ENGLISH STORE!!!

As an incentive program at my small school I started the English store. When the students speak English they earn money. Then once a month I open the English store and they get to spend their money. Mostly I give a dollar to anyone I hear speaking English but they students can earn $5 for singing me a song in English and $1 daily for asking me a question. My co-teacher wanted to see an improvement in their spelling test scores so she announced they could earn $20 for getting a 100% and now everyone studies!!


To get the English store to school I strap it on to my bike.







I only open it in the afternoon in an attempt to keep the newly-bought toys from causing a distraction in class. They hate having to wait.






No matter how many cool things i put in the store for girls, most of them spend all their money on stickers.







I really couldn't have done this program as cheaply as I have without the help of my Uncle Dan and everyone who has sent me things to put in the store.




The students are ready to buy!

Youth Camp!

My good friend Stoney put on a youth camp at his site to teach students from his area about Buddhism, Democracy and HIV/AIDS education. Because there were over 300 kids me and 3 other volunteers came to help out.

The kids lined up for the opening ceremony.

We had to wait for the Governor to show up to open the camp so to kill time they had us dance for the kids....their lives will never be the same.



After the Governor spoke there was a flag ceremony.


And then the students had to crawl through this tube and when they emerged at the end they were blessed by a monk. Stoney's counterpart came up with this idea and we assigned face painting duty. Before the students went into the tube they had to walk buy us and get their face painted with powder/water.

Of course we got painted too.



The next day we ran an HIV/AIDS station where we talked about the importance of safe sex. We taught the students to put on condoms and played lots of games.


Demonstrating correct condom usage.

A hockey-like game. Very entertaining.


In this game the doctor would read out a situation and the students had to run to the right board. During this game we learned how little the students knew about risky behaviors.






On the last night there was a show.

Each of the nine groups put on a skit and then the Americans did one too. Ours was another lesson about condom usage but soon turned into us dancing and getting the students to dance with us.

Kate Goes to a Funeral

I had the opportunity to go to a Thai funeral and while the idea is the same as an American the ceremony is very very different. The Thai funeral can last anywhere from 3-7 days depending on the wealth of the family. The funeral I went to lasted 3 days and it was for the mother of one of the teachers at my school. It was an unexpected death but they threw everything together very quickly.


Outside the deceased house large tents are set up and chairs are arragned for everyone in the village. This picture doesn't show it well be there were well over 200 people sitting outside the small house.

The coffin looks like it is ready for Christmas and is air conditioned!!


The monks come and chant for the dead.



After the monks leave everyone takes a turn lighting an incense and "praying" for the dead. This is my friend Ni.


At the end everyone eats and drinks and is in amazingly good spirits. At this funeral not ONE person cried. Another volunteer heard that there are certain days of the week that a Thai person will cry, maybe this funeral just fell on the wrong day of the week, or maybe they are just happy for the dead to start a new life.

Finally, one thing that EVERY funeral has is gambling. Probably why most people attend the funeral is because at the end almost everyone sits down to gamble. Technically this is illegal in Thailand (because the money has a picture of the King on it) so I couldn't take more pictures but I couldn't believe how many people were playing games or how much money was being passed around.



The next day everyone gathered again to take the body to get cremated. I missed the ceremony because a nap was calling my name but I was watching the TV show LOST and there was an episode where it shows a picture of a "Thai cemetery" and I am here to tell you that they are wrong. Most Thai people are cremated when they die, I should work for LOST.

Exploring with my Students

In order to get to know my communities and students better I started taking day trips on the weekends. I invite anyone who wants to come and let them pick the place we will go. The first couple of times they only wanted to go to my house. Eventually they thought of "the waterfall in the mountains". They told me it was very far but I was game. On Saturday morning I stoped by the market and picked up some grilled chicken and rode out to my small village where 7 girls were waiting for me.




The road to the "waterfall in the mountains". It was flat like this for awhile, then hilly.








We had to ditch the bikes and walk into the bamboo forest for awhile.














We walked forever and I was starting to think there wasn't really a waterfall but then we came across it!








The girls on top of the waterfall.










After swimming we had some sticky rice, grilled chicken and guava.





We had a really fun time at the waterfall so much in fact that one weekend when Stoney visited we went back. This time my co-teacher and another teacher from the school came with us.


The water was a little lower this time but I almost died when 3 of my students decided to hold me under water. Seriously I was seconds away from death.
















Some of the boys caught these little tiny fishes and then started a camp fire to cook them. The lovely lady in the white shirt is my co-teacher Cruu Ning!
















A few weeks ago the students told me they have a new place to take me, I couldn't figure out what they were saying but they promised me it was a "Sacred Place".


To get there most of the students had to double up on bikes. It is a very cute process. When they come to a hill the one on back jumps off and pushes.










The stick is to scare away the dogs that chase bikes.







We arrived and it looked sacred enough but I soon found out that we were just here to swing on the really really big vines.




















Nan, one of my 6 grade girls. Her grandmother brings me sticky rice every Monday and Tuesday. She told me I was like her daughter.













After swinging the students wanted to go to a noodle stand. The noodles were only 10 Baht!!













This was my bowl. I ordered no blood but got it anyway. It was supper yummy. (The noodles not the blood, I gave the blood to one of my students.)







Bok Bak, Grade 5

I have tried to find the noodle stand again but can't. It is like a secret noodle stand.

My House

In April all of us new volunteers left our wonderful home stay families and moved to our permanent sites. Most volunteers stayed with a new host family at their sites for a month but not me.
My counterparts helped me move into this house the first day I moved there.









So my house has 3 rooms. A living room, a bedroom and a bathroom, the kitchen is just in the hallway. This is the bedroom. During the hot season i started sleeping in the living room because the bedroom was too hot to sleep in with no window and just one little fan. Then during the rainy season my house became a mold breeding ground but most of it was in my bedroom so I have closed off this room and moved my mattress out to the living room full time.




Here is my living room. This is my favorite room because it has two ceiling fans and tile floor. The pictures on the wall are of a Buddha and King Rama 5 ( 5 was my favorite one). My house had 3 pictures of the king and one of Buddha when I moved in. I now sleep in this room because of the mold situation.




My "Kitchen". Really it is just a hallway but we added a refrigerator, a gas stove and a cabinet.

I have to do my dishes and laundry outside in buckets. The water is brown and the mosquitoes feast on me but it is very quaint and exactly what I pictured when I signed up for the Peace Corps.


My bathroom is H U G E. This picture really doesn't do it justice but it is larger than a bathroom needs to be. You can barely see it but it does have a shower head so I don't have to take bucket showers but there is no water heater so my showers are always freezing. The black bucket next to the toilet is what you fill up to flush.
On my front patio I have this table. I usually eat my meals here and drink my coffee here in the morning. These are my students one Saturday they visited.



A post about my house would not be complete without including the scorpions. As of September I have had 15 of these little pests in my house. This one is the biggest and was already dead when I found him.
And the newest addition to my house is my little kitty Beesly being held by the love of my life Mein. I got the kitty from one of Stoney's neighbors and she makes life better. Mein is a little boy who lives down the street from me. He was afraid of me for the first month or so but now he will come over to my house to color. I love him.