Thailand, Parties and Goodbye Non! :(

The last few days have been brilliant, crazy and fun! Actually, they were really just typical days in Thailand!!

The week started with the entire village of Ban Phon Sanuk laughing at us at I tried to take Caitlin a couple of kilometers up the road to Loung Ang's on the back of my bike (because hers was broken) and promptly lost control leading to Caitlin rolling around on the floor like a turtle. We thought that not many people knew because it happened just outside the actual village, but the next time to saw Pippa we quickly discovered that word had spread...

On Thursday (13th January) Caitlin went to Scout Camp. I was planning on going, but Caitlin kindly gave me her cold (which thankfully is better now) so I decided to give it a miss. Instead, I spent the day planning lessons for NaKaeSa. and St. Joseph, thinking about my Community Report which we have to do for Project Trust and relaxing! I must admit I did feel like a but of a skiver, but I really don't think that spending a day and a night on a hill in a tent then having to get up at 5am to get back in time to teach at St. Joseph was a good idea! I went on a walk up past the school towards one of the temples too - it is really pretty out there, you can get right into the rice fields and there are lots of little tracks into small foresty areas etc. The perfect place for a picnic I think!

Friday was a really good day. We taught at St. Joseph as normal, and met a couple from Canada who are going to be teaching there. They are called Lorna and Eddy, and Eddy is originally from Scotland!! He has a really strong Scottish accent, so I don't feel quite so strange anymore! Actually on the subject of accents, I've lost count of the number of times I've had people not understand me simply because of my accent! The other day I was trying to tell Pippa that there was a scout camp, and I said "camp" about 4 times and started to look it up in the dictionary when she said "OH! You mean "camp"?" with a slight American accent, then told me (jokingly) that Scottish was "mai dee!" (not good!). Maybe I should try putting on a fake English accent, practice my RP for doing drama? :P
Anyway, back to Friday! After St. Joseph Pippa said that she would come and pick us up. We thought she's be coming in her brother's car, but instead her and Butschi turned up on bikes. There was only one bike at our house because we'd only managed to take my un-broken bike back from Ban Phon Sanuk (wheeling it the 2 kilometers), so between the four of us we had three bikes. Pippa assured us that this wouldn't be a problem because she would take me on the back of her bike. We then discovered that we weren't actually going back to Ban Phon Sanuk right away - we were going about 6 km in the other direction to collect rocks. So off we went with me on the back of Pippa's bike which, after a while, gets quite painful. Luckily after about 10 minutes or so we met one of Pippa's "sisters" who we managed to mooch a lift off! After getting to the place Pippa wanted to get rocks from, Caitlin and I watched as Butschi and her tried to explain to each other what kind of rocks they thought they needed, which was extremely funny. Butschi is very "everything has to be organised and we need to have exactly the right things from the right places and I need to know exactly what is happeneing". Pippa is more... laid back about things - basically, he is German and she is Thai, so they make an interesting couple! In the end we didn't get rocks (goodness knows how she thought we'd take them back if we were still on our bikes and we did take some).

We got back to Pippa's, ate som tham and sticky rice (which I love!) and then made our way to Pippa's friend's house (past a cow slaughtering) for a goodbye party for Non, Pippa's brother. He's been staying with her since New Year but has to go back to Bangkok to work. It was great fun - dancing, singing, eating and drinking as usual! It was really sad to have to say goodbye to Non though, he is lovely. We'll no doubt see him again at some point though.

