And really, where else but in Sawankhalok can I put together so many pieces of my childhood? I’ve been able to play soccer with my students, while teaching other students how to dance ballet. And then have delicious Thai food three times a day! Am I really being paid to live here?! I just need my family here, and my life would be complete! (and maybe some pets- I really want a Beta fish…)
Last weekend, I took my second trip to Lampang in one week, when the teachers all went for a retirement party. It wasn’t anything special, except for the eight hour bus ride there (Lampang is only two, maybe three hours away), with a stop at the MeMo power plant on the way. This was my favorite part of the trip because it explained how the natural resources in this region (coal) will run out in the next twenty years. They didn’t elaborate on what they plan to do when that happens, but they did elaborate on the multiple districts that rely on MeMo’s coal power plant. Oh, and did you know that this part of Thailand borders a tectonic plate? I certainly did not. And that may or may not be the reason there is an extinct volcano somewhere in Lampang and/or the reason for the hot springs in Jaeson, our next destination.
But by the time we got to the fabulous hot springs park (that I had just explored with Sarah earlier in the week), it was already dark. And since we would be leaving early in the morning, we basically got to Jaeson, hiked up to our cabins with enough snacks and drinks for a party four times our size, hopped in the hot springs for 10 minutes, then headed to our cabins for the night. Worth the eight hour bus trip? Questionable. But we did have a karaoke party (of course) and lots and lots and lots of snacks. Despite the endless stomachs of my co-teachers, we ended up hiking half of the booze and snacks back down to the bus in the morning, as we hopped aboard for the eight hour trip back. We stopped at a temple, and some European style house/museum, and for food several times, before getting back to Sawankhalok. This was the epitome of a Thai trip: lots of getting off and on the bus, and never really feeling like we have reached a real desintation until we get home. But I did have the most delicious duck noodle soup for lunch on the way back. That was probably the second highlight of the trip.
The students started their midterms during the week, which means I had to sign in and be present on campus, but had no classes or official duties other than to entertain myself. Since I had so much free time, P’Sonya assigned me to take some students to an English competition at another school in Pitsanalok. That meant my favorite student that’s not actually my student (Tide!!!) was going to compete, along with some other familiar faces. I coached the spelling bee students all week. We spent almost an hour every day reviewing words before I had my dance rehearsals with Man and Sea (which have been going amazingly, by the way). It was quite a busy week! Even on Thursday morning, as we were on our way to Pitsanalok, I was quizzing them the whole two hour bus ride there. So when we got there, we were surprised (angry) to find out that the competition was for lower lever students, M1-M3 and elementary school students. So the students I had been training (M5 and M6), could not compete. I also had my students from M3 (who I didn’t know were coming until the night before, and I felt bad for never coaching them, as they are actually my students), so they could compete. Oom explained to me that it was our (P’Sonya’s) mistake. No other school made the mistake, P’Sonya just read the sheet wrong. I apologized profusely to the older students that couldn’t compete. I wanted to cry I felt so bad for them. They missed their midterms to be there! One of the girls just whispered, “It’s not your fault. We all know whose fault it is. Ahjan Sonya did this to me last time too”. Apparently this isn’t the first time P’Sonya has sent the wrong students to a competition. She didn’t complain to me, but I could hear in her voice how upset she was about it. But we stayed and let my M3 students compete, while Tide and them went off to study somewhere. Our students did great, considering our buzzer didn’t work for the quiz section, and we were given obnoxiously harder words for the spelling bee than any other school. But we won first place for the spelling bee! (after having to spell cinematic and wholesome…who uses those words?!) and second place for the quiz section. Oom was still appalled at how poorly and unfairly the whole competition was executed, so she announced that we were not staying for the free lunch that the school provided, nor were we going back to Sawananan for the last midterm. We are going shopping at Central. So we got in the van and headed to Central and had McDonalds and Starbucks. Haha.
Following all that drama, we had another three day weekend, because Monday the 16th is Teacher’s Day. I decided to stay in town instead of traveling for the three day weekend, because an English teacher told me the football players wanted me to play with them for a tournament on Teachers Day. Up until then, I thought the men that have been playing with us were just random people from the community. It was somewhat relieving to know that I’ve been playing with teachers this whole time. So they recruited me to the team, thinking if they have a farang on their team, they will win (Seriously, that is what the English teacher told me).
Up until Teachers’ Day, I actually had a surprisingly eventful weekend. Oom’s parents took Steven and I to Sukhothai city to see an orchid festival on Saturday night. There were hundreds of species of orchids on display, including a competition showcasing orchids from around the world. Some were really strange, some miniature, and others taller than me! After browsing for a few hours, we went to their favorite restaurant for a well-deserved feast: laab, tom yum, grilled chicken, this amazing shrimp yam, mixed vegetables, and a very spicy fish. And yes, we ate it allllll.
