Still with mixed classes we embarked on the next day with a return to the farmyard. The aim here was to try and get them to have conversations with eachother. After practising in the group, up they would come and say:

What animal is this?

Thiiis iiiis aaaa ELEPHANT!!

How many legs does AN elephant have?

A elephant has four legs!!

And as we progressed with the older students, they were able to demonstrate their conversational skills in front of the group speaking between eachother. As the week progressed, they started to become sick of shouting about elephants and dinosaurs, so we mixed in comprehension exercises.

With the white board outside, we were able to practise reading and writing skills, and more importantly for many of the students, artistic skills. The quality of the written work from the higher classes was quite unbelievable. Not only would they understand very quickly what was required from them, but their handwriting is some of the best I’ve ever seen. And after each exercise I would go through their work, correcting any mistakes, followed by a ‘very good’, or earned variant, and then the real highlight for them, my autograph.

Throughout the week we were treated to further culinary delights from a variety of restaurants in the local area. For the most part it is excellent food, freshly cooked and prepared with an amazing palette of tastes thrown in.

However, one lunch time, we were introduced to some new teachers from another local school, and shook their hands (they relish the western customs). But they were in the process of cutting up raw meat, I noticed as I relinquished the grasped hands. I imagine it was just the one cow they were cutting up, but all of the cow non-the-less. We stood and watched for a while, mildly interested, entirely unappetised, as mince meat was being made out of all these cow parts. The cow was at least in a state of now being quite unrecognizable.

Our director told us excitedly that this is eaten with sticky rice. Well I guessed beef stew and rice couldn’t be too bad.

And in all fairness it could have been worse. All of the mince meat could have been raw for example. As it was, only half of the dishes had been neglected by the sizzling intense heat of a flame. But all were mixed with what I beleive were weeds from the flower beds outside (of course they wouldn’t be called weeds, rather food). Again, these apparently didn’t need washing or preparation. And one of the ingenious things about this meal is that there is little or no need for utensils, thanks largely in part due to our fingers and sticky rice.

To eat sticky rice, I was shown, you grab a palm full of it out of the communal bowl of the stuff, and roll it into a ball between your palms. You then use your fingers to make an indentation such that food could be grabbed and held there, kind of like a 3D Pac-Man I imagined longingly. I was bought out of my fantasy by being handed this ball of sticky rice. I could see my demonstrators hands were not well washed. Or washed.

So picking up some raw mince meat and soily foliage with this dirty rice, out of a bowl that everyone was happily dipping their own fingers into, I didn’t feel great. And sadly, it didn’t taste surprisingly great. Sticky rice had gone straight to my number one on the avoid list, in front of papaya salad and bone chicken, which is saying something. Needless to say I wasn't particularly well for the few days following this.

This was strikingly contrasted by a trip to a lake just behind the village. The journey there is short, but through an amazing maze of backstreets which allows us to see the heart of the village. Chickens, goats and other things all wondered about happily in amongst palm trees in the gardens of wooden houses. It is an amazingly atmospheric area with an incredible feeling of isolation, but with everything you could ever really need surrounding you everywhere.

And so we then suddenly arrive at this incredible vista of a lake with a restaurant at the edge, with wooden huts overlooking the lake. We ordered our fish whilst I went off for a run around the lake. The dish came out with a whole fish steamed in an astonishing array of vegetables. The meat just dropped off the animal and was so full of flavour. By far the nicest white fish I’ve ever eaten, back-dropped in one of the most tranquil settings. Just incredible!

Evenings were generally spent as usual with the teachers, playing bowls on the field, or just sat down talking. Occasionally just spending some quiet time recovering in the staff room. The week was pre-concluded with a return to the incredible buffet down in Chiang-Rai. After which we prepared for a visit to the ‘Black Temple’ and our second weekend in Chiang Rai.

(lots more photos there :)

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.

Goooood Morrrrrniiiing Claaass One. My-Name-Is-Teacher-Tom!!

