This Could End Badly!

    The coals were hot but apparently not hot enough in the street vendors grill.  She unscrewed the cap off a 2 liter water bottle and poured. FOOOM... flames leaped up from the grill from the flammable liquid she had poured on the coals.   Then she did it again.  OK this time but it could end very badly.
    The drive from between Bangkok and Ayutthaya is the arm pit of Thailand.  Much of Thailand is extraordinarily beautiful; the beaches in the south and the hill country of the northwest, but  not this stretch of road. Flat with urban sprawl and  unregulated industrial development it's not a pretty sight. However, I did see something on the drive yesterday as I traveled from Ayuttaya to Bangkok that gives me a little hope.
   Trash is everywhere thrown from vehicles into  ditches and unoccupied spaces in town. When the piles of trash get deep they are often set on fire.  But yesterday, for the first time ever, I saw a crew cleaning up a road ditch!  Is the tide turning?  Ayuttaya also seems a little cleaner.  All the king would have to do is say a word and the country would respond.    

The Fireworks Have Begun!

   It was the longest string of fireworks I've heard, they went off about 7:00 a.m.  In response to my puzzled look the family said "Happy Chinese New Year".  January 31, is the actual date this year but, like in the US, fireworks aren't confined to the day.
   Thai love celebrations so they have festivals for three New Years.  First is the western calendar New Year, January 1.  Chinese New year is next, the date is set by the lunar year but it happens late January or early February.  Then comes Thai New Year, Songkran, also set by the moon. It is really wild.  The tradition is to pour water on people...step out of the house or any building and you'll get soaked.  It used to be buckets or cups but the advent of huge soaker  water cannons have made buckets seem tame.  April is the hottest month so getting wet is probably welcome.
   It was night market time last night with Gai, Mai, Mai, Poy, Ompa and Pear.  I learned something about my significance here.  Gai said "Many people come, only you come back."  It is my 6th year and I've heard a similar message from the teachers.  Poy's new filling looks very good.  It's not noticeable unless one really looks for it.
  China is now withholding the cool breezes and it is pleasantly hot.

At the night market.  Dinner for 7 was $9.00.

5th grade at their desks.

5th grade at their desks wearing their Phy. Ed. Day uniforms.

My Schedule.

  It's about a half hour ride on the back of a motorbike to school.  I get to school  a little after 8:00 a.m. Morning assembly starts about 8:15.  The students sing the national anthem while they raise the flag. Students then lead Buddhist and Muslim chants.  The students body is about 2/3 Buddhist and 1/3 Muslim.  The same students lead both chants with out regard to the religion of the leaders and all students participate in both chants.(The Muslim girls do not wear scarves so it's had to know who is Muslim but sometimes their names give them away, e.g. Farouk.)  Then a 'Thai word for the day' and an 'English word for the day'  are presented.  The students then sit down and a teacher gives a lecture to all the students to which no one listens.  At 8:30 classes begin, theoretically,...give or take several minutes.
  From 8:30 (?) until 9:30 I teach 3rd grade one day and 5th grade the next.  After a half hour off I then teach 4th grade one day and 6th grade the next from 10:30-11:30,  11:30 is lunch time for the teachers so I join them.  After lunch I call the tuk-tuk and it comes about the time afternoon assembly begins.  A very nice schedule.
   Yesterday at afternoon assembly the students were all sitting on the floor in rows by grade and gender.  All were chanting something from the oldest, 6th grade, to the youngest, 1st grade. It turned out that they were chanting the multiplication tables through 12...."2 times 2 is 4, 2 times 3 is 6, 2 times 4 is 8......

3rd grade at their desks.

3rd grade at their desks.

5th graders helping the cook serving lunch. (rice).  Students do much of the work at school very cheerfully.

5th graders washing dishes.

Lined up for lunch.

Doggy Recognition.

    There are dozens of  dogs in the neighborhood where I live.  Those that live close to my house have long recognized me and seem to remember me from year to year.  When a stranger walks by they raise a ruckus.
    There are also two large dogs that own the school yard.  Any other dog that dares venture into the yard is quickly challenged and run off.  So, too, if a stranger enters the school yard they bark.  However, they have never paid any attention to me.  They wander among the students during opening assembly and visit the dinning room.
    Speaking of opening assembly, this morning while the students were leading it, a mother on a motorbike cruised in very near the leaders in front of the assembly.  She dropped off her student and then roared off. Behind the assembly was a whole parking lot where she could have let off her student.  It's just so Thai...no one thinks anything of it...interrupt the proceedings?  Who cares?

The twins on my lap have been pictured on my Facebook page for a year.  The one on my right is older and that's a big deal here.  They have no word for "sister" only "older sister" or  "younger sister".

They love to have their picture taken with me.

The official name of my school.

"I Spy"  Picture of Thai money approx. $30.,  $3. and $1. and is called Baht.

