A note on road transport

On another note regarding taxi drivers, the taxis here are very expensive for Thai standards, as they are run by Thai mafia, apparently, but what that means I don't really know. We decided not to hire a scooter, more Rob's flat out refusal for me to drive a scooter than a joint decision. I am glad that I didn't though, not only because I have never driven one in my life (driven or ridden, or rode?),  but because the traffic here is insane and many people, farangs more than Thais, die from scooter accidents. I once saw a Thai guy lying in the road with a big puddle of blood coming from his head, clearly dead as the police weren't attending to him. Horrible sight, and a good reminder of why not to drive scooter. On occassions though I have walked to the end of the road, started walking down the main road knowing that sooner or later a motorbike taxi will give me a toot, where I will either shake my head politely if I fancy a walk, or give a thumbs up. At half the price of a taxi they are a bargain and I do enjoy travelling on the back of a bike. The dinner lady at school also took me to and from hospital a few times on her Scoopy scooter and would sit and wait with me to have my shot for half the price of a taxi and even cheaper than a motorbike taxi, and she was great company! I have to say that my favourite mode of transport has to be the bike, taking in the sights and the smells of Thailand on the back of a scooter or motorbike with the wind in your hair is lovely. You also avoid queueing in traffic and, if you put your complete trust in your driver, it's a great way to see Thailand!

I have once caught the bus after my very kind landlord took me into Phuket town for my first rabies shot. I thought seeing as I was already near the bus stop I would try to go to the beach for cheap, 35 THB which is under 1 of your Great British Pounds. I got a motorbike taxi to take me to the main bus stop in town. He gave me a helmet, which was nice, however it was clearly made for a giant as it was so big that it covered my eyes. I had to put complete trust in this motorbike man as I couldn't see a thing and ended up headbutting him in behind every time we had to brake. Luckily he had a helmet on too. It is funny riding a motorbike taxi, that first time awkward moment where you don't know where to put your hands, do you hold him lovingly around the waist? Nope, there are handles on the bike to hold on to, that's good. The best ride has to be when my Danish friend and I got a ride to Kata beach. We are not the skinniest girls in Thailand but managed to fit the two of us on the back of one motorbike taxi (the motorbike stopped to offer both of us a ride without even questioning that there were two of us given that the whole world and his wife ride on one motorbike in Thailand). I was sandwiched between my friend and Mr.Bike. The road to Kata goes up a very steep hill, where the bike really started to struggle, and then down the other side where I was doing everything in my might not to force Mr.Bike out of his seat as we slipped forwards! The following day, when Leah left to go back to Buriram, we even managed to make a very short journey on a bike with me, her and her big travelling backpack! Luckily we weren't going far.

As I said before, they carry everything on their scooters and bikes here. They have little wicca high chairs that stand precariously in the footwell of scooters for the babies. So unsafe! But they also ride around selling delicious treats from ice cream van bikes that play a little tune and have an umbrella, to the fresh bread man who I would see on his bike every morning. The corn on the cob bike man is also often seen tooting around town. We even came out of a club/bar one night to grab a burger and fries from a man with his bike. Burger bikes instead of burger vans. Genius.
 

Anyway, back to the bus ride. I managed to find my way to the right bus that was heading to Kata beach. I climbed aboard and was sat with a handful of other travellers. The seats were basically long wooden benches along the edges of the back of the 'bus'. It had a roof but no windows, basically like a giant tuk tuk. I spent most of the journey searching for a button for the bell but could not work out where the hell it was! I later found out that they are on the roof. I kept an eye out on the road signs and evenutally jumped out with two Korean girls when I saw a sign for Kata beach. I gave the bus man 35 B (under £1) and set off to the beach. I got completely lost and walked for about half an hour before stumbling on to a beach and plonking myself down at a little pop up restaurant and ordering a pineapple shake and a sandwich. Turns out I had walked from Kata beach area (my desired destination) to Karon beach, by mistake, because I had missed a turning. I really am awful at navigating.

Worst mode of transportation has to be the mini bus. The drivers are fearless and quite frankly out of their minds.  We did a visa run across the border to Burma to get an updated stamp to allow us to stay for another 60 days in Thailand. This involved a 5 hour ride to the border, a quick ferry ride to Burma and back and a 5 hour ride back again. The bus itself was clean and comfortable with air con, but pity the man who has to sit in the front seat next to the driver. Our driver ironically wore a 'Ferrari' t-shirt and was clearly a wannabe Schumaker. Lets just say that everything you learn about not overtaking on blind corners and the brow of a hill is an alien concept to these guys. We must have been doing 60-100 miles an hour the whole way there, no motorway. When you look up and realise you are on the other side of the road and can't see anything that would be coming the other way, you close your eyes and pray!

