what's in a name?

Our human neighbors were fantastic. We lived in between the two assistant directors, one a man and the other a woman (we have no idea what their names are because everyone called them "assistant director"). The female assistant director we came to find out was not very liked and this poor old lady lived by herself and did not show her face much. The male assistant director was who led the construction of our house and was married to a woman who worked in the canteen. They had a son and a pitbull tied up in the back yard. He would often be building stuff out front and although his English was not great, he was always very friendly.
The most important of our neighbors were Pi Kung, her husband and their son. Pi Kung became like a mother to us while we were living there, always being sure that we had food and some times even entertaining us by taking us out on weekends and bringing us to people's home for dinner. We really had our strongest bond with her and her son Chev and we will miss them terribly.
We were introduced to Chev, a two year old, for the first time and he would not even look at us. We scared him because we looked so different, and he would hide behind his mom, sometimes crying until they left. One time, Pi Kung and Chev came to pick us up in a truck and Pi Kung said "look Chev is in the Chev." This is when she explained to us that Chev's full name was Chevorlet Colorado, named after their blue truck. I couldn't make this stuff up. Then she said that this other girl who lived near us was named High, for the Highlander her parents drove. We had thought that vegetable was weird, but these names were beyond our expectations (we later met two of Pi Kung's nephews, Toto and Yoyo, named after the dog in the wizard of Oz and the toy).
As we got to know Chevorlet Colorado and more importantly he got to know us we really fell in love with him and he provided hours of entertainment.
The more that

our house, our neighbors and their names

We spent the first three weeks of our stay with the family of Pi Ray one of the english teachers. As we mentioned in an earlier blog one of our housemates was "Pak" or "Anong", Pi ray's son, who was our first intro into how Thai people name there children. Everyone called him "Anong" which is the general thai word for " little kid" but his birth name is Pak. Over dinner one night we learned that Pi Ray loved to eat vegetables or in Thai "Pak". Her love for vegetables was its strongest during her pregnancy with "Pak" and therefore determined his name. We thought is was funny but kinda cool and didn't really think about it much more.Our stay with them was lovely but we were excited when they told us they were "building" us our own house. We soon discovered that by "building" they meant fixing up an already existing house (which actually was where Pi Ray's family had originally lived). Our house consisted of two floors. The first floor was all tiled, had a leather couch (Brigid's seat) and three leather chairs (Brian's seat), a TV that didn't work, a refrigerator, and a bathroom (including non flushing squatting toilet and cold shower). Upstairs were two rooms, one of them was scary and we shut the door and never went into and the other was the bedroom complete with school view, porch, and a "mattress" (two long hard pillows on the equally hard wooden floor). It soon became our home and we began to appreciate all of the little things that came with it. The geckos that lived with us that helped too control the large bug population. One of our favorite pastimes was watching the geckos hunt and eat bugs on our wall. We named all of the geckos, Max, Sam, Pedro, Julian, Becko, Nubs and Big Mama (about 6 inches long ). We also had lovely backyard neighbors, the roosters who would wake us up always in time for school with their crowing, frontyard neighbors, the cows who became increasingly more friendly as time went on even poking their head in the front door, and everyday visitors, the random dogs, Leo, Boom, and Fanta who had no real home but were taken care of by everyone and lived on school property. Brigid really struggled with these last neighbors because all she wanted to do was pet and love the dogs which she was not allowed to do because they were dirty street dogs.Even though she was not allowed to have contact with the dogs she still found ways to sneak food to them when Brian wasn't looking, and therefore ensuring their continual presence.
We had human neighbors as well....

what we taught

Somewhere between being famous and being embarrassed we have been teaching. We teach three classes a together a day and the age of our students range from 12-18, except on Fridays when we teach in the primary school where the students 8-11.
We started out a little rough with introductions. We were nervous and the students were shy so it was tough to get them to participate. However, we quickly learned that Thai students are really competitive so board races became our "go to move". It is important to note that when we say that we "taught" English (pahsat angrit, see we are learning to speak a little Thai!) it is more accurate to say that we played games with the students that were centered around English words. The most important thing for the students was to hear native English speakers talk and we left the grammar lessons to the teachers. We tried to think of lessons that they would have fun doing and to teach them words that would help them to extend their English vocab. Our next lesson idea was "Simon Says." We taught them verbs ranging from run and jump to dance and sing. This was certainly a hit with students. Once we had taught this lesson a couple of times to different classes we decided to spice it up a bit by adding "high five". Needless to say this resulted in ending many classes with a high five to one of the students and random high fives being thrown our way throughout the school day.
Another lesson that we taught was "Daily Activities." We taught students how to say things like brush your teeth, wash the dishes and shampoo your hair. They ended up teaching us how to say these things in Thai as well. After we went over all the phrases we would have board races where students would act out the phrase and the other students would have to say it in English while one person on the team wrote it on the board. This resulted in the following reinvention of daily activities:
"brush your teets"
"button your shit"
"shampoop your hair"

Amongst others. Each time we tried to keep a straight face while we corrected them. However, I can't tell you how many times Brian took a shower and said "I am just going to shampoop my hair."

