Na Khae Temple Trip and Daily Fun

Last Thursday and Friday I took a special trip to a mountain temple in the neighboring district of Na Khae.  I was really nervous about missing 2 days of school the very first week, but my host mom kept reassuring me it was OK.  On the drive their my host mom spent a lot of time on the phone with my Paaw Aaw, so of course I was thinking the worst, and she was explaining to him why I wasn’t at school, and he was mad, etc.  As we drive up the mountain though, who do I see?  ALL of my students!  Turns out it was a school trip, and I had no reason to be worried after all.  The scenery was absolutely gorgeous.  It sort of reminded me of my trip to Meteora in Greece in the way that they are both breathtaking worship sites teetering on the side of a mountain with beautiful views of the world below.

I was expecting a peaceful weekend of reflection and prayer…but that is exactly what did not happen.  After touring the temple a bit and unpacking, the students were ushered into a lecture hall where they were given a 6 hour presentation about the unrest in the south of Thailand.  The southern 3 provinces are Muslim and there is religious conflict because of it.  The hardest thing for me was trying to understand.  Obviously the presentation was in Thai, so I had to look at the pictures and ask very simple questions of the other teachers, without getting into any opinion things.  The pictures and video were extremely violent, and they showed images of Jihad and of September 11.  All of this led me to believe that this was an anti-Muslim presentation.  I asked one of the teachers if they were telling the students whether Muslims were good or bad, and she said, “They are bad. They are very violent and they want to take over our country for oil.”  To top it all of, in the middle of the presentation, the facilitators made the students do these army type squats that made most of them faint after only a few.  

I was incredibly uncomfortable through most of it, especially because I couldn’t understand the message the students were supposed to get or the purpose of it.  Not only that, but because of language restraints, I couldn’t tell them my views.  I’m certain they think that I think all Muslims are bad, especially because of the September 11 photos.  There is no way for me to communicate that that is most definitely not the case, and they wouldn’t be able to understand the reasons why I don’t bear that intolerance.  Hopefully once my students and I get more comfortable with each other I will be able to at the very least send them some sort of message that I did not agree with most of that presentation.  I thought strongly of getting up and walking out, but I didn’t know how that action would later reflect on me.  

There were some saving graces to the trip though, the scenery just being one of them.  After the presentation I wanted to walk to the top of the mountain to watch the sunset, but of course Nit wouldn’t let me go alone.  Rather than scrounge up another teacher, I told her I would take some students with me.  It was during their shower time and resting time before dinner, but I asked some of the students anyway, and a few came with me.  As other students figured out what was going on they followed, and even some students who had just gotten out of the shower threw their towels over their shoulders and climbed the mountain barefoot to see the sunset with me.  At this point I’d only had one class with them, but it was so special that they wanted to share that with me.  

Before heading to bed, I had a chance to chat for a while with Nit and one of the other young teachers at my school.  It was a great conversation and I found out a little more about the education system of Thailand, specifically how they do their special education.  Knowing that a lot of countries just kind of ignore students with learning disabilities, I was very pleased to find out that in Thailand, they include these students with the rest, and that I even have some special ed (LD as they are referred to here) students in some of my classes.  They also told me that in some of the bigger schools they make classes by students GPA, and only the top students have access to the better teachers, which they view as unfair too.  

I’ve really enjoyed all of my chats with Nit, and we are able to get into some pretty deep topics even with the limited vocabulary we share.  When we returned from the temple, we went to her rice farm and spent an hour or so sitting on the napping deck in the middle of the paddy and chatting about her kids and sharing about our lives at home.  

In all, I view Kut Chim as one of the better schools that I’ve heard about.  Most teachers actually teach during their classes, and the students only roam free a few periods a day as opposed to most at other schools.  My Paaw Aaw is incredibly involved, and even had a meeting with all the parents on the 2^nd day of school (during which I had to introduce myself of course).  I’ve even seen a few parents come in for meetings about their kids, which I’m pretty sure is unheard of at most Thai schools.

Now that I’ve done all the deep stuff, here’s a treat:  Heather’s Misadventures in Thailand:

1. I saw a scorpion in the middle of the night in the bathroom at the temple.  I watched it for a while, wondering what the heck I should do about it.  When it wandered into the shower, I locked it in there.  And then I shut the door of the bathroom too, but I was sleeping on the floor, so I worried about it all night.  I woke up alive though, so that’s good.
2. Nit had some students help move the dirt piles left over from construction of my house.  She paid them for it, but I insisted that I help make them dinner.  I made dinner outside and thought it was the long grass that was itchy around my ankles. Turns out mosquitoes were the culprit and now have bug bites for feet.  This of course comes after Peter gave me a mosquito net, so they were extra concerned about me and the bugs. Nit now comes to my house every morning and night and rubs some weird smelling Chinese cream on all my bug bites. It’s actually working.
3. The plastic covering was still on my mattress, but the sheets had been put on the bed when I moved in, so I thought there was some reason the plastic was still there.  I woke up every morning with the sheets sliding off and my skin stuck to the bed.  When I showed Nit, she started laughing hysterically and ripped the plastic off.  I guess she only kept it on so that I would know that it was new. 
4.  As part of one of my lessons, I took pictures of my students.  I didn’t remember though, that appearances are everything here in Thailand.  At the sight of my camera, out came mirrors, baby powder, and combs, and the students took about 20 minutes to do the whole thing, when I had planned for 2.

For pictures of Na Khae Temple:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069087&id=1326450028&l=28f088f212