Then on Sunday, I actually went back to Sukhothai! But this time to the old city. I had run into one of the teachers I play soccer with at the night market, and we started talking about what all people like to talk to me about: how I like Thailand so far. And he told me he wanted to take me and my friends to Sukhothai to see the ancient temples. Well, I don’t have friends, haha, so I made Tara and Be come with me. Be plays soccer too, and knows all the teachers pretty well. So my new teacher friend, Golf, picked the three of us up in the morning and took us to Sukhothai. I realized when I got in his car that this looked oddly like a double date. This is what happens when I pretend I can get by with my Thai and try to arrange things myself with someone who can’t speak English. But I swear, Golf had told me that two other teachers were going to come too, but they didn’t show. (I found out the next day that I was supposed to invite them myself, and they were offended that I didn’t! Woooops) But it turned out to be a really fun day. We rented bikes and wandered around the ancient city. I have been to the ancient city on two occasions, but this was the first time it was at a leisurely pace, and I really got to explore all the temples. I think we all had fun, even Golf who was stuck with three Americans, enjoyed saying things like, “turn left, turn left”, and asked me how to describe everything in English. Once again, always the English teacher.
One funny thing about the park... they were putting up these strange windmill kind of things as we were getting there. We couldn't figure out what the occasion was, but by the time we were leaving the park the central area was covered with these windmill things. And they made the eeriest sound in the wind, it sounded like aliens were coming! It had a really cool effect...but was kind of creepy.
We concluded our adventure, of course, with a trip to Big C, the department store in Sukhothai. Big C is always a big deal, because they have KFC and Swensons (ice cream). One of my students actually wrote in her journal about how for her birthday her dad took her to Big C. She wrote, “but I have bad news. They sold out of mashed potatoes! So pray for me, that next year for my birthday I will eat mashed potatoes!” I didn’t get the mashed potatoes, but I did have long-anticipated mocha almond fudge ice cream!
Teachers’ Day was exactly what a teachers day should be. This is what I was expecting: start playing soccer at 9, like the teachers said, play our three games, if we win, play one more, and be done by noon. This is what happened:
So I went to the school where the tournament was being held at 9:15 to an empty football field, then went back again at 10, then again at 10:30, still waiting for people to show up. Finally around 10:45, I got a call from Tara and Be that they were with the other teachers. I met up with them, and they cracked open the whisky. No joke. Be and I were dressed in our sports clothes, ready to play football, and all the other teachers were dressed casually. Were we really going to play football? We spent an hour or two drinking whisky and eating the free food provided by the school, all the while not really sure if we were actually going to play or not. We were given whisky by the regional superintendent, who makes his own whisky. The teachers had a fun time explaining the “infinity” of whisky that he has. Later, the superintendent came over to drink with us, (keep in mind, this is all before noon), and the Takraw coach introduced us to him, as Kru Tara, Kru Be, and Nangfaa (angel). He has given me that nickname. Then he says to the superintendent (and this is in English), “She nangfaa. For me”. Tara and I burst out laughing, and actually laughed about it all day. (When I first met the Takraw coach, he asked me to teach him English. When I agreed, he kept saying a word in Thai I didn't know. He asked one of the students to translate, and the kid blurted out "angel". I had told Tara this story, and we figured it was just a mistranslation, and joked about it. But apparently that really was what he meant to call me!)
By 1:00, I wandered towards the football field to see if there was actually anything going on. The Sawananan female teachers spotted me, and dragged me over to play chairball. I hope this sport doesn’t exist outside of Teachers Day because it is really stupid and does not deserve to be a real sport. It’s like basketball, except on a field rather than a court, and you shoot into a basket that a person standing on a chair is holding up. They made me practice with them last week. I figured I’d play with them, since I wasn’t doing anything else, and drinking whisky in the middle of a hot, sunny day before playing a sport quickly lost its appeal. The game nonchalantly started while I was still sitting down putting my shoes on, but they threw me in anyway, just shouting “Not rugby! Not same!” I am pretty sure I won the game for them, which was not surprising considered I was playing with a bunch of older women, the youngest maybe 40 years old. I feel like it was kind of cheating having me on their team. But they kept having me play…all four games.
We ended up winning the championship, though the last team we played was pretty good. My team wanted me to cover the other team’s best player, while playing forward center- which meant I had to sprint across the field every time there was a change of possession. But it worked- we won. Meanwhile, the boys finally started to play football. Their game started during a chairball match, so I could only play with them for the last five minutes of a game there was no way they could recover from. And that was it! They lost the one game and couldn’t play again! I would say that they lost because they were taking shots of whisky up until the game, but my chairball team was drinking beer between games too. I wonder what Teacher’s Day in America would be like.
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