Up-Country

I was happy to return to Ban Huay Sala School.  We were with the 17-year-old son of a Korean donor, who wanted to show the students how to make kimchi and take pictures. Kuhn San Hun, the school's  head English, teacher told us that he wanted us to give an encore English lesson. I agreed, but knew it might be hard.

I’d asked to go up country again to observe teacher trainings. No such trainings materialized as my departure date arrived. As we set up our lesson plans the next day, my supervisor announced that I was to attend a training at another school.  

 As I said goodbye to the students, they seemed happy that the other interns would remain, but were disappointed at my departure. Surprisingly, so was I. I’d only spent a few days teaching here. It was the closest I’d come to making an impact.

 I boarded the van, watched the fields roll by and  thought about letting the students know they could come visit me when they got a bit older. Then I thought better of it. When I was around 14 I went skiing in British Columbia, and took tropical vacations in the BVI.  It occurred to me that most of them would probably never leave Thailand. Its  improbable that people from such different cultural, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds could make any kind of connection. I’d like to think we did.

I only stayed at the teacher training about 45 minutes. Obviously, the training was in Thai; no one was sent with me to translate.

 The local English instructor  gave me and a visiting American teacher a ride back.  He told us that our visits to schools do work in that they really make the children want to learn English. The visiting teacher said she’d been told to teach English by my organization, as the local teacher watched best practices. The only problem that she happened to be a literature teacher!  “I don’t know what they’re thinking” she said.  “Frankly, I think it’s insulting to the teachers and the children.”

 It’s better than nothing. Although both English teachers I saw on this trip speak well, others can’t even hold a basic conversation. The question still remains: Why wern't we sent to a school were the faculty’s English level is a problem?

I did teach English the next day. The students were happy to see me. But, they seemed a bit jaded. In the month after my organization’s program started they’d seen a virtual parade of westerners tour their school. In older projects, the students practically ignore our continued visits.

 Later that day, a younger intern was trying to figure out what benefit learning photography could be to the villagers. I had to break the news to him. “He’s the son of the village’s sponsors” I informed him. “The benefit is his family’s continued sponsorship”.

 We attended a tree planting the next day. Villagers receive 40 baht (about 60  U.S. cents) per tree toward capital in their micro-credit bank. We bounced over dirt paths through the rice paddies until we finally arrived at the site. I’d expected the villagers to regard our presence as interference. They couldn’t have been more welcoming.  At one point, an old woman came over and cut open my tree’s plastic root lining. “She is 80 years old” a translator told me. In an odd way she reminded me of my grandmother, who taught me to garden as a child. We worked as a team until lunch.

The villagers served us on reed mats under older trees. The Koreans demanded the villagers bring their lunch to where we left our van. But, they are the ones providing the 40 baht per tree.  We eventually convinced them to walk to where we had stopped planting.

This was likely my last trip to Buriram. I am going to miss it. The trip encompassed the best of what my organization does for rural villagers. But is it  enough? Is it counterproductive?  Or is it effective NGO work?

You decide. 

Going to School

 Four summers ago, I was working as a business reporter for Television Maldives. From time to time, people would stop me and tell me that they liked my reports, or ask for my autograph. I thought this was understandable. I was the first westerner to report for that country’s national broadcaster.

Four years later, I visited the Baan Huay Sala School in north-east Thailand. In one class, a girl of about 16 asked an intern who spoke Thai if she could have my autograph. Her entire class followed suit. They wouldn't let me leave until I’d signed all of their notebooks.   

The next morning we learned that we’d be teaching English at the same school on Friday. Other interns teased me about my return, but I was worried. I’d never taught English before. I didn’t know if I could get a class of notoriously shy Thai middle-schoolers talking in a foreign language.

This turned out to be no problem. My first class really got into the game.  Each of the remaining three rotations was different, but we all had a blast.  My second class was the one I’d met on my first day.  I quickly realized they’d copied the answers from their friends during lunch, so I started taking other countries from the top of my head. At first they were pissed, but later they not only looked at me with interest, but also with respect. We had a 15 min photo-opp after class; a few of the girls asked for my number in halting English.  

I was only really with the students for one day. But we had some time to bond. I don’t really know most of them, but we had our own in-jokes by the end of the day. At the closing ceremony, I was called on to say a few words. I thanked them and told them that they’d also had an impact on me. Then I turned to my last, best and most difficult class. “May Choi” (I’m out), I yelled in their local dialect. We had our own laugh.

Before I left, I think I signed each one of their workbooks, nametags, or even random pieces of paper. When they let me go from the final picture, I headed for the headmaster’s car. I sat down and gave what I’d learned was Thai had sign of friendship. I shut the door on the sound of cheers.

The headmaster drove us to a karaoke restaurant where the teachers go to unwind. He told us that he would like us to return to the school for an encore sometime this summer. Despite our demanding schedule I hope this is possible.

 I didn’t feel like singing, but the teachers finally cajoled me into it.  I choose to sing “The Impossible Dream”. As my own voice rose with increasing confidence, I could not help but feel that this moment embodied the events of this amazing day.