I'm a Teacher!

I survived my first day of teaching English to the novice monks at Wat Bod school! I'm officially an English teacher! haha Who would have thought? My first day, I wasn't really sure what to expect or what I would be teaching. Thailand is sort of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of country. So I was trying to get more information from my homestay mom, P-Tuk and she'd just smile and pat me on the back... hmm... Monday morning I had a chance to speak to the head monk in charge of the novices and I asked him what I should be teaching. He just looked at me and smiled and said "Just Try". Just try? So when I entered the room of my first class about 20 novice monks around age 13-15 stood up and said "Good morning Teacher". Cute! Then I just started "teaching". I went over days of the week, months, counting, "Hello my name is... What is your name?" Seems like their English is pretty basic but they appeared to understand my lessons. Although, I think they were more interested in me being a foreigner than my English lessons. They had phrase books and were asking me questions like "How does it feel to be in Thailand?" and "Do you have a mobile phone?" "What is your telephone number?" haha They'll be just fine.

Yesterday, I came more prepared with a lesson plan about the body and telling time. It was pretty entertaining. I drew a horrendous drawing of a person and had the students label different parts of the body. My favorite was "Foot Fingers" aka Toes. awww. Then I stood up and made a complete fool out of myself and sang "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes". I felt dumb but the students loved it and wanted to do it over and over. After that lesson I completely lost my voice so I had to go home early. Too much singning.

My homestay mama, P-Tuk has been taking good care of me, I think she feels bad that I don't have another volunteer to live with so she's been taking me to dinner and to her family's house. The other day it was pouring rain so she took the night of from cooking and took me to a restaurant a few miles away. We drove in her car that squeaks like crazy only when she turns right (she say's her car cries) and one of the windshield wipers is completely broken. Perfect for a very rainy day! So while driving in the pouring rain in a car with a uni-wiper, P-Tuk gets on the freeway and drives on the wrong side of the road going into traffic!! She must have seen the horrified look on my face because she said, "In America this not ok, but in Thailand this ok!" Alright, for whatever reason I am trusting P-Tuk with my life, do I have a choice? So we pulled into the restaurant in one piece and sat down. I just let P-Tuk order since the menu was in Thai, once again I'm trusting P-Tuk. So our meals come out and mine looks great, just some chicken fried rice that's incredibly spicey, I'm getting used to that. And she lets me try hers. It just looks like ground meat of some sort over rice with some veggies so I take a bite, ok, not bad. I ask her what it is and she's struggling to come up with the English word but she makes a slithering hand motion. A snake? Yep, I had my first encounter eating a snake! I guess it was good? I knew I'd encounter something like this sooner or later. Not bad.

On the way home we had to stop because an enormous snake was crossing the road! Some kind of omen? Maybe I'll hold off on eating more snakes for a while.