Kanchanaburi

Sorry for the delay on these updates! Our internet has been horribly slow, combined with the busyness of school, which has resulted in my lack of posts. But this week should be an easy week for us so I hope to do a lot of updating. Two weekends ago Ciana and I headed to Kanchanaburi again. We went there during orientation, but we wanted to go back to explore the town and the Erawan Waterfalls. We left Friday after school and arrived at around 7. We found a hostel where our rooms were on the water (the River Kwai) and went out to dinner. The town is very cute. It's basically one road littered with different restaurants and bars. The southern part of the street is all 'lady' bars...where white guys go to hook up with Thai girls. Besides that area, the rest of the street seemed pretty fun. We actually went during a long weekend where most people go up north to Chiang Mai, so the town was pretty deserted both nights. Nevertheless, we found a cute little bar where you sit on stools and pay 10 Baht for a shot of whiskey, a shot of coke and ice and had a good time. Saturday during the day we headed to a national park that's around an hour and a half away to climb the 7-tiered waterfall. It was so beautiful I had to remind myself it was real.

Me in front of tier 2

A waterfall in between tiers

Our favorite, tier 5

Cooling off under the main waterfall in tier 5

The entire hike took us a little under 4 hours. You are constantly looking at waterfalls the whole way, but tiers have pools you can swim in. The water is so blue and really refreshing. The only deterrent -- in every pool are fish. Now you all know I am a water person, so why would fish ever be a deterrent? They eat dead skin. So as soon as you put your feet in the water they swarm to you and start eating the dead skin off the bottom of your feet. While some see this as a free pedicure, it freaked me out. I made sure my feet were constantly moving while I was in the water so the fish didn't come near me. All in all it was a pretty amazing experience and I know I will be back.

Sports Day

Across Thailand there is a holiday of sorts called Sports Day. It is, in my schools case, two days where classes are cancelled and the entire school is divided into 4 teams: blue, pink, green and red. These teams compete in basketball, ping pong, techro, volleyball, soccer and running, playing multiple games for different age groups and genders. The day starts with singing the national anthem and praying/being thankful for sports and then the competition is underway. Andrew, Ciana and I just spent the day walking around watching our students play and cheer each other on.

Students playing Techro. It's basically like hackey sack with a slightly bigger ball over a net.

Everyone in their Sports Day shirt singing the National Anthem

The second day begins with a big parade. It is put on solely by the students with very little teacher supervision. Each color has to dress in costumes that are inspired by Thai ancient culture and convey a certain celebration. For example green was celebrating music and live performances and pink celebrated the full moon festivals. After the parade, varies groups from each color come onto the field and put on a performance. This ranged from a traditional Thai dance to a lip sync that was telling a story about a girl finding love.

Students carrying blue and yellow flags because they are the colors of the King and Queen (I like to think it's a little Michigan love)

Girls on the pink team

The green team

One of my 11th grade classes performing a traditional Thai dance

Sports Day then continues next week at a district level. Kids from different schools all over Suphanburi will put on a huge opening ceremony and then compete over the course of one day. The students and the school takes this all very seriously; I'm in my second week of teaching and still haven't met 4 of my classes because they've had practice-it trumps all classes. The first week I was a little relieved to not teach these classes because it reduced my stress level, but not seeing them this second week makes me more stressed. Now I have to cover 3 weeks worth of material in 1 class. Plus, it's just a little frustrating to know my class can be cancelled on a whim and I won't know about it. (I found out my classes were cancelled because the students never showed up.) The most interesting part about it is the teachers don't seem to mind. They just tell me it's not a big deal, the students have other things they need to practice for. It is amazing how relaxed and unorganized the school is...it is something that would never be accepted in the States. Class is cancelled? Oh well. Half your class didn't show up? That's okay. Everyone is cheating on their exam? No, they're just sharing. It really is eye opening to experience a school system and structure that is so different from our own.

Side Note: I wrote this last part of the blog after school on Wednesday when my classes had been cancelled. After seeing the parade and sports day it became very clear why the students were missing class, they were in charge of quite a production. This doesn't discredit the way I felt, but I think deserves a little disclaimer.

Some more fun photos:

My school in Suphanburi

Some of my rather outspoken 7th grade boys

Our office--my desk is the first one on the left and Ciana's is the first one on the right

The canteen where we eat lunch

Some of my 7th graders cheering on their classmates