My favourite routines

So I wrote this way back at the beginning of March, decided it wan't finished, and then never found the words that should fit on the end. I found them now, and I hope you all forgive the delay: March has been an interesting month.

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Routine, I’ve found, is a beautiful, comforting thing. It helps keep me sane. The routine I keep with God is most certainly the best kind.

I pray with my children every morning, every break-time and every lunch time. I pray with my roommates before every meal, before every new endeavour and whenever we venture into the unknown, frightening or painful. I pray with the other teachers every day before school, or at least when I manage to get to the morning meeting. I pray every Monday evening with the director and his family and the rest of the English teachers, every Tuesday at Bible study and every Sunday in church.

I can honestly say I’ve never prayed so much in my life.

My kids do two sets of prayers in the morning: ‘Thank you God for’ and ‘Please God help’. We write them on the board at the beginning of our first lesson, everyone volunteering ideas for me to put up. ‘Thank you for milk’ is a common one, because we have milk every morning too and it’s an easy English word to remember. But we do get some more interesting ones too. ‘Thank you for all teachers’ is one of my favourites, right up there with ‘Thank you for rabbits’ and ‘Please help us get yoyos’.

My kids shot up hands when I ask them who wants to pray. They get upset, seriously throw tantrums and cry upset, if I don’t choose them. To pray, out loud, in English.

I used to dread praying out loud. It would have been mortifying if I’d been made to do it in French.

In 'fun reading' I generally try to read one Bible story to them before they all go off to read by themselves. We pick them from this beautiful picture book with easy, rhythmical and repeating words, and they watch eagerly, not put off in the least when we the same story over and over, day after day. They interrupt, pointing at characters in the book and telling me all about them: ‘He is bad!’ ‘She no listen.’ ‘Look, Miss Emma, six children!’

They never fail to notice Jesus. Never fail to notice God and his love, even when he’s not quite physically there: no old man in white to point at and identify with. Maybe he’s hidden in the folds, nothing more obvious than a light, a look on a characters face, something a character does.

They’re desperate to see him, joyous to see him, every time.

Grooming habits

Elaine erupts with concern during our English lesson and thoroughly distracts the whole class. I’m confused until Marie comes over and points to a small scab on my leg. ‘Oh’ I go, rubbing at it a bit ‘I just shaved this morning.’

Four sets of uncomprehending stares are levelled at me.

I act out shaving, pretending I’m holding a razor and running it over my leg. They don’t get it. Thai women, I remember, don’t often shave. So I have them feel the hair on my arm and then the lack on my leg.

Strange surprises

It’s strange, the way change can happen.

It can be a smooth and subtle transition, a horrible bumpy and juddering affair, expected, surprising.

Definitely surprising.

An Unromantic Reality

I read this blog post by my friend a few days ago, and all the teachers agreed wholeheartedly with its content. Instead of trying to re-write the sentiment in my own words Lucy agreed to let me just share the original with you. Enjoy.

'God shows up in our reality. He shows up in our weakness. His eyes are not running across the earth looking for the woman who lives in a romantic movie set of perfection. He is looking for the real, the weak, and the one who needs Him.'

Student Stories

So here’s a little video I did some filming for last month, and which we got to see just yesterday. It’s already doing the rounds on facebook and other places but I thought I’d share it here too. It’s called ‘Student Stories’, which I think pretty much describes the contents.

Watch it, share it, get involved.

Word-Warriors and The Usual for Lunch.

I’ve got two bits for you today. The first is a tid-bit on one of my students, and the second a snap-shot of the everyday. I asked my father for advice on what he thought people wanted to read back home and these ideas are from those suggestions. I’m going to try to do something similar once a month; one thing about a student, one thing about the everyday.

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Word-Warriors.

One of my children has a habit of picking up things I never meant to teach her, words and phrases I never deliberately endeavoured to have the students learn. She’ll say them at odd moments, not all the time, and I find myself constantly surprised by it. “What are you doing?” she’ll say, a phrase I think I’ve only ever used as a quick jolt for when they’re being silly or naughty. Their attention will come back to me with a guilty giggle or smile, and mine turns to her pleasantly shocked yet again. I don’t think I’m ever doing anything particularly interesting when she asks, but she still seems to delight in ambushing me with this unexpected English phrase.