Caitlin and I taught at Na Kae Sa. as usual on Saturday, but it was a really pointless lesson. Throughout the last few weeks the kids have been learning about four topics in English - The Seven Pagodas in Nakhon Phanom, Nakhon Phanom in Brief, That Phanom and the Illuminated Boat Procession. Saturday was meant to be their opportunity to put everything they'd learnt together to create brochures and billboards, in English. Instead, we as teachers wrote out information on the topics and the kids cut then out and stuck them on paper. That was it. Some of the kids didn't even know what they were meant to be creating the brochures on, even after 5 weeks of learning about the topics! In Thailand, unfortunetely, the mentality seems to be"what the box looks like is more important than what's in the box". After teaching Caitlin and I cycled to Pippa's and got taken to what we think was a wedding reception for someone in Kru Nid's family. It was outside in the evening, and although we are in Thailand and you people in the UK reading this won't believe me, it was FREEZING! The party was fun - lots of dancing and singing (not karaoke, actually good people singing! At one point a man got up on stage and Pippa started cheering then said to us "This man is crazy, but sings very good!"). We got back to Pippa's quite early, about 10pm. Since Butschi has come she's been sleeping at much more normal times!

Lots of happenings!

Okay I'll blame the fact that I haven't blogged in a while on the fact that a) the school computer is mega slow and b) I've been too busy enjoying myself in Thailand! Haha, seriously I should blog more often. This will be my (late) New Years Resolution!

The last week and a bit have been a brilliant start tothe New Year! I can't believe I've in been in Thailand for over 1/3 of the year though, I'm sure time didn't go this fast at school?!

Last Thursday we taught at the after school group that a teacher called Kru Pen has for about an hour and a half, and we decided to do Animals. Our aim was to teach them lots of animals, and then teach them the words to "Animal Fayre" (We went to the animal fayre, the birds and the bees were there...). This plan was going brilliantly - all of our drawings were recognisable as what they were meant to be, and the kids were able to remember them all (although we did realise that we had taught them the word "zoo" when in fact the song was clearly about an animal FAYRE). This continued until we realised that we had to draw a baboon. Unsurprisingly, not one of the kids recognised what we were drawing (we did have suggestions of "human" and "seal" though!), so for a moment we were a little panicked as one of the lines of the song is "the big baboon by the light of the moon". However, we managd to get by and teac them the song without needing to draw a baboon! Instead, we improvised the lyrics to "the big flamingo by the light of the disco" - I'd call it a success! Our next plan was to teach them Old MacDonald had a Zoo. Again, this was going successfully until it was my turn to sing it with them, and I merrily sung out "Old MacDonald had a farm... NO! No, he had a zoo!" thouroughly confusing the children. Thankfully we managed to get them to sing both songs with the correct lyrics by the end!

The next interesting happening has got to the the arrival of Butschi! Butschi is Pippa's German boyfriend (or husband as she calls him). Pippa went down to Bangkok to meet him on Tuesday, and we thougt that she was staying in Bangkok for at least a week, but an excited phone call from her on Friday afternoon informed us that she was at her house with him and wanted us there NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!! Gotta love her! He is actually very sweet and it's lovely to see them together, they obviously love each other a lot!

Caitlin and I had our first trip to Sakhon Nakhon at the weekend to see Tae who was a pupil at Nakaepitt last year. He was best friends with Ruth and Laura, the volunteers in Na Kae last year, and he is really nice. We met with some of his friends - his roommate Tee and two girls who I think live in the same apartment block. They weer all lovely, and Sakhon is a really nice place. I probably spent too much money - bought shoes (which I actually genuinely needed!), a hat (which I claim I need because Thailand is colder than Scotland :P), a bracelet which I definitely needed, and nail varnish which I needed more than anything... Hm, maybe I should start budgetting. I also found a 7/11 that sold proper slushies! The ones in Na Kae don't do them because they are quite small 7/11s.

Most of my classes so far this week have been fine, but one class was awful. I don't know what got into them, but the boys decided that they don't like Farang so I got told numerous times to "go home", and at the end of the lesson they left a drawing of a burning Scottish flag on the board and a sign saying "look at the picture". The head of English at Nakaepitt knows and has said that they will "talk to them". Hopefully they'll be better next week, or they'll just stop coming to class. It's only a few boys in the class that played up, but unfortunately it means that the rest of the class suffer which is a shame as there are lots of pupils who behave really well and seem to enjoy being there.