Stories from Ayutthaya

   Years (6) of trial and error are good for something.  Teaching is more fun this year.  I've learned what works and doesn't, how to discipline, e.g., have the offender come and stand by me, and some rudimentary Thai. (Thai is very difficult, 76 letters, 28 vowels and 5 tones.) That combination makes the time fly.
   It was another one of those days when 2 teachers, 3rd and 4th grades, were gone.  So I taught in those rooms so that they each had an hour of instruction.  One of the other teachers stops by the teacher-less rooms occasionally.
   Update on the tuk-tuk.  Gai/Mai did have to pay for the repairs even though it is a rental.  The tuk-tuk needed a clutch...about $60...which I paid.

4th grade

Playing soccer at lunch time.

Gotta Love Thailand!

   This weekend is some kind of holiday...Buddha's birthday maybe?...so alcohol sales are banned. Alcohol consumption is against Buddhist teaching...a prohibition that is observed primarily in the breach.  However, in typical Thai fashion they don't want to interfere with commerce.  So, if a customer orders a beer the waitress will pour the bottle into a plastic cup, not show the customer the bottle and that is OK.  :) The prohibition is acknowledged, the sale is made and the customer gets the beer.
    With the cessation of  the cool winds blowing from China smog has returned to Thailand.  Bangkok has been working hard to improve air quality.  All taxis run on natural gas which is quite clean.  Ubiquitous Baht Buses, so called because the basic fare is a Baht (about 3 cents), are slowly being converted from diesel to natural gas. All motorcycles now being sold are four cycle instead of the old two cycle.  Two cycle mix oil with the fuel for lubrication creating much pollution.  With 4 million motorcycles on the streets of Bangkok this change is huge.  Most heavy trucks and the mini-buses I ride run on natural gas.
    Among the jobs I wouldn't want is that of a Thai street sweeper.  Super highway, highway, street, side street the sweepers are at work sweeping by hand....yes with a broom.  All the sweepers appear to be women.

5th graders Milk, Haawa and Meenha leading the schools opening exercises.

5th graders leading the "Word for Day"...the English word "Chili."

The girls next door.  Last year I tutored Fern (pink shirt) and Gad (white shirt) in English.

Eating in Thailand...customs and manners.

   The story of Thailand's silverware, possibly true, goes back to the early days of western influence in Siam. The King was a guest for dinner at a prominent Anglican clergyman's house at the King's request. He was curious about English table service.  A fine dinner was laid with all the customary  English  silver.  After the meal the King announced  "I'll keep these two" holding up a table fork and a table spoon.  To this day that is what Thai use.  In 4 years living with a Thai family I've never seen chopsticks and almost never see Thai using them.  The fork is held in the left hand and the spoon in the right, the fork being used to move food to the spoon.  The spoon is slightly larger than our typical table spoon.  Occasionally a wide bodied, short handled  spoon will be used for soup.
    Breakfast, lunch and dinner are known here but not nearly as standard as in the west.  There is a common tendency to eat when hungry.  And, because food is ubiquitous in urban Thailand, people are seen eating everywhere and all the time.  They are as comfortable sitting on the floor eating as at a table and many Thai homes do not even have a table at which to eat.
   Mealtimes seem a bit random to me.  If there is food set out the first to arrive simply begins eating with no sense of waiting for others to arrive.  It someone has eaten before the meal they just skip it.  When a person finishes eating he/she just leaves, no excuse me, thank you, or any such formalities.  Every meal has fish oil, a variety of spices (much Thai food is extremely spicy)  and sugar available.  They add sugar to things we wouldn't....Pad Thai for example.
   Usually there several bowls of food placed at the center.  People have their own shallow bowls filled with a bed of rice.  They use the spoon with which they eat to ladle from the bowls of food.  Guests of honor's bowls are often the recipients of food placed by other diners, especially from women, e.g., a particularly fatty piece of pork. Nothing is ever passed, diners just stretch for what they want.  Yesterday  during lunch at school a teacher stood up to reach for something and dragged her scarf through some sauce.            
  Using a tooth pick without covering your mouth is considered gauche.  Conversely it is perfectly acceptable to publicly pick your nose.
   At school the teachers supplement the school lunch with fruits, cold roast corn, a variety of sweets, nuts, soybeans, spices and other entrees.  Yesterday they had krumkaka...it had a slight greenish cast and a different taste but was good.

Life On The Margin.

    It's not easy to eke out a living from a tuk-tuk.  Gai and Mai have two daughters, they're also raising a grandson and now they have taken in Poy.  Poy came to their attention through their  16 year old daughter, Mai.  Mai knew Poy at school and realized that Poy's family had disintegrated because of parental meth addiction.
    Typically this is the busy season for tourism because of the dry, cooler temperatures.   However, this year the protests in Bangkok have frightened tourists away.  So several days this week they had no customers for their tuk-tuk.  No customers, no income  and few resources  on which to  rely !  Their situation certainly illustrates the Thai saying "When the elephants fight the ants suffer."
     Today they were bringing me from school via my house to catch the mini-bus to Bangkok.  Just as we approached the house their tuk-tuk broke down.  It's the newer one they just rented, for  which I composed the sign. They pay $120. a month rental for it.  When I get back to Ayutthaya on Sunday I'll inquire about the liability for the repairs; are they stuck, or, is it the  responsibility of the rental company?
    Life on the margin?...hard for many of us to imagine the daily struggle.
   

