Sean and I had decided to move straight onto teaching our own classes, three each. I began with the Class Three mixed with Four. I didn’t actually want Class Three (they were clearly going to be trouble), I wanted Four, Five and Six… but we had to compromise. I lost my favourites – Five, in exchange for not having One or Two. Fair deal.

Not wanting to overload them immediately with the difference between teeth and tusks, or how many tails a giraffe might have, challenges for a more ambitious day, I thought we’d do something on the field. In the spirit of escape and espionage, we would start with evasive actions.

I am running!!

I am jumping!!

I began with relevant acting to explain the point. They would then all follow me shouting it out as they did so. “Line up, two lines” I commanded in Thai. Splitting automatically into boys and girls, they obeyed. If I said ‘Jump’, the front two would each jump to a target while shouting out ‘I am jumping!’. Run, the same. Moved swiftly onto hopping and cart wheeling. Shortly we were able to mix it up enough to have something of a competition, which they seemed to relish. The boys won.

After a while of that, we moved onto playing ‘Duck, duck, goose’ (an odd game, explained in some detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose. They were clearly well briefed on the rules ). Instead of duck and goose though, we would say ‘walking, walking, walking… HOPPING!!’. And vary which actions were required to make it around the circle.

Afterwards, we sat and rested, having an informal chat on the field. I’d ask names, ages, what things were, their favourite foods etc. Which was a really nice way of warming down and bonding together, and for the most part they were quite engaged in the discussion! We walked back towards the school (“I am walking, I am walking…”), where Sean was finishing off with his ordeal of One and Two. We sat on the wall, and I started teaching them a song. They weren’t best impressed however (didn’t blame them really), and so I retorted ‘Fine, teach me a song’.

And in unison, as they were all sat on a wall around me, they broke into song! No silly nursery rhyme, but a song I think from The Sound of Music. (I’ve not seen the film so I wasn’t sure). It was so cute and unexpected, and such a great end to the lesson. Sadly no video of them, but a photo which still didn’t quite capture it: !!

The Sixes were just as co-operative, and excelled at their English, hopping and somersaulting abilities, though lacked quite the same degree of cuteness.

As that was all of our classes over for the day, the afternoon was free. Our director offered to take us to a ‘nearby’ town / village to eat at KFC. One hour later, we arrived. And three meals were ordered. After ten minutes, out came out one portion of chips (btw no-one else was there). Then after five more minutes, two of the drinks arrived. More minutes later a burger and some nuggets arrive. Then another drink. More chips. Etc etc. It was truly bizarre. Afterwards though, we recovered with a shop at Tescos!! Again not quite the same English experience (no ‘Tesco Basics’ or ‘Taste the Difference’), but still familiar enough :)

Afterwards we went to visit our directors nephew, or cousin, or some relative, at where he worked. We didn’t really know who he was, and neither did our director it seemed. Still he offered to translate our questions, so that we could converse with his relative. Sean and I looked at each other, confused, but struggled through some questions of what it was that he does. We still have no idea. It was a strange, surreal meeting. Maybe you had to be there though. But, just in case it wasn’t strange enough, we all travelled to a local primary school. I’m don’t think anyone knew this school or that we were invited… but we sang a song and took photos with them all. The surrealness was quite intense now.Mercifully we were whisked back to the school. I enjoyed a meal with a new found friend and Sean hung out with the teachers. An early night was blessed. Once again, I found myself like a little kid at Christmas night; head buzzing from the experiences of the day, and eager to get back and play with my new found joy of teaching.