Tuesday, June 17, 2014

English Classes at the Village


On Sunday, we had the first English class with the women’s group. The whole village had been invited by the governor during Mass, and eventually around 15 women showed up. They arrived slowly, one by one, and this made us understand how learning to wait is going to be part of our experience here at the village. Afraid of sitting in the front rows, surrounded by the children they take care of, women of all ages took a place on the benches of the church and put all their effort to study a language with which they had never been in contact before.



At first, we made the mistake of using our extremely limited Thai skills to facilitate the process, but they steadily corrected us to Karen. Luckily, in the morning, we had met a nice English-speaking girl who served as an interpreter during the lesson. Children were running around the whole time, and they were playing the game “touch-the-farang”, us being extremely exotic in the context of the village.

We started from the very basics (“hello”, “what’s your name?”) and it was nice to see how the women tried hard to communicate and memorize. We realized that within an hour and a half their English got better than our baby-Thai.



They want to have more classes per week, to meet more often in order to learn more. That is yet to be discussed, and we have to say that we do feel good after our Sunday evening class, much rewarded in terms of both learning outcomes, and warmth and appreciation on the part of the women.

Creatures


We thought we were prepared to live in a tropical country during the rainy season; we thought a bunch of mosquitos and a couple of spiders would not scare us; we thought that the animal kingdom had no mystery for us, after watching hours of documentaries on TV. Our first and, well, only night at the village taught us otherwise.

During the day, all you have to do is try to avoid some huge flying things with various colors, squash a battalion of mosquitos, and ignore the feeling of being steadily watched by some creatures hidden in the bushes. But when the evening comes, when frogs and geckos start singing, another story begins. Huge ants in black and fiery colors start crawling everywhere, massive spiders make their way out of their nests, and cockroaches emerge out of nowhere. The evening is loud and alive in its own way.

Probably not many Westerners can take it that easily. We are used to living in our over-hygienized life-free houses full of poison and chemicals, for it is not easy to deal with such a lively, animated environment. If the tiny, cute geckos are a nice company most of the time, when their amount triples and their two-feet long cousins come out, the average Westerner immediately thinks of a young alligator and runs away. If European spiders cause some shouting, Thai spiders cause fainting. Even the innocuous ants and the usually-not-so-creepy cockroaches drove us to insanity. Our attempt to recreate a homey disinfected life-free zone awoke tons of beasts in the house where we were supposed to stay. Wrapped in mosquito net and stinking of poison and mosquito repellent, every time we managed to get some sleep, we woke up shouting because some huge bug managed to infest our nightmares as well. We gave up on staying in that house, arousing the amusement of kids and teachers alike. Haha, the spoiled Westerners defeated by a couple of insects. Our story will be narrated for years. Our perspective? If only they were “a couple”, and, hey, we did try!

The villagers simply live with it. No chemicals released, harming the environment, and people co-habit with any forms of life. They do not impose their presence exterminating what was there before them; they know how to handle it staying safe. It’s impressive how we could not even spend one night there without breaking down; apparently we do need a chemical-poisoned environment to survive. The Westerner in us? Maybe, or maybe it was too much on our first day and we were too tired to have to deal with that too.

And - ho well – speaking of creatures, we saw two pink chickens! Oh, an a couple of green ones. What? “Impossible”, you say?



Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Teaching


When thinking about teaching in MSPT, one should cease thinking in conventional, that is to say Western, terms. They are taught agriculture, they are taken on trips around the village to acquaint themselves with nature and useable material found therein, such as plants used for dying textiles, and are encouraged to tend to their own vegetable garden, the products of which are sold to finance their lunch meal. In the competitive times that ASEAN comes into formation, children are required to meet national and international educational standards. Thus, they have to take English at school and exercise their language learning skills. Both the teachers and the students are eager to learn English and communicate with us, the foreigners… the ‘farang’.

Children


Regarding children, living in MSPT means a life free of many distractions and lots of play. Save for television, there are no ‘western inferences’, such as video games and internet connection. Therefore, children seek adventure and excitement in nature as well as company in the presence of peers. Given that they have grown up in nature as well as that they are being taught agriculture at school and take part in a pig and frog raising project, children feel quite at ease in their natural surroundings which consist of tall trees, grass green and long from the frequent downpours, wooden houses and open spaces with a view of the surrounding hills, insects and animals. One of their favorite hobbies is football, while the sound that they hear the most at night is the melodic vocals of frogs and geckos (‘to-ke’!).

In addition to the above, it is worth mentioning how much trust adults have in the children. They are allowed to wander with friends, take keys from the teachers’ room to open and close doors, switch off the lights, sometimes clean dishes or cook, and take care of their siblings at home. Trust in the village is also seen in the doors of the homes that are left open during the day and teachers’ stuff being left untouched in places where students come and go.