When 3 became 4

I’ve got an introduction to make.

Back right, the kid not in green? This is my new student. You'll know him as Jude.

He joined Grade 1 over a month ago, just after the October break, speaks the tiniest amount of English, and is very, very sporty. He has also been pseudo adopted by the oldest boy in the school, who plays basket ball with him and jokes with him and insists they sit next to each other in fun reading. Given that this older kid is by turns cheeky, rude, apathetic and really very smart (If a bit lacklustre in applying it) all the teachers are finding it mildly hilarious.

Jude is also a great advocate of cuddling. Which would be fine. Except, as I mentioned, he’s very sporty. And always seems to have a jacket or jumper on that he can never be persuaded to remove.

It’s always a slightly sweaty cuddle.

But he is the only kid in Grade 1 or 2 who can do a decent unassisted sit-up with any speed. Tradeoffs, I guess.

Reading Material.

Just for your viewing pleasure, here are the blogs of the other English teachers here at the school. All but one is from America.

http://arambikur.blogspot.com/

Amy Rambikur, 2^nd grade teacher, from Rhode Island. Used to teach 1^st grade as well, before I arrived.

http://elenberginthailand.blogspot.com/

Emily Lenberg, 3^rd and 4^th grade teacher, from New Mexico. Is heading back home for a five week holiday, so we’re all going to miss her dearly until she gets back.

http://brittanygray.blogspot.com/

Brittany Gray, 5^th and 6^th grade teacher, from Colorado. The oldest of the English teachers, and the only one of the three without a teaching degree. She is contemplating going back to America at the end of the school year and getting one though; she feels called to teach.

http://lucyacowpland.blogspot.com/

Lucy Cowpland, teachers assistant, from Dundee in Sctoland, and the latest addition to our group. Though to be fair they knew she was coming a lot sooner that they knew I was, so she didn’t feel quite so new as she might of otherwise.

Left to right; Brittany, Emily, Amy, Lucy.

http://hopeinternationalschools.org/default.aspx

The School of Promise’s website. I can’t remember if I have already shared this, but it’s worth looking at.

Ohy, that’s a lot of links. Don’t hang about, I’ve not got anything else interesting to say.

What are you still here for? Click! Go! Go!

Deliberate Distraction.

Spiders and flies is a game we’ve taught to the kids in PE. It’s not stayed there, emerging during mornings and breaks as group entertainment. It’s like tag, but the spider (It) has to stay on a line rather than run around, and flies run from one end of a space to the other, across the spider’s line. It’s great fun to watch.

We’re in the school bus (Recently acquired, and still a vague novelty to the kids.) dropping off the second to last child, and instead of leaving straight away we stay. The child’s mother bakes, a lot, and it’s amazing. All the teachers get bread and pastries from her and Joel’s (The schools ‘director’. Even he’s not sure of his own title. He was part of the founding group though, and is the westerner-in-charge. Cru Ooy is the thai-in-charge. We call her ‘boss’) taking the opportunity to order some. It’s probably also a subtle check-up; she’s recovering from cancer, and has been kind of adopted by the school family. They’re very good at looking after their own.

So, I hop out with the last two kids. Well, fall out. They’re laughing quite a lot, and getting stuck in the seats and dropping bags and I’m finding it too amusing to really be much use. I joke with the second child that we’re going to leave her here. “You’re going to live here now, ok? Really? You will sleep here? Ok!”

Shorts, with a chance of Woolly Hat.

The weather here is starting to, amusingly, remind me of British stuff I’m used to. Kind of. It helps that I’ve adapted to it all, to a certain extent; the heat doesn’t feel as hot now. Makes it feel more familiar.

