taking that first delicious mouthful of golden nectar at the same time to watch each other’s faces. Of course many more beers had to follow – We were only in Laos for one night, only one night to sample this country’s national beer… It was the right thing to do!

I woke up hangover free (yeah yeah), packed up and headed to the Thai Embassy to collect our passports and hit the road again. I’d foolishly tried to google a good bus company to travel to/from Chiang-Mai – Vientiane and had been disturbed to find numerous reports about how utterly horrifying the bus trip is, “spend the money and fly, it’s not worth your life” and had been careful to select the “safer” bus company for our trip over to Laos. Unfortunately on our way home the safe bus was booked out, and only the bus company with numerous (and recent) reports of fatal accidents and drunk bus drivers was left, and we weren’t keen but had no option – we boarded “The Death Bus”, popped a valium and hoped for the best. Sorry Mum.

Obviously we survived the Death Bus (high fives all round) and made it back to our homes safe and sound. God, did it feel good to be back and know all the visa runs and interstate trips were done – I’m honestly just really loving having a home and feeling at home and settled after so long on the road.

We even ticked off our final to-do item this week, and purchased our first scooter – a Honda Wave 125cc, Thailand’s favourite bike. We did a lot of hunting around before settling on this beast, and with a 10, 000 baht discount off the asking price, we know we didn’t get quite “local prices” but we sure did beat the over-priced farang price. $540 aus dollars… It does the job!

Our first scooter! 125cc Honda Wave

So we’ve purchased the bike just in time for me to start my first day of Kindergarten teaching, which I found out 2 days before my first class that they are in fact Pre-Kindy – meaning preschool, 2-3 years old. How the hell am I supposed to teach these Thai kids English, when they’re still only learning their native language? I guess time will tell!

- Belle

Unlucky Laos

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The above photo has a red dot for every site that Laos had bombs dropped. That’s a lot of bomb sites.

Just to throw a few startling stats at you, Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the history of the world. On average, there was one bombing mission every 8 minutes, everyday, for 9 years straight between 1964-1973. And that’s not just “Oh here Laos, take this one little bomb, you’ll survive” – this was a bomb-load of B52′s every 8 minutes for 9 years. That’s 260 millions bombs during that period. Now if like me, you don’t know much about Laos’ history and involvement in the Vietnam War, you’re probably thinking they must have deserved it in some way, surely? But this poor country was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In a documentary we watched whilst visiting COPE, my American buddies squirmed uncomfortably in their seats watching in horror as US militant fighters admitted that during the Vietnam War, if they flew over Vietnam to bomb particular sites but couldn’t meet their targets, rather than return to base with all these bombs and put the safety of their own people at risk, they’d simple drop them off over Laos to get rid of them. So Laos copped millions and millions of bombs for no reason. We watched video clips of the US President at the time publicly denying all knowledge of this “Silent War” on Laos, yet he allowed it happen. I felt appalled and sickened.

The saddest part of all, is of those 260 million bombs dropped on Laos over that period, over 80 million of the bombs failed to detonate at the time and are still going off randomly and accidentally today, killing and badly injuring millions of people. That’s where COPE come in – the centre we visited that day is a not-for-profit rehabilitation centre which produces prosthetic limbs for those injured by these explosives that are still going off to this day. I read and watched clips of the stories of families who have lost all their loved ones from these deadly bombs, and the anger and grief stricken parents who mourn the loss of their 7 year old child who died playing with a bomb he’d found in the street. The sad reality is that the cycle is never ending – So many families go hungry and have next to nothing because their parents or siblings have been injured from bombs and cannot work, yet the bomb shrapnels found in fields produce income for families so local people (with no knowledge of how to correctly handle a loaded bomb) go to collect this “metal scrap” and well… it’s a bad cycle. They are poor because of the bombs, but collecting the bombs generates income, but then also causes injuries which puts them in a worst position than before. There are many NGO’s and different organizations across Laos working to safely remove these bombs so they do not harm the people, but there are literally thousands and thousands. This problem is not going to fix itself overnight, so in the meantime the horror and the loss of life continues for Laos.

The amazing part is, there is still a positive outlook and a smile on the face of the people we met in Vientiane. I walked out of COPE that day with a completely different attitude towards the local people, and felt my heart open up for them and everything they had, and still were, going through. They were the victims in a terrible war, yet they still greet foreigners (and amazingly, Americans) with love and affection. Incredible.

If you’re interested in knowing more, check out COPE’s website http://www.copelaos.org or check out a documentary called “Bomb Harvest”.

- Belle