Field Trip

"Kam taam from Ajaan!," Aj. Noi, bursting with energy as always, abruptly changes the subject at hand, which may or may not have been related to learning Thai. "Tam arrai next week? What do you do next week?" As usual, she speaks to us in Thinglish first, using the words that we know. "Because we take a field trip! Payap pays!" Aj. Noi's levels of excitement never cease to amaze me. "And you can ride the, dootdadootdadoot! You know?" This bit needs some explanation. The "dootdadoot" is where Aj. Noi has imitated horns by pointing her fingers away from her forehead and is doing an impression of an ox. Now you have just a smidgeon of an idea of what Thai class is like.

so today we all piled into what Aj. Noi termed the "Payap magic bus" and what everyone else termed the "prison bus" and went on my first field trip since middle school. Okay, I guess that's not quite true. Maybe high school. And I guess study abroad is kind of an extended field trip.

I expected to be rather bored by the whole thing. I mean, I'd been on an ox-cart ride before with Zoe. They are not the most exciting or comfortable of things. But I didn't realize that they had a whole morning of activities planned for us. I can't really describe the location. It was some sort of touristy Thai culture outfit. We were divided into small groups and rotated through various stations. My group consisted of my fellow CV Rochell, Chaang from China, Guillam from France and John from New Mexico. First we got to observe and then try our hand at operating an old-fashioned loom. Except John messed it up somehow so not all of us got to try it. :-) Next we were taken to a sort of weaving and handicraft station where I sort of managed to make something resembling a flower out of a leaf. Crafts are so not my thing. Then we got to play with some play-doh, erm, I mean clay. I made a model of the Loch Ness Monster. There was a pottery wheel and a couple of others tried to make some pottery, with varying success. (Karen, you would have been in heaven. Except you're an art major, so you already do this stuff all the time. I thought of you is all I'm trying to say.) Our last station was learning how to make paper.

After we'd rotated through all the stations, we were led over to a grass ring where two oxen were waiting for us. I thought we were just going for an ox-cart ride but no, we were actually riding the oxen as though they were horses at the fair or something. It was pretty fun, but not as fun as riding an elephant.

To finish, we were taken to a small rice field so we could get a picture of ourselves planting rice. It was very muddy and a lot deeper than I expected. I had totally forgotten about my leg wound (which is almost completely healed) and when I climbed out I realized that it was covered in mud! Oops. I tried to hose off and resolved to go to the hospital for a new bandage as soon as we returned.

But I had lunch appointment first. It's Esther's birthday and we were invited to have lunch at her office. I made my appearance and then, as soon as felt appropriate, I ducked out and headed to the hospital where the staff were extremely curious as to how I'd managed to get the area under my bandage caked in mud. As usual, they all came scurrying over as soon as they saw me, examining my leg and approving it's progress. "Lek, mai?" (Is it small?) one of them asked. I tried to explain that I had been to a rice field, but somehow they heard building. Oh well.

I wasn't done. I had one last class to teach. The focus was to be reading and I really wasn't sure how to approach it. I decided just to work out of their textbooks and hopefully they would be able to communicate where they needed help. Not everybody came of course, it being 4:00 on a Friday, but that was a bit of a blessing as it allowed me to work with students individually. I'm not sure how much I actually accomplished. Teaching someone how to read and comprehend has got to be one of the most difficult tasks in language teaching, I only had an hour, and I had no idea where to start. But I did my best and at the end of it one of the students approached me.

"Teacher, we want to study with you in summer." Huh? There was a lot of miming, and something about March 28th. I didn't really get it all. I'm not sure if there's a reason they want to study with me in the summer. But to have any student say "I want to study with you" is a definite ego boost. Receiving a list of ten names of prospective guinea pigs, erm, I mean students, is even more so. I don't know how much they actually learn, but I must be doing something right.