Nickname: Ela?
Sorry if these posts are getting boring for you but I don't want to forget it.
I can't decide if time is passing by quickly or slowly. Maybe both? I feel like I've been here forever, but at the same time I can't believe it's already the 18th.. only 12 more days! When did it go from 33 more days to 12?
Kira and I absolutely LOVE it here in Chiang Mai. We started teaching at a school on Wednesday. It's right next to an orphanage for boys, so all of them go to the school. But there are also a lot of kids with families and some hilltribe kids. At first it was realllly, really hard to teach and I honestly didn't know what we were going to do. When we met with the director, we found out that we would have to teach the kids on our own.. there was pretty much no English program and we would basically have to run the class on our own. But we've managed and have gotten the hang of it and it's SO fun. We're teaching grades 1-6 (there's 1 or 2 classes for each) on Monday-Friday for 1 hour each.
Today it seemed like the kids all of a sudden warmed up to us, and by lunch we were surrounded by kids just like hanging on to us. It sounds weird because we don't speak the same language, but we've gotten to know a lot of them. Or maybe we've gotten to know them well because of that lack of language. I don't know. But it's awesome. And it's really fun to be able to talk about them without them knowing (but I'm pretty sure they do the same to us.) The little boys here are unbelievably cute because they're SO small and really curious about us. We named all of the kids that have stuck out to us, which makes it a lot more entertaining, because the names are all like Gibberish, Sniffles, Monk, Gentle John and Pink Paul. Gibberish is an autistic boy who Kira and I LOVE. He was the first one to actually come up to us, and he just makes up his own language... it's definitely not Thai. But he climbs all over us and "talks" to us, and wanders around by himself during class just doing his own thing (which a lot of the kids here tend to do). I'll talk more about the individual kids when we have pictures, but Gibberish is so amazing that I had to talk about him. A lot of other kids began to come up to us today too. They like the cards that we have, and we played war and slapjack with them. We showed them one magic trick and now all they do when we get out the cards is pretend to do that magic trick with us.
After school we walked with the kids to the orphanage, which was pretty eye-opening. All of the kids there were either abandoned or from poor or negligent families. As soon as we got there we were joined by 7 or 8 boys from the school, who joined us on the tour one of the workers was giving us. There's a building for the boys with HIV, which was really shocking. I don't know... I've never really been around people with HIV or AID's, and to be around kids with the disease was definitely new. OHH I almost forgot.. when we were walking around, a couple of boys were taking showers, which are outside, and when they saw us they just yelled "FARANGGG!" (foreigners... we hear the kids saying that around us a lot) and ran inside. But one of the boys was pushed out, and he looked so embarrassed. I felt really bad for laughing but it was too hard not to.
I have such mixed emotions right now.. I want to stay for more than 2 weeks here in Chiang Mai because the school is soo fun and it's such a good experience. But every time I think about home I get reallly excited for the 30th. I can't wait to be in my room, with my dog and cats, with more than a week's worth of clothes that don't have to be put back in a suitcase every time I wear them. And I can't wait to hang out with you guys, but I think I've made that pretty clear. Last night I had a dream that we went back home for 3 days and saw everybody, and then went back to teach, and it was reallly nice. I've been having sooo many dreams about going home and when I wake up I really miss you guys. But then we go to the school and I forget about it until that night.
All I can say is, when Kira and I get back, we are FOR SURE going to a Mexican restaurant. I've been craving chips and salsa for so long, but somehow I highly doubt that there are tortilla chips here, and the closest thing to salsa I've seen was just ketchup mixed with some peppers.
Ok I think this post is getting long enough. Good night! (or I guess good early-morning for you guys)
I can't decide if time is passing by quickly or slowly. Maybe both? I feel like I've been here forever, but at the same time I can't believe it's already the 18th.. only 12 more days! When did it go from 33 more days to 12?
Kira and I absolutely LOVE it here in Chiang Mai. We started teaching at a school on Wednesday. It's right next to an orphanage for boys, so all of them go to the school. But there are also a lot of kids with families and some hilltribe kids. At first it was realllly, really hard to teach and I honestly didn't know what we were going to do. When we met with the director, we found out that we would have to teach the kids on our own.. there was pretty much no English program and we would basically have to run the class on our own. But we've managed and have gotten the hang of it and it's SO fun. We're teaching grades 1-6 (there's 1 or 2 classes for each) on Monday-Friday for 1 hour each.
Today it seemed like the kids all of a sudden warmed up to us, and by lunch we were surrounded by kids just like hanging on to us. It sounds weird because we don't speak the same language, but we've gotten to know a lot of them. Or maybe we've gotten to know them well because of that lack of language. I don't know. But it's awesome. And it's really fun to be able to talk about them without them knowing (but I'm pretty sure they do the same to us.) The little boys here are unbelievably cute because they're SO small and really curious about us. We named all of the kids that have stuck out to us, which makes it a lot more entertaining, because the names are all like Gibberish, Sniffles, Monk, Gentle John and Pink Paul. Gibberish is an autistic boy who Kira and I LOVE. He was the first one to actually come up to us, and he just makes up his own language... it's definitely not Thai. But he climbs all over us and "talks" to us, and wanders around by himself during class just doing his own thing (which a lot of the kids here tend to do). I'll talk more about the individual kids when we have pictures, but Gibberish is so amazing that I had to talk about him. A lot of other kids began to come up to us today too. They like the cards that we have, and we played war and slapjack with them. We showed them one magic trick and now all they do when we get out the cards is pretend to do that magic trick with us.
After school we walked with the kids to the orphanage, which was pretty eye-opening. All of the kids there were either abandoned or from poor or negligent families. As soon as we got there we were joined by 7 or 8 boys from the school, who joined us on the tour one of the workers was giving us. There's a building for the boys with HIV, which was really shocking. I don't know... I've never really been around people with HIV or AID's, and to be around kids with the disease was definitely new. OHH I almost forgot.. when we were walking around, a couple of boys were taking showers, which are outside, and when they saw us they just yelled "FARANGGG!" (foreigners... we hear the kids saying that around us a lot) and ran inside. But one of the boys was pushed out, and he looked so embarrassed. I felt really bad for laughing but it was too hard not to.
I have such mixed emotions right now.. I want to stay for more than 2 weeks here in Chiang Mai because the school is soo fun and it's such a good experience. But every time I think about home I get reallly excited for the 30th. I can't wait to be in my room, with my dog and cats, with more than a week's worth of clothes that don't have to be put back in a suitcase every time I wear them. And I can't wait to hang out with you guys, but I think I've made that pretty clear. Last night I had a dream that we went back home for 3 days and saw everybody, and then went back to teach, and it was reallly nice. I've been having sooo many dreams about going home and when I wake up I really miss you guys. But then we go to the school and I forget about it until that night.
All I can say is, when Kira and I get back, we are FOR SURE going to a Mexican restaurant. I've been craving chips and salsa for so long, but somehow I highly doubt that there are tortilla chips here, and the closest thing to salsa I've seen was just ketchup mixed with some peppers.
Ok I think this post is getting long enough. Good night! (or I guess good early-morning for you guys)