The New House

My Bedroom

I moved into a new house on June 1st.  For my first month in Thailand I lived in a single room apartment that is more like a bad hotel.  They overcharged in every way possible and the rooms were very small and dirty.  I wanted to move out as soon as possible so I told my Thai teachers to look for available houses for me that were close to the school.  There were a few potentials but none that both my future roommate Lexy and I wanted.  After school one day a parent of my student approached me saying that she knew of a house for me. I said great when can I see it and so I drove with her right then to go look at it.  I immediately loved it and knew Lexy would too.  We brought our Thai friend over to negotiate price, internet installation, and furniture then the landlord said it will be ready in ten days.    

Now we have completely moved in.  It big with 2 bedrooms, a sun room, balcony and 2 bathrooms; a living room and dining room area downstairs.  It’s too big for only 2 people but costs the same as 2 of us living the little apartment. Having lived here for 2 weeks now the house is great.  There is lots of space, the internet is fast and its close to the school.  I could not be happier living here. 

My bedroom

The Sun Room and Balcony

2nd Bedroom and Hallway

Stairs

Saturday Lunch Club

         This Saturday I was invited to lunch with the Thai teacher.  She told me she would call me when she finished teaching for the day.  She has to come in and teach Thai on Saturdays because the rest of the week is all English.  She usually finishes around noon.  So at around noon I get a call and a few minutes later I am picked up by her and another kindergarten teacher in their car.  We drive about 15 minutes to get to an outdoor local restaurant place.  Nothing fancy but definitely a place for locals. There were 4 other kindergarten teachers their waiting for us to join them.  As my Thai teacher does not know much English I had no idea what to expect.  It was like a teacher Saturday lunch group.  They clearly did this quite often but must go to new places every time.  It seemed as of this was the first time at this particular restaurant.   

         An interesting thing I learned and experienced is that most Thai people do not drink their water until after the meal is over so we had to sit in the heat with iced waters in front of us and not drink them.  When the food arrived, we had sticky rice, a peanut cabbage salad, fried chicken, squid flavored ring things, and pork.  It was all really delicious and we ate the typical Thai way to share all the food and just take little bits and pieces throughout the meal.  After about 10 minutes or so a huge whole fish was plopped on the table.  It was lightly cooked and was delicious.   

        They picked pieces off in the perfect way to avoid all the bones.  So after all that food I was stuffed.  We were finished, what was not eaten was put into bags to take home.  As we left my Thai teacher says sorry it was not delicious to which I just thought yes it was.  But regardless the teachers were not impressed and apparently they were still hungry.  So we went out for noodles. 

I had egg noodles which were also delicious.  Thankfully I really love most Thai food.   

         As for desserts I have not been much of a fan.  We had a bowl of iced sweetened condensed milk with some fruit in it.  It was so sweet and I could not even take a second bite.  It was like nothing I have ever tasted before.  But just image plain iced sweetened condensed milk possibly with extra sugar added and Thailand loves sugar and puts sugar in anything.  Beside that dessert I loved everything we ate and it was a great Saturday out with all Thai teachers.  Hopefully it happens many more times.  I felt like I got to be part of their weekly  Saturday lunch club. 

Oh Mister Sun!

My best lesson so far has been a sun mosaic.  It was in my second week and the teachers are switching around who plans the main lesson and I was still confused about my day but when it came I wanted to teach about saying good morning, good afternoon and good evening.  Most of the people here as in Rwanda can only say good morning.  So my Thai assistant and I made large suns and some mountains.   One Sun was glowing orange to represent the morning sunrise, one sun was big and yellow for the hot afternoon and the evening sun was orange with some yellow sun beams to represent the evening sunset.  Though I don’t think it really caught on completely the students do now say good afternoon after their naps so they did learn something.  For the creative activity that day I wanted it to involve suns but coloring was getting boring for the kids as they color a lots to learn letters and numbers.  So instead we printed out blank simple suns in the computer and had the students rip colored paper into small squares and paste different colors onto their sun.   We used pink, red, yellow and orange paper for the project.  The activity took a long time, over an hour of keeping the children completely occupied and they loved it.  The suns turned out beautifully and I had a very successful lesson

 

Thai Cooking

About 2 weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to a Thai women’s house to cook.   She is a very nice old woman who lives alone and loves to have company.  My friend Lexy and I were invited by our Thai friend named Film.  It was a really fun Sunday night.  We made 4 different Thai dishes.  I know the names of some but not all.  We cooked outside using a gas stove. 