It’s cold in the morning, for a given value of cold. You get up and potter around going ‘Argh where are my woolly socks!’ before you realise you don’t have woolly socks, you moron, this is Thailand. So instead you forgo thoughts of woollen socks and get ready, maybe having a hot shower; a cold shower is out of the question, if you can help it. You put on a pair of long trousers, consider them, step outside briefly and decide that yes, it’s defiantly too cold for anything shorter, thank you. On goes a top or two, and a cardie or that one jumper you (Your mother) had the foresight to pack (‘Why will I need a jumper? It will be way too hot.’ ‘Always be prepared.’ ‘Fine, fine.’) You have breakfast, and a cup of tea which you warm your hands around pathetically and then suddenly its 7.00 and you’ve got to hop in the van, which is covered in condensation. You’re pretty sure that’s a sign it’s gotten colder. Or that it rained over night. Either way.

Spare Change.

The school has been looking into getting me a work permit and a teachers visa; it’s what the rest of the teachers have, and it more appropriately reflects what I’m doing out here than my current documents. I would have had to get a new visa anyway, as mine runs out in December. At least 4 months too short. We’re hoping that it can all be done in country, down in Bangkok, which would make things a lot easier. But the visa commission wants applicants to have at least 25 days on their current visas, so before I can head south I need to do a border run; go to the border, hop over, get a stamp and come back. It’s part of the Thai visa system, all required for me to remain here legally. So on Wednesday I got on a minibus and headed for Burma.

Long Time No See...

Looked at my calendar today, in an effort to work out where exactly I was in terms of my stay here: all who know well enough (Which is to say everyone, this isn’t exactly a big secret) knows I’m horrendously unorganised and time has a tendency of getting away from me. So I wasn’t surprised when I realised what had felt to me like no time at all was actually about 13 weeks. Which on paper looks like a decent chunk of time.

For most of the time after the team left I’ve been staying at a place called The River (The rest of the time Jill Bird was kindly letting me stay at her house). It’s a gorgeous looking place, all green grass and beautiful trees: as the name suggests we are actually next to a river. The River is also the name of the organisation that owns and runs this site, and their focus is on change in the community and serving the needs of Thais at their source. The idea is to change the cause of things, rather than the results. They’ve got a blog as well, http://theriverteamthailand.blogspot.com/ , which is well worth a look at.

Gorgeous scenery surrounding our room!

The River team has a tremendously full weekly schedule, with teaching, community visits, cell groups, a youth and kids club, a hotel run by on site staff, a cafe and probably a lot more I’m not aware of. Both the cafe and the hotel are run by River staff and are used as a form of training: most of those who live on site come from the tribal groups, who are at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy and so don’t get opportunities we might take for granted. I’ve been taking part as much as I can, fitting things around my teaching and planning at the School of Promise. You’ll all be pleased to hear I’ve loved every moment of it immensely!

When I first started staying at the River I was sharing my room with an Australian girl called Rachel, from Brisbane. There were a few days of crossover time when there were three of us, just before Rachel left for home. The third girl, Ellen, is from Belfast (In a city full of foreigners, it’s remarkably hard to find a fellow Brit), and now there’s just the two of us. That said we have managed to infiltrate a group of young westerners who we meet every Thursday for Spaghetti night and a pub quiz. One of the things I hadn’t anticipated about this trip was how draining it would be to constantly be in a foreign culture, and those few hours on a Thursday when I’m surrounded by westerners is turning into a moment of peace in a week full of work.

Mich, Ryan, Me, Ellen at quiz night.
Forgive Ryans expression...

Got to run, youth is just starting. We’re going to help teach them Old MacDonald: I’m sure they’re going to find the whole thing hilarious. Such is the trend of Thai humour!

Emma.

Nung Song Sam

These are three of the smallest students in the School of Promise, and most defiantly the youngest. I think. A lot of the kids are from the Karen hill tribes, who don't remember birthdays (I'm not even certain they have a word for 'birthday') and as such will not always be sure how old they are in Western terms. And will give you a different age each week...

We have a school rule about sharing names of the children on the internet, so from now on they shall be know as Eric, Elaine and Marie. Their actual names are short and often amusing: one of the girls at school is called Cartoon. Seriously, that's her name.