A note on dogs

So every morning I would soak up the sunshine, the smell in the air, and the smiles on the faces of the people around me. Until one morning a group of dogs ran out from a drive way and circled me, bearing their teeth and hackles up. That shook me up a bit but I kept walking, looking dead ahead. A week or so later, the same dogs ran out and one little bugger bit me on the back of the leg. I walked to my usual pick up point very shaken up but holding it together, until I got in Buoy's car and burst into tears, poor Buoy! It wasn't a bad bite but left a nasty bruise and a scratch and one tooth managed to break the skin.

So then the rabies saga began. I went to a clinic who told me to go to the hospital, I went to the hospital where they told me I would need 5 rabies injections over the course of a month at a cost of 620 Thai Baht per shot. Hmmm.. that was over 3000THB (about £65). I asked him how long I had to decide, he said a few days.  So I got in the tuk tuk that had taken me to the hospital with a very sweet driver who was very concerned for me and spoke zero English but kept calling me 'Madam'. He was so sweet and gave me some cartons of iced green tea and shared his sweets with me on the way back to school. I have been in his tuk tuk since on the way back from the shops and it always amuses me how he puts his arm against mine and chuckles heartedly at the difference in our skin colour. He does the same thing every time I see him, bless him. Anyway, I ummed and arred about the rabies injections all weekend, but after some extensive research and finding out that if you start to show symptoms then it is too late, you will definitely start foaming at the mouth and die, I thought it better safe than sorry. From then on I would set off for work looking like a hobbit about to impart on a great adventure, back pack and stick in hand. I am so grateful for that big stick, a couple of times when I had to pass the dreaded dog pit and one would bark or run out at me, I would stand my ground and swipe at it with my magic stick and it would stop there and then and reconsider. Yeah, sticks and stones and all that.

A day in the life of an international kindergarten teacher...

Only one month left in Thailand now. Here's what happened:

We packed up our house and moved it into one of my Dad's self storage containers on New Year's Day. 5 days later we boarded the plane, still with hesitations. I was worried about not getting a job and Rob was worried that I didn't have enough money saved up and that the move could effect his business given that he would be working all through the night. We spent a week in a hotel during that time I sent off my cv to several schools with not much luck given that the Thai school year ended in April so any potential positions would be available in May. However, after checking the Phuket Gazette online jobs directory I saw a position that was advertised in December for a kindergarten teacher at an international school.

We moved into a villa in Chalong, close by to the school and I was given an interview. I got the job! So two weeks after moving to Thailand, the Angel of Good Fortune set it so that I could stay and work :)

The job was not quite as I had expected and whilst my TEFL course helped to some degree, nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to be thrown into. I was responsible for teaching about 12, 18 months - 3 year old, children in the nursery from 9am-12. They had a schedule mapped out for me that consisted of:

0845 - 0900 circle time (singing with nursery, P1 and P2)
0900- 0920 phonics - letters and phonics - sounds
0920 - 0940 dance and songs
0940 - 1000 numbers
1000 - 1020 life skills and shapes or art colouring or English conversation - animals or family
1020 - 1040 toys and games
1040 - 1100 books
1100 - lunchtime followed by playing outside and shower time


So......... this was interesting. At the age of 18 months a child is only just beginning to speak their own language. Most of the children had Thai mothers and 'Farang' (foreign) fathers. So they were learning to speak Thai and some Danish, Russian, French, English or whatever the mother tongue of their fathers. For the kids who spoke no English, here I was trying to throw a third language into the mix.

We also had quite a few Russians in the school (I was surprised when I arrived in Phuket, especially after doing a snorkelling trip, to discover that the island is overrun with Russians). There were also a good few Korean kids. A note on the Koreans, I don't know what they feed their kids but they are totally crazy! They will not sit down no matter what. The bane of my first few weeks at nursery was a little boy called 'Song Won', or Won as he was known. He was about 2 - 2 1/2 and was as strong as a baby ox and was on a totally different level from the other kids. He would run around all day, not respond to his name at all and occassionally abused the other children if there was a sharing issue involving toys.On one occassion, Won managed to smack me on the head with a plastic lion and shortly afterwards give me a backwards headbutt to the nose. That was a tough day.