Happy New Year!!

Wow, New Year in Thailand is crazy!! Caitlin and I had planned to spend the weekend on Koh Chang with the rest of the volunteers, but we decided that instead we would stay in Na Kae. Pippa invited all of her family and friends round for a party at her house, and we though that we can have New Year on Koh Chang anytime and it will be pretty much the same, but this is probably the only opportunity to spend it in somewhere like Na Kae.

The Party started on 29th December when Pippa's brother, Non, arrived from Bangkok. It takes us about 12 hours on a bus to reach Bangkok - he made it in his car driving in less than 5. Thai driving is pretty crazy! Anyway, he arrived at about 3pm and we welcomed him with whiskey. It was really nice to sit outside Pippa's house with her family and some of her friends from the village talking (or rather trying to understand what was being said) and enjoying ourselves. After a while, at about 9pm, we moved from Pippa's house to a house down the road where there was a karaoke machine set up and more people from around the village. Caitlin and I had planned to sing a couple of songs, but just before we were meant to sing one of our friends got very upset so I went to make sure she was okay, meaning that Caitlin did it solo!! Very well done, too! After this we went back to Pippa's house for the night.


The party continued until around 2nd January, and involved a lot of meeting fantastic people and having fun. On 30th December we spent the afternoon at Pippa's family's farm. They have a rice field and a large pond for fish farming - it's really beautiful. The evening was spent again with lots of people from around the village, and some more of Pippa's family who arrived from Bangkok.

Of course, the big party day, and night, was 31st December. In the afternoon Pippa took us to her friend's house, quite close to Ban Phon Sanuk. Her friend is married to a Russian man who lives in America, and she speaks really good English. She is also absolutely crazy and lovely! It was great to meet her and her family - She has the most adorable children too - her daughter has just been a model in a Thai parenting magazine, there are a good four or five pages of photos of her in it. We were only meant to stay there for a couple of hours but we ended up staying a lot longer. Both Caitlin and I definitely want to see her again.


We made our way back to Pippa's house a little later than planned,and got there at about 6pm to see Non setting up the karaoke machine. Karaoke is huge in Thailand, a party is not complete without it! It's actually a lot of fun - I don't think I would ever get up and do karaoke in the UK but here no one cares what you sound like, it's all about having fun! There was lots of delicious food and, of course, whiskey. We stayed outside for hours talking, laughing, singing, dancing, eating, drinking and generally having a fantastic time. After a while, Pippa's friend who we had met earlier in the day came with some other people which was fantastic, and we went along the road to another of Pippa's friend's houses! She really is one of these people that just knows everyone! Again there was karaoke, and we sung a few songs. One of our favourites to do now is "I Will Survive" because it is so much fun. Back to Pippa's house, and the party continued until about 5am when we finally all made our way to our beds. It was an absolutely brilliant day/night spent with the most amazing people, and although it was a shame to miss seeing the other volunteers, I am definitely happy that I spent New Year in Na Kae.

The next couple of days were filled again with music, dancing and karaoke. All day and night there was music coming from outside Pippa's house and people sitting on her deck eating and drinking. It was really nice to be able to spend so much time with people. :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

This Month's (slightly late...) Missings!

Wow! Another month and another list of things I've missed from home.

Mum
Dad
Ailsa
Alan
The Felines
Firehawk!
The Irn Bru Christmas Advert
The Coca Cola Christmas Advert
Baked Potatoes
Macaroni Cheese
Cauliflower in Cheese Sauce
Boiled Eggs in Cheese Sauce
Cheese
Cereal with milk
Making rum truffles with Ailsa
Eating rum truffles
SNOW
Having less hairy arms (the sun does strange things...)
Having no tan lines (tanning is good, but it stops halfway down my arm because of the school dress code)

Christmas In Na Kae!!