Well, her nickname or chue-len in Thai. Any of you who where at the Sunday service may have heard this bit of Thai culture trivia already, but for those of you who weren't I'll give a little refresher. Nicknames are what Thais call other Thais most of the time. They're often shorter, easier to say and have a very unimportant and childish meaning. The 'unimportant meaning' is key, as a big part of Thai culture involves spirits; pleasing them, placating them and generally keeping them happily out of your affairs as a meddling spirit can bring disaster. Spirits will involve themselves with whoever they feel like, but having two names will confuse them sufficiently that they  will go and prey on someone else instead.

With all that in mind, their given names are long, complicated, convoluted and full of such grandiose meaning that you wonder if your short and apparently meaningless label makes you seem a bit silly to them. Anyone ever seen 'Spy Kids'? That bit where the two children are asked by a security door what their names are, and the girl spends at least a minute citing off her horrendously long name and you wonder how she had all the space in her head to remember it? One of the kids did that to me once. It was an experience.

Does anyone know what their names are supposed to mean? Or did you parents just like the sound of it? Could be interesting to see if you reflect your name at all...

Emma.

ps: For those of you wondering, nung song sam is Thai for one two three. Another bit of trivia for you!

A Commentary on ‘Ode to Emma’.

Dear Anon,

Loved the poem. Though there’s no need to be so self-deprecating: I’m sure your nose isn’t that big.

But I’m skipping ahead by a whole stanza. First line. “Emma Emma, where are thee?” To answer your question, Thailand. “Where in Thailand?” you might ask, and to save you wasting your literary talent in composing another poem simply to ask this I shall pre-emptively answer you. Hang Dong. Is that helpful?

Reasonably helpful if you want to Google-map me, I suppose. Still.

I’m at work; work being The School of Promise. It’s is a small primary school about fifteen minutes away from the Bird’s house by car and is run by a mixture of Thais and Americans, all Christians. Two days of the week are entirely in English, with the other three in Thai. It’s still very small, with only twenty-eight students in total: the class I’m being eased into teaching has only three. To those three small 1^st Graders (Year 2 in England) I am now Miss Emma.

To narrow it further, I’m in the music room. Which currently has no musical clutter of any sort and instead four English teachers and a whole load of Thai childrens books. I can practicly hear the next line of your currently-in-production piece of prose. “Emma Emma what is wrong? At work you should work and not write blogs.”

Obviously your piece would have better rhyming. I’m not great at rhyming.

I’m not working right now because for today I’ve finished. It’s nearly three o’clock, as of this sentence. I’ve observed and helped in two English lessons, one Science lesson and fun reading time. I’m being eased in to everything, and after almost a week of solely observations, introductions (To systems, students, fellow teachers) and tips on which meals in the canteen don’t agree with western stomachs I was asked to plan and lead a Math lesson. That’s done too, and now I’m making sure no-one abuses the books. Over this next week I’m going to change from observing to teaching by one lesson each successive English day, to make sure I’m not overwhelmed.

At the moment the rest of the English teachers are planning future lessons, which I’ll be doing as well in a week or so once I’m fully into the swing of things. We have to try and follow what the Thai teachers teach, with translated Thai text books. They have to constantly check that what’s in the text book actually makes sense, with the language barrier sometimes throwing a fast ball. The English teacher for Grades 5 and 6 (Years 6 and 7 in England) is planning Science, and we’re all trying to help and getting ourselves ridiculously confused over genetics. Double eyelids and cats lacking whiskers made an appearance. Don’t ask. Because we really don’t know.

Right, where were we in the poem? Dum de dum... “To blog in oft thou didst promise...” In oft? Didst? Have you got some Olde English to Modern English dictionary secreted away somewhere? If so I want a copy, just so I can make sure you’re using it correctly. And yes, I did promise. But we had a small holiday after the group left and we just started work again last week, so we’ve only just got anything worth posting about. Here’s hoping this blog satisfies you. Things will be picking up as we head into autumn though, so expect blogs aplenty over the next few months!

Emma.