I tried to stick to the schedule where possible and always started with the letter of the week (I worked my way through the alphabet one letter per week). Numbers I always found more difficult for some reason. By 10am I usually gave up and let them play for half an hour with toys before reading to them for 15 minutes. At 1045 the nannies would get them ready for lunch which was actually at 1050 not 11am as the schedule suggested. Every class had a nanny, a Thai lady who would sort the kids out in terms of water and toileting. I had 2-3 nannies in nursery, thank god! 

After nursery I had an hour break to eat lunch and make a quick run across the road to the 7/11 to fuel up on caffeine and chocolate to get through the afternoon.

I was then upstairs with the P1s (aged about 3-4) and the P2s (aged about 4-5). I had a nice easy half an hour doing games and puzzles, colouring or teaching shapes. I was then joined by my American colleague, Teacher Gillie, and we would take it in turns reading them story books for half an hour. I then had half an hour of teaching Shapes and Science to the P1s. Hmm, teaching Science to 3 and 4 year olds. Where to begin. Well I had no books or curriculum but I spent the first two lessons observing the Head Teacher who shared this lesson with me. When I say shared this lesson, he was there for the most part but had me do the teaching. After shadowing him delivering an improvised lesson on trees and leaves, I proceeded to basically teach them about animals from different continents. Although I started with the life cycle of a butterfly. This is where I discovered the magical teaching tool that is my Kindle! I downloaded a time lapse video of a Monarch butterfly emerging from a cocoon. The kids loved it! I also taught a lesson on sea creatures, which turned into about 5 lessons as the kids loved it so much that they would shout, "Teacher, Fish!". Their wish was my command. The ultimate lesson I delivered was on sharks, the kids were crazy about them, especially one little boy called Phumin who would come to school everyday with one toy shark or another, and a shark hat.

Following Science/Shapes, I would spend half an hour with P1s as they had snack time, which was very chaotic once they had fuelled up on sugar and would run around the room like wild animals. Until I discovered the magic Kindle, I proceeded to download videos of sharks, pingu, the alphabet song, and some David Attenborough documentaries. Brilliant, calm restored to snack time.

After snack time, Gillie and I took it in turns to teach After School English from 3pm - 4pm. I would do Mon Wed Fri and Gillie would do Tues and Thurs and then vice versa the following week and so on. AS Eng consisted of children aged 3 all the way up to about 6 or 7. With a total mix of abilities it was a challenge! 2 or 3 days a week we would teach a letter of the alphabet and the rest of the time consisted mainly of vocab such as actions, feelings, places, body parts etc. I enjoyed this lesson after a while, although somewhat chaotic as it was the end of the day and most of the other kids had gone home which made it difficult for these kids to focus, it was usually fun.When I wasn't delivering the lesson I would be helping to control the class, mainly by sitting with a 3 year old black French boy called Victor who was cute but had such an attitude on him! I would ask him to complete his worksheet, he would say 'No, I cannot' in his little French accent. I would ask him to sit down and get the same response. I would put him outside and he would cry. But every now and then he would voluntarily get on with it like a little trooper, and even do extra work by tracing his name on the back of the sheet.


So that was my day. The first day I was thrown in at the deep end, I did circle time with T.Gillie as we did every morning, I then had T.Danny (Head Master) come in and try to teach the kids colours using the little plastic balls. Half an hour later he left me to it. I hadn't prepared at all, had zero training and here I was surrounded by 10 babies.

I have so much thanks to give to the head nanny in nursery, Buoy, for a couple of reasons. The first is that she gave me tips on what to do to engage the kids, she had been there a year and watched various nursery teachers come and go but had observed things that work and things that don't. The second reason is that she lived down my 'Soi' (road) and would drive me to school every morning. All I had to do was to walk out of my road, a small circle of villas, to the road that took me to the main busy road and it is just before I reached the busy road that I would wait for her to pick me up. I was dropped off in the afternoons by the school 'bus', a 7 seater space wagon. One of my favourite things about my daily commute was walking to and from my pick up or drop off point at the end of that road. On a daily basis I was greeted with 'Hello!' and 'Good Morning' from several different people. I was also greeted with 'Motorbike!' everyday by one guy who had a little make shift shop on the corner. Everyday I said no until one day I thought, yeh ok, can you take me to Kata beach. He said no. Weird.