Lucie and Unorganised Temple Visits!

On Friday of this week Lucie, our Rep, came to visit us in Na Kae. Lucie was a volunteer in Thailand in 1992 and loved it so much that she has now lived here for over 15 years. She is employed by Project Trust to be our in-country Rep so that if any of us have any problems there is someone close at hand to help. Her visit was simply to see how the project was going and to make sure that us and our hosts were happy, which we are!

She arrived at about 12pm at St. Joseph Primary School, where Caitlin and I were working (we work there every Friday). Well, actually, we weren't working because we had arrived bright and early to be told that we didn't actually have any pupils to teach because they were all sitting mid-term tests. This is a regular occurrence here - quite often we won't be told that something has changed or that something special is happening until the day, and there are a lot of things happening! I genuinely cannot remember the last time I taught a full week of normal classes - there is always something exciting going on! Anyway, Lucie arrived with her 3 year old daughter, May, just in time to have lunch at St. Joseph before having a wander round. She had never been to that primary school because we are only the second set of volunteers that this project has had, and the last volunteers worked at a different primary school.

After this we made our way to NaKae Pitt. with Caitlin and I on bicycles and Lucie following us in the car. Lucie had a quick chat with Kru Nid and then came to see our house. As Na Kae Pitt. is our main place of work and Kru Nid has become our main host, at about 2pm we went back there so that Lucie and Kru Nid could talk some more. While they were talking we used the time to play with May. Actually... in all honesty, we used this as an excuse to play with her toys. It was fun!

We then went on to NaKae Sa., the private school that we work at on Saturdays, to give Lucie a look at all the places where we work. As no one was expecting us and we arrived after the school had finished there weren't many people about, but we managed to speak to teacher Gai who is heading the Saturday project that we're involved in which was nice.

At about 4.10pm we headed on to Ban Phon Sanuk so that Lucie could meet Pippa's mum and dad and see where we had made most of our friends. It was great for her to meet them - she speaks fluent Thai so was able to explain who she was and chat to them. At about 5pm Kru Nid phoned us to tell us that there was a party at the house next to the bridge on the way to the school and that we were invited to eat there, so off we went to eat! It was a lovely house, we thought it belonged to one of the teachers, then got told that it belonged to another teacher (Kru Keh), but it turns out it doesn't belong to Kru Keh but we're still not 100% sure who it does belong too...! The food was good as always though.

Lucie and May stayed at the same resort that Nick and Rachel stayed at when they visited, which is about 2km away from our house. Before they went there though they came back to our house to have tea and chat about how the project is going. We found out that Kru Nid wants us to talk to more people and try not to get lost in our own little world as much, so we know what to work on.

On Saturday Caitlin and I were going on a field trip with the NaKaeSa. pupils, so as Lucie had no plans for the day other than make her way back to Ubon her and May came with us. The plan was to visit Prathat Srikhun (one of the 7 pagodas of Nakhon Phanom) and then go to a temple on one of the mountains just outside Na Kae called Wat Dan Sao Khoi where they have miniature versions of all 7 pagodas. Lucie, Caitlin and I arrived at Wat Srikhun along with Gordon, Dave and Martin who are other 'farang' teachers who have been helping with the project. We waited there for about 20 minutes for the minibus (which left before any of us) to arrive. We then got a phonecall from Joe (another 'farang') who told us that the Srikhun trip had been replaced by a trip to 7/11... I'm being serious. They took so long at 7/11 that there was no time left to see the temple. Luckily the temple is about 8 minutes down the road so we can see it anytime, but it would have been good to be able to talk to the kids about it in English while we were there!

We then jumped back in our vehicles (Lucie, Caitlin, May and I in Lucie's car following Martin and Gordon's car) and went on up to Wat Dan Sao Khoi. We arrived about an hour before the kids because they had to walk up to the temple as the road was too steep for the bus. Lucie went home just as the kids were arriving as she had to get back to Ubon in time to get ready to go to a wedding in the evening. The aim was to get the kids to do a mini tour-guide presentation in English as we saw each mini-pagoda, but all of them were too shy. Instead we ended up asking them questions about each pagoda and letting them use their leaflets to answer them in English. Admittedly it probably didn't teach them a huge deal, but it was good to get to see the temple and talk to the kids.Today had been fun, we got up at about 7.30am because we were meant to meet a student called Natacha (nickname Nom-Briou - it means yoghurt!) at 8am at the school to be taken up to Wat Dan Sao Khoi again, this time to watch a mountain biking competition. When we arrived at the school, no one was there, and after 30 minutes when there was still no one there we decided to make our own way up (we remembered the way from yesterday, or rather, Caitlin did). When we got there Natacha apologised profusely, as she had forgotten about us. She is really lovely, she is in 6th year and sings the prayer at morning ceremony. Her English is quite good too.
We spent the day wandering around talking to students and watching people on very fast mountain bikes cycling round the course and up the mountain. Cudos to them, there is no way I could have cycled up there! For lunch however we did have to walk, and it was very steep and very hot. Not exactly my idea of fun, but looking back on it I'm glad I made it to the top. It wasn't very far, but it was actually really hard work! We ate rice, som tham and vegetables, and got free ice cream!! I love the ice cream here - a lot of the stuff you get at the market is made from coconut milk and is amazing.

We got a lift down the mountain with a teacher, and then cycled back to our house to shower. At about 5pm the same teacher who drove us down the mountain drove us to Ban Phon Sauk to see Pippa's parents who we now stay with a couple of times a week. My main job there is watering the plants and looking after Pippa's garden... lets hope it survives!

Oh, on a side note, if I thought that getting the hang of one new language was difficult, it has just got a lot harder! As Pippa is now studying German, and I have never studied German in my life, I am now getting taught how to say lots of things in German, and I get asked questions in German! It is really fun, and I hope asking me questions is helping Pippa to learn, but it is really hard to remember!