English Camp

Wow, I have so much I want to write about but i think my fingers will fall off before i can finish typing everything I want to. I have spent the last four days in Nong Bua Lam Phu which is 2.5 hours southeast of Nong Khai at an English Camp. I had a fabulous time! So far I think that my time at the English Camp has been my favorite thing in Thailand.
People working in the rice field.

A man by the name of Mongkot has lead many English camps before and he came to help the school we went to with their first English camp. Alan, Susi, Valerie, Nina, and I all went. We stayed at one of the teacher's aunt's house under mosquito nets. We ate our meals at the school. We were provided breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. The food was made the the teachers, some better than others and we also went out to dinner a few times.

We were picked up on Thursday afternoon by three pickup trucks that had full backseats. We drove 2 hours before eating Korean BBQ at a restaurant. This is where you get raw meat and veggies and cook it yourself. We then drove another 30-45 min to get to the village/town we were staying in and found our living accommodations to be quite nice. The hardest part of living there were the cold showers and not having any toilet paper.
Students learning colors by playing twister.

I think we all woke up around 5am to roosters making noise. Luckily I turned on my ipod a little louder than I would have liked to drown out the outside noises. Our first day at school was Mongkot doing most of the work, he lead the warm up and got everything started. There were about 130 students around the age of 14-16th (though they looked a lot younger). We broke up into four groups, 1 volunteer for each group (and one group of two volunteers) and made up names for our groups... An intro into us teaching the children. My group were the fish. Nothing fancy but it was fun. Then we made a cloths line story. The students were suppose to make up a story and all read one of the sentences. Having 26 students in my class who didn't speak English very well was very hard. But we did it. We ate dinner at school and then were taken to these floating rafts to watch the end of the sunset and see where we would eat the next night.



Students working and the teachers and volunteers at the National Park.
Saturday, the second day, was mostly spent teaching. I taught about colors and had four classes where I was teaching the same thing. It got old after awhile and I was exhausted at the end of the day. We had Thai teacher who were suppose to help, but their English wasn't that great. The first class I taught was always the hardest, it always seemed like my group was just the slowest but I'm sure it was really me just figuring out how I was going to teach the lesson. By the fourth class I had to find more activities to do because the students were doing such a good job. We went to the raft thing to eat dinner. The raft was very cool, it's on a small lake and you pull, by steering, the raft out into the middle of the lake and then you slowly will float back to the dock. We ate good food and watched the sunset. One of the dishes we had had raw shrimp in it. However, they weren't dead when you got them so you had to shake the bowl to kill them before eating them. Valerie tired them. As Alan said it, he was scared it would give him the shits. I was taught not to eat raw shellfish and I didn't want any problems. Valerie said they were crunchy and spicy because of the sauces on it. But she didn't get sick.














Me on the raft and the group of volunteers. Left to right: Alan, Valerie, Me, Nina, and Susi.
Sunday was a half day of teaching. I started loosing my voice on Saturday so I wasn't so excited about talking too much more. I taught the first group about the months and it was a rocky class. The students didn't get how the game should work and all of the Thai teachers disappeared. I think they just didn't want to come. Mongkot had no clue what had happened to them either. Susi then came for the second group and it went much more smoothly. The afternoon was spent going to a cave. We had to climb around 600 stairs to get to the entrance of the cave. There was a big Buddha there where we caught our breath before venturing down into the cave. This cave was very big and had lights inside it so we could see but I have decided that caves are very interesting but not my favorite thing. I found this out in 7th grade camp... and reconfirmed by beliefs. At the other end of the cave there was a nice few to look at. We then went to a national park to watch the sunset above the city of Nong Bua Lam Phu... it wasn't as nice as the last two nights because there were too many clouds. The afternoon activities were only with other teachers. We went to a different Korean BBQ restaurant and had some more good food.

Monday was our last day. We got up extra early so we could take a E-tak ride around the town. The student drove us. I would call it a tracker type thing. It was fun and once I was actually on it I found that it was a lot harder to drive that I thought.
E-tak and the student getting it on the road. This is the one Nina and Alan rode on.







We spent the morning teaching. This time Valerie and I taught about telling time. We had to teach about "half past," "a quarter past," and "a quarter to". I don't tell time this way so I was having a hard time with it... plus trying to explain it to the students was quite difficult. Like always the second lesson went better than the first. I'm glad that Valerie and I were working together. The end of the day was spent getting our certificates for teaching and saying goodbye to the students.
Students working.



We all felt like superstars here. We were the first volunteers to come to the camp and the students loved us. We got all kinds of cards that said "I love you," or "you are beautiful." The students also wanted our signatures. But they had to be able to say "may i have your signature please" before we would give it to them... that way they had to use their English. On the last day it seemed like students were taking their own toys and giving them to us for gifts. At one point I had so much in my hands that I needed two students to help me carry everything to one of the classrooms. By the end of the last day it hurt to smile because i had taken so many pictures. And what i thought was funny, was that it wasn't just the kids who wanted pictures with us, but also the teachers.
All the students want to take so many pictures!

Over all the camp was great. We were all exhausted by the end. And my voice sounds horrible because i was talking so much. There is so much more that I want to be able to tell you but then I would be on the computer for hours and hours today.

They like to give kisses too.






Tomorrow I leave for Laos and while I'm excited to work on an organic farm and teach English I have made friends in Nong Khai who I am sad to leave. If everything works out I will meet up with a friend's brother and we will spend a few days in the capitol of Laos before I move on to Vang Vien. I'm having some problems figuring out visas because i want to spend 38 days in Laos and my visa is for 30. It will all work out but I have been worrying about how I will make it work. Hopefully Valerie, and possibly Nina too, will come to Laos and we will travel together. I'm still not sure if it will work out but I think it would be great if it does!