The ingredients for the first dish were corn, onion, tomato, carrot, garlic, ketchup, chili sauce, pork seasoning, oyster sauce, regular soy sauce, a sweet soy sauce, pork and fresh squeezed lime.  All these ingredients are sautéed and the put inside and omelet.  The ingredients end up looking like Mexican food, and it tasted delicious. 

The next dish is called Preak Gang Moo and is a spicy pork and green bean dish with garlic, hot peppers, pork, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, sugar, green beans, oyster sauce, water, and basil.  This dish was also delicious.  The green beans are raw when they are sautéed so they are still very crisp and crunchy in the dish.  I personally enjoy raw vegetables instead of cooked so I really enjoy this dish.

The third dish we made was simple it was sautéed lettuce with oyster sauce, garlic, little bit of chili sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, pork seasoning and pork.

The last dish was sweet pork with garlic, oyster sauce, soy sauce, a sweet soy sauce, garlic, sugar and pork seasoning.  This one is probably the simplest of all.

None of the ingredients were measured.  It was all just random and they say it is all up to your taste how much of each thing to include.  I am sure when I try to cook this on my own it will not turn out anything like it did this night but hopefully in a year I can replicate Thai food perfectly!

Teach Teacher

Week 1

I arrived in Thailand on Monday May 7^th after leaving the U.S. on Saturday May 5th at 3:00pm.  I had a 9 hour lay-oa total time change from New York to Bangkok is 11 hours.  At the airport I got a Taxi to take me to the bus terminal which was about a 30 minute drive.  Then I took a 6 hour bus to Surin.  I arrived at about 9pm at night.  The flights were very nice, I used American Airlines and Cathay Airlines.  The bus from Bankok to Surin was amazing.  The bus was spacious with reclining chairs and foot rests allowing you to lay completely horizontally.  There was air conditioning, comfortable seats and snacks, food and drinks served throughout the journey.  Compared to anything I ever used in the East Africa region this was heaven.  I was awoken when I arrived in Surin by the women sitting next to me.  Luckily I had been asked where I was going so she knew to wake me up.  English is not spoken even by the educated population so it was a lot of motions and such to figure out what she meant. 

When I arrived in Surin, I was groggy, exhausted, and just wanted a shower and a 24 hour nap.  I was picked up by some of the teachers and the landlord of the apartment where I will spend my first month.  There were 2 other foreigners on my bus and I thought nothing of it.  It turns out they both worked at my school too.  One was even the other kindergarten teacher for a different class.  When I got my baggage off the bus I was then told that school was actually starting the following day.  I was so confused I was assured it would be no problem to arrive a week late and that school would not be starting until the 15^th.  Well, welcome to Thailand, things change at the last minute, they decided they wanted the kindergarteners to start with half days a week early to get them used to school.   

The next morning I was expected to start work at 7:30am.  When I got to my apartment I bought some toilet paper and toothbrush and toothpaste and then scrabbled into bed for what I thought would be a easy good night’s sleep.  It unfortunately was not I woke up at 3am wide wide awake.  And could not fall back asleep.  My first week I went to bed around 8pm and woke up just a little bit later every day.  It took about a week to adjust. 

My first week of teaching went somewhat smoothly.  There are 3 other Thai people in the classroom with me at all times. There is a nanny whose job it is to take the students to the bathroom and clean up after them.  There is also my Thai assistant who translates between me the students and the Thai teacher.  Which brings me to the third teacher the experienced Thai teacher who speaks only Thai but has been teaching for 32 years. 

Our daily schedule goes as follows: arrival at 7:30, flag ceremony 8:00- 8:20, health check 8:20-8:25, songs 8:25-8:45, news and new English phrases 8:45-9:10, drinking milk 9:10-9:30, creative activity 9:30-10:30, independent activity or open play 10:30-11:00, lunch 11:00-11:30, nap time 11:30-2:30, (gym, computer or music classes) 2:30-3:00, closing ceremony 3:00-3:20, parent pickup 3:30-4:30, home 4:30.

  

Farangy-about the blog title

Farang is the term in Thailand for foreigners.  It is specifically means someone with a European ancestry but in general is used on anyone who looks different or foreign.  

I made up the word farangy because I feel I act farangy here as I know nothing about the language, culture, how to order food or buy things in stores. I am learning as as I go. I came here without any training and started my job teaching the following day upon arrival.  It is much different than having 3 months of language and cultural training I had when I was with Peace Corps in Rwanda.  

We will see how it turns out but so far I am learning things quickly and really love it!  Keep checking my blog for updates about my 10 months here in Surin, Thailand.