Mike and I are settling in well to both our new village and school. We began teaching last Wednesday which was nice and gave us some time to adjust to our new life before jumping into our rolls as English teachers. We are finishing up our first week of classes today. Our coordinators as well as the director and staff at our school have been so wonderful, welcoming and kind. It has really made the adjustment quite easy. We arrived on Saturday after taking an overnight train from Bangkok. Our coordinator Mart picked us up from the train station in Lampang and brought us to our new house in Soem Ngam where we were welcomed by two other English teachers from our school. Our house is very nice with a large room where we spend pretty much all of our time. This main area has our bed, two tables that we use as desks and a dresser and most importantly an air conditioner. Everything we need! We were expecting there to be a squat toilet at our house and were thrilled to be shown a western toilet when we arrived! We spent the rest of the day exploring our village on our new motorbike which we purchased from the two girls previously teaching at our school. We are in a rice farming community surrounded by mountains. The scenery is beautiful especially when the sun is setting. The locals in our town and regularly wave and smile at the foreigners. We also have a 7-11 which are very common in Thailand in our town. We were warned that as foreigners we will visit it open. We didn't think so, but we have been their at least once a day since we arrived.
On Sunday Mart took us to the Big C in Lampang which is a large store similar to Target or Walmart in the states. We picked up some living essentials like shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, a tempurpedic pillow and some new shoes for Mike. We also went to a few other local stores to get some decor for our house. We practiced our thai saying "gin" which means food and pointing when we needed to eat later that day. There are a handful of food stalls and restaurants in front of peoples homes where we frequent for dinner. We had a pretty relaxed Monday where Mike and I went to our school to check it out and meet some of the teachers and to use the Wifi. There were not classes that day as students were preparing for the following day and it was a teacher admin day. Tuesday was a big big day at the school. It was Sports Day. The atmosphere at the school was energetic and the day began with an impressive parade. The students were divided into four colors red, blue, green and yellow. Each color were dressed accordingly in traditional thai clothing and had an impressive float. It was really fun to stand with the locals who lined the street of our town and watch the parade. The students walked in the parade back to school while Mike and I motorbiked. It was still early in the day but was beginning to warm up.
Once back at school the festivities continued and the students assembled into their groups divided by color and sat into the bleachers which they had very impressively decorated. Thankfully Mike and I along with the other staff and community members sat under a tent in the shade as at this point the sun was beaming down and it was very hot. Throughout the day the students participated in many sports including tug of war, sack races, track both short and long distances, cheerleading and muay thai. Each color team also set off air balloons of varying sizes that they had made. Medals were given out at the end of the day for best float, best bleacher design and the winners of the sport competitions. Mike and I presented a few students with their medals which was fun. All in all Sports Day was a very exciting and very hot day. A good indicator for what was to come in Thailand.
Wednesday was our first day of teaching!