Pictures from "my" house.

Looking toward the kitchen.  The house has 2 levels of ca. 500 sq. ft. each.

Kitchen

Men enclosing the soffit...no OSHA rules in Thailand.

Poo (Poe) trying to stay warm.

Painting

Typical Chaos!

     Teaching English in a classroom where I don't know the local language is challenging.  That challenge is exacerbated by the level of chaos that reigns.  Pickup trucks selling merchandise with loudspeakers blaring slowly cruise the street about ten yards from the classroom. The sound coming through the open windows is so loud that spoken voices in the room are drowned out.  Students from other rooms drift in and out as do teachers and others I don't even know.  Students that belong in my room suddenly appear in the middle of the hour. Teachers pull students out of class to send them on errands.
    Yesterday while I was teaching(?) 5th grade two 4th graders came in to distribute sandwiches to the 5th graders.  There were 4 kinds of sandwiches from which to choose.  It was bedlam until each student had the sandwich of  his/her choice.  The 4th graders were already in the room before I saw them or I would have kept them out but apparently other teachers wouldn't do that.
   During classes I see teachers wandering to other rooms, in the office on a computer or just standing around.  Education does not seem to be a very high priority.

Teachers chatting noisily during another teacher's lecture to the students.  No one seems to care that the students aren't listening. 

Christmas decoration.  Every Thai student can sing Jingle Bells.

6th graders My and Mata.

Ann leading exercises to help students warm up.

4th grades Dai and Natsaree on the 2nd story deck outside of the classrooms. 

Fractured English

   Gai asked me to compose a sign for the new tuk-tuk they just rented.  She wanted passengers to use the bell to request a stop rather than tapping on the window.  I proposed "If you want to stop the tuk-tuk please ring the bell."  She thought that was good and I wrote it out for her.  Today when they picked me up after school she proudly pointed out the sign affixed to the window "If you want to stop the tuk-tuk please the bell." Ring had been left out!
   What should I do?  I decided to say nothing because the sign is attached to the window, the meaning is clear and tourists will think it's an interesting case of fractured English.
   One of my favorite cases of fractured English is the sign I go by everyday on the way to school which says "CITY LIMITS PLEASE PRODUCE SPEED."   Another is the TV channel called "JEWVERY".  It's a jewelry saleS channel and I've seen it for years.  There's a hospital I pass to and from the airport that has a huge neon sign that boldly proclaims "PIYATE HOSPITAL." The sign should read "PRIVATE HOSPITAL."

Sweets wrapped with banana leaf.

Gai with new tuk-tuk.

Third grade, the two on my lap are twins.

Fifth grade.

Teachers at lunch.

Correction

   When I reported that Poy could have both teeth filled for $60. I was mistaken.  The correct figure is $60. for each.  That is still a bargain and it all makes me happy.  She was quite scared about her first trip to the dentist but saving those teeth is an accomplishment.

Poy is in the center of the picture.

Hitchhiker.  

Nearby house.

Teachers; Kaew, 1st grade (Muslim) and Ann 3rd grade.  I asked Kaew why she didn't wear a scarf and she said "Too hot."

Hugged by an elephant.

"I Spy"  Toon and Milk wearing their Friday uniforms.

More Pictures

Food stall.

Gold shop.

Condos by the river.

Food stall.

Papa asleep on his corner.

Teaching and learning? in Thailand.

    During the morning assembly Aronsee, the 4th grade and English teacher, gave me my teaching assignment for the morning.  She said "Teach 5th grade from 8:30 until 9:30 and grade 3 from 10:00 until 11:00.  Puang and Ann are gone."  Puang and Ann are the 5th and 3rd grade teachers respectively.  This means that I was the only adult in those rooms today and only an hour in each one. The students are given assignments to work on in the teacher's absence. They've never heard of substitute teachers and the students seem to handle it well.
   There about 20 new computers at the school this year.  On my visits to the computer room all I've seen the students do is play games.
   I can now name 90% of the students in grades 3, through 6.  It's helpful that the 3rd grade twins, Laila and
her sister Naada have different hair styles.  It's also helpful that everyone in Thailand has a nick name. In the 3rd grade class besides the twins are Fahut, Nude, Bell, Reed, Faara, Muunid, Don, Da, Daam, Frank, Wid, B, and Ussama.

Pictures from Bangkok

Normally busy Silom Rd. turned into a shopping street.

"I Spy" question, Who is this?

River taxi.

"I Spy" Waffles some on a stick.

Inside the river taxi.

Chopping cabbage.

"I Spy" question, What are these flowers sold for?

Protesters near Victory Monument,  

Loading the mini-bus I ride to and from Ayutthaya.