Those who can't do, teach ;)

On the fourth day of class for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, we were brought to a local school in Ban Phe to practise teaching one-on-one with a student. I was paired with a sweet 15 year old girl named Prapaporn.


We sat together for 50 minutes as we talked about prepared topics on the mindmap paper shown above. Her family consists of her father Pechdom, her mom Regana, and her younger sister Pronnipa. She likes to play volleyball everyday and football twice a week at school. She wants to be a nurse when she grows up and her best friend is named Boo Ben Tong. She also has a white cat named Boo. For food, she likes sukee, oranges, chicken and ice cream. Her birthday is on the 4th of July and her favourite hobby is singing.

The next day, she greeted me by first taking a quick little peek at something written on the palm of her hand and then saying "It is nice to see you again". That produced a nice feeling.
We talked together for another 50 minutes about her interests and then went through some reading exercises which were recorded on tape.


Our class of teachers and students:

^Prapaporn is second from the bottom-right

Meeting the locals in Ban Phe

On my first evening in Ban Phe, I met Ellie the Elephant:


He walks along the main road in town looking for someone to pay 20 Baht to feed him a bunch of pieces of sugar cane. At the end, he does that trunk trick and makes a noise. It was well worth it.

On the third day of class, I met ... Roachie the cockroach:


I doubt he was as pleased that I came to visit Ban Phe because instead of feeding him, I ate him. Unfortunately, I didn't show Jidapa how to film with my camera exactly so video of the entry was never captured. There will be no re-take:

Staring down the barrel of a loaded tank

Ok, I finally have an internet connection where I can freely upload files from my camera to post to this blog.

First, the so-called military coup in Thailand! I went to where the tanks have been sitting but it was sort of like Disneyland. On each side of the road leading to the parliament building were four tanks, some armed soldiers, and they were all surrounded by small gates. The soldiers approached the gates to pose with tourists, and families were sending their children through the gates to photograph them beside the tanks. There was even one father who dressed up his child in army fatigues and a toy gun.