The run up to Christmas here in Na Kae has been... strange, but great! For the past week or so we've had Christmas songs being played in the mornings at school, and lessons this past week have consisted of teaching the kids to sings "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" and making origami Christmas trees (which I must add quickly evolve into origami swords...). The kids at NaKae Pitt. have also been preparing for their Christmas Celebration which was held on 23rd December. As well as performances from groups of students (mainly consisting of funny dances and comedy sketches) there were Christmas Card Making Competitions and Signboard competitions (big Merry Christmas signs) and a quiz which Caitlin and I did. We were meant to do two other activities as well, but they didn't go so well... we planned to do a sort of game where we hold up pictures and words to do with Christmas and get the kids to do an action or sound to go with it (Santa Claus - Ho Ho Ho! etc...), but the kids either didn't understand or didn't want to do it because they just refused to do anything! Eventually Kru Nid told us to just leave it and they went on to do their show, and we didn't do the other activity either (which was going to be the 12 Days Of Christmas). It was still lots of fun and the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves though!

On Christmas Day, after opening some presents from home, we cycled to Pippa's house. She was in That Phanom buying shiny things to decorate with, so we lazed about in her house until she came back. When she did, she came with a huge bag of tinsel (which we promptly attacked her with) and lots of Christmas lights - then we decorated. Except that really Caitlin and I didn't do a huge amount of decorating... this wasn't because we didn't want to or try, but because most of what we did was re-done by Pippa in a much fancier and prettier way! Turns out she is quite the perfectionist! I am proud to say that I wrapped tinsel round a pole, and it stayed the way I had done it :)


In the evening Caitlin and I both spoke to our families which was really nice. I was a bit worried that it would make me feel homesick, but thankfully it didn't at all. It was great to see them all, and really great to see that they haven't changed a bit - still crazy! Best lines of the evening have got to be:

Me: We gave Pippa a present to do with penguins
(holds up penguin slippers to camera)
Mum: Oh! Is that Shaun The Sheep?

and

Dad (coming quickly into the room, classically calm voice): Naomi love, I would stay and talk but things have gone very wrong in the kitchen. The turkey is cooking too fast and nothing else is, and now I have to find a way to mop oil off the floor without it going slippery...

Gotta love crazy families! While we were talking to our families we opened the rest of the presents with Pippa. I got a beautiful butterfly necklace and an awesomely colourful bracelet from Ailsa (my sister) and her boyfriend, along with a crochetted reindeer (made my Ailsa!), a book of duologues from Caitlin's mum, a book from my mum (one of two books, but the first was opened at the house in the morning) and a packet of mini-marshmallows from my mum too!!

After this we went outside and sat underneath the decorations drinking whiskey with people from the village. It was a really nice, quiet Christmas :) It was really nice and relaxing and totally different to what I'm used to at home. I'll definitely remember it forever!

The Unluckyness of Me

Well the last few days have been interesting to say the least!

Yesterday, after teaching at Na Kae Sa, me and Caitlin got a lift to Pippa's house (which is pretty much our house too now :P). She told us that in the morning before she had been to a temple 4 km away and been told by the Buddha that her future was going to be amazing - she would have happiness and wealth and love, and apparently he knew all about her German boyfriend. She went with three of her friends, and she was the only one who got a good prophecy. After telling us all about it, she asked if we wanted to go and with a little apprehension we agreed. We were both quite nervous because apparently there have been people who have been told that their family will have an accident or something really bad, and it has happened. However, we both tried to push these thoughts to the back of our mind and went for it.

When we got there we had to pay 29 baht, and got given leaves which a Thai woman rubbed on our hands. These were each put on a plate (one plate for me, one for Caitlin) along with a candle and the 29baht, and put in front of the Buddha monk. Caitlin was first, and the monk waved the candle over the leaf and spoke in Thai. Pippa and Mei were there as translators, and Caitlin got a really good prophecy - she got told that her famiy were all well, would do very well in love and that whatever work she did would be good. She was told that she would have a lot of happiness, marry a Thai, which quickly proceeded into "will marry Pippa's brother" and stay in Thailand forever. Pippa and Mei were both really excited because it was such a good prophecy.