Began our intricately, and rather ingeniously devised lesson plan. We would just wait for the replied chant of “Good morning Teacher Tom and Teacher Sean”, then embark upon learning how to describe objects using all of our senses. “The flower smells nice”, “This chilli is very hot”, etc etc.

The reply didn’t quite come. They seemed rather fixated on things on their desks. Comic books, or often, random unimpressive scribbles of pieces of paper that I  guessed must be drawings. Which weren’t good. It was the sort of standard of work that you might expect to find in the Tate Modern, but never to be proudly hung up on a kitchen fridge.

Our lesson plan would need an immediate revision.

Class One, Stand UP!!

I spoke boldly and signalling up with my hands at the same time. For the most part they joined in. I smiled for a moment. They looked intently.

Class One, Sit DOWN!!

I spoke again, signalling with my hands. After repeating this a couple of times, we tried to catch them out, “Stand Up” I’d say, signalling with my hand to sit down. Some were caught out, others just about caught on, but most laughed. We were having fun!

Our director came in and suggested that we take them outside to learn about some of the animals in their farm. First of all we went to the lion. We crowded around the animal, enclosing it in a circle, some kids sitting on it (it was only little, and probably worth mentioning, not real).

This is a lion! This is a LION!!! THIS IS A LION!!!! this is a lion…

We would shout and whisper, getting them to shout and whisper it back. As clearly encountering a real lion in the wild would require either shouting, or whispering this fact to any one around. And I guessed it would help with pronunciation and confidence. And survival.

This lion has FOUR LEGS!! This lion has SHARP TEETH!!

We would chant in a variety of silly voices, and they would mimic back. All essential information again to convey to the emergency services if encountered by such a beast in the wild. This would be repeated with other animals, (tigers, pandas, and, quite horrifically, bronchasauruses), and with other classes. If they seemed to be going with it well, started making it more interesting…

What colour is the panda?

The panda is white with black stripes!

The majority of the oldest class replied rather impressively.

The first day of teaching, overall, was an exhilarating and tiring day. It was spent as mentioned, mainly with animals of the jungle and late Jurassic periods, again essential survival stuff, and gave a great building block on which to base our next few lessons.

For the evening, a small party had been prepared, where we were able to get to know some of the teachers better, and the food on offer in the village. Several interesting dishes had been presented, which we would get to know very well over the coming weeks. The ones to stand out particularly vivid are ‘Bone Chicken’ and ‘Papaya Salad’. The salad, made of that strange, tasteless fruit (the one the kids had prepared for us a few days previously for us to try), had now taken on a quite a different taste. Firstly, it is much spicier than chillies, which I didn’t really think possible for a fruit. And very bizarrely, it has a seafoody taste. And after being put off seafood for life, by the jumping shrimps in noodles, the dish all in all was, uniquely disgusting. One that everyone but me and Sean seemed to be happily tucking into. And Bone Chicken is as it sounds – chicken bone on a stick - “Lots of calcium”. Apparently.

Fortunately there was plenty of very edible and enjoyable food to enjoy, and this was all back-dropped by the sounds of Thai and English sung karaoke. Never having done karaoke in front of other people before, this was ten-fold more nerve racking then any teaching I had done earlier, or really anything I’ve done in quite a while. Still, I sang with a lyrical elegance approaching that of the local chickens at 5:00 that morning, some Beatles songs I’d never heard before; but was clearly a hit amongst the teachers.

Later on, we returned to the final night of the charity festival being held in the village, taken this time by the teachers. We enjoyed more food, met with more local people in the community, played the fairground games... where I won a monkey!!! I say ‘I’, what I mean is that I told one of the teachers and another girl that I wanted the monkey, and they said no problem… which it evidently was after five attempts, but persistence and a steady trickle of money paid off. Afterwards, Sean enjoyed a match of Thai boxing, whilst I got dancing lessons from one of the teachers and one of her friends. (Though to be honest I think there’s as much hope as teaching me to sing).

Once again we returned to bed drained, but invigorated, and eager for the next day of teaching!