Then it was my turn. Now, after the monk had started telling Caitlin's prophecy Pippa and Mei had started squealing saying it was really good. This did not happen with mine - instead they both said "...uuuuh...". I turned round and got told by Pippa that it wasn't good. My prophecy was as follows: I worry all the time, all my friends (Thai people and farang in Thailand and Scotland) hate me and are jealous of me, if I do anything bad everyone will gossip about me, my parents do not understand each other, many Thai men love me but only because they think I'm pretty and white, they don't actually care about me and it's not good (Pippa said basically they want me for sex, not to care for). However, I am to stay in Thailand forever, marry a Thai and will have a very good future.

To "give myself lucky" and have this good future there are things I must do. Today we went back to the temple, and I was given a bucket of holy water to shower in. I also had to drink from it three times - it tasted a bit like flowers. Afterwards I got given another blessing bracelet from the monk, and got given a Buddha. I also got all my old silk ribbons torn off :( But I got to keep them :)

Home with us came a second bucket of holy water and the instructions to shower in it at 4pm, so I did that at Pippa's. I have to do it again tomorrow, so Pippa's going to go to the temple and get me some more holy water. After that I should have all my unlucky removed!

Bangkok Road Trip!!!!

Lets go on a ROAD TRIP!!

^ This was what went through me and Caitlin's head simultaneously when we found out that a) this Monday was a school holiday and b) my mum's friend Ian was happy to let us stay with him whenever we were in Bangkok. All 18 of us Thailanders have been thinking about going to see Harry Potter as a group, but as me and Caitlin teach on Saturdays we cant go on a normal weekend because we can't miss our Saturday classes. Made sense to "plan" a road trip! Although it wasn't really planned because we decided last Thursday (2nd December) to leave on Saturday (4th December).

Coincidentally Pippa was going to Bangkok to so we all went together. The journey down was brilliant - Pippa is one of those people that knows everyone, so Caitlin, her and I sat in the drivers cabin at the front. It was so much fun, but a bit scary because Thai driving really is quite crazy! None of us got much sleep - Caitlin went to sleep in the main part of the bus at about midnight and I went at about 2am. Pippa didn't sleep at all.

When we arrived in Bangkok we were greeted by Ian who took Pippa to her brother's house and us to his house, where we slept until about 10am. We then headed to the cinema to see about going to see Harry Potter, and booked seats for the 3pm showing at Paragon. With about 3 hours to spare we went to the food court and ate some amazing Japanese food - everything was so good!! The film was brilliant - and the cinema was amazing!! We got huge armchairs and blankets and pillows and a drink before the film! Afterwards we met up with Pippa and her brother Non for a few drinks, and didn't actually get home until about 2am...

The next day we woke up at the early hour of about 2pm... and went to Marks and Spencers to buy Christmas biscuits!! Money well spend I say, we bought loads of lovely things including Ginger Snaps which I am probably too excited about! We then went to Tawang Deng German Farang bar/brewery where there were loads of performances like a cabaret - it was brilliant and the acts were all really good! Definitely like to go there again sometime!

The next day we went across the river on a boat to an Italian restaurant which was really nice, was nice to eat some Indian food! We then went to the bus station and met with Pippa around 5.30pm to get the bus back to Na Kae.

It was a brilliant trip!

I'd like to add that I have never seen so many fish on a bus before. Actually I've never seen any I don't think! You know how on long distance buses there are compartments for big luggage? Well, on our bus there were compartments for luggage, and a compartment dedicated solely to Pippa's fish. She buys and sells beautiful fish, and had loads of huge bags of them!

The coming week at school we have sports day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday which should be fun, and on Thursday there is a ceremony for sports day at the school and we've been told that we'll have to get up at about 4am to get all dressed up for it!