We really loved our students and we like to think that they actually learned some English from us being there. There were a few students who would sometimes find us during the day and just sit and talk with us in order to practice their English. Learning English is really a means of leaving their tiny village of Ban Kram and some students saw it as their only way. We really hope that it was these students that we were able to help the most.

So I guess this is our 15 minutes of fame

Clearly, Brian and I stick out. Not only are we the only white people within 100 mile radius of our little village Ban Kram (if not more), but we are also giants, hovering a good 4- 12 inches above everyone (Julie, we finally know how you feel, we literally have to bend over to talk to people) and we speak only english with a few Thai words in a funny accent. Little did we know that it was exactly this that would launch us into star status.

First, it started with the yelling. A lot of "Hello," "How are you?"Brion," or "Breeget." We thought this was fun and we always yell back hello and ask students their name, even though only a brave few answer.

Then one day Brian and I sat outside at one of the tables at school and a small group of girls from another table started talking to us. Suddenly, they were at our table and then just as quickly we were surrounded by about 50 students. They started throwing paper and pens at us and asked us to sign our name. But not just our names, they wanted us to write "My name is." It was insane. Pieces of paper torn from text books or other little scraps thrown in front of us for our autograph.

Then people started drawing pictures of us and giving them to us. First, one of the girls in the house we were living in with the English teacher P'Ray and her family drew pictures of me and wrote in Thai that I was beautiful (once again, I had to believe P'Ray on this one, it really could say anything). She then drew a picture of Brian, her and me with a house in the background. P'Ray explained that this girl was not in fact her daughter, but that both of her parents had died and that she had just taken her in. She said that the picture said that she would like for Brian and I to be her parents. It was one of the hardest moments we have had so far in terms of realizing the suffering of some of these kids, in the poorest part of Thailand. On a lighter note, we also received a portrait drawn of Brian and I from these three girls that take us to lunch everyday in the canteen. Written at the top in English was " When you leave, I will miss you forever, I promise. Love forever." Rather intense seeing that this was given to us after sharing only two lunches with these girls (they have since requested a photo of Brian and I for them to keep).

Our fame recently reached new heights when we spent a weekend in Ubon Ratchathani for the Candle Festival there. This is one of the biggest festivals in Thailand celebrating the Buddhist monks and Ubon holds the largest parade/party of all. When we arrived at the parade we took our place near some of these giant floats made of wax that were candles to be offered at the temple. Within the first 30 minutes, 3 random Thai people had asked to take a photo with us. Then it became a regular thing. Either we would catch people taking photos from across the street or people would ask to take photos with us about every 5 minutes. Then as the day progressed and we started walking around, people would line up waiting to ask us questions (practicing their English) and then they would take a photo. At one point we were surrounded by about 15 Thai people and their was this father who started grabbing at our arms saying "my son wants to take a picture with you." It was crazy and honestly really exhausting. By the end of the day we were trying to cover our faces just to get out of there and people still chased after us. Brian said that now he can see why celebrities get so fed up with photographers, but we decided if we were making millions of dollars, we may have less of a problem with it.

When we return, if you could treat us like mini celebrities, that would REALLY make the transition easier. Thanks! B&B

Brigid's most embarassing story

Teachers in Thailand have it made (I have already suggested to my sister that she move here and teach and that goes for Julie and Pam too. Although Jules may not have the same kind of entertaining stories that she has now, I know she could get used to how Thai teachers are treated). At any point a teacher can ask a student to do pretty much anything. If a group of students are playing a game a teacher simply has to walk up to them and then the youngest student in the group will leave so the teacher can play. If a teacher would like a chair or some water, they simply ask a student to go get it for them. The teachers are served lunch by the students who sit and watch them eat, ready to refill water or any food at any time. A teacher can even see a student at the market, outside of school grounds, and have said student carry their groceries for them regardless of what the student is doing. It is amazing and Brian and I have been lucky enough to experience this kind of treatment.
However, as wonderful as all of this is, it is nothing compared to how we are treated when we are with the director of our school. He treats us like a combination of his children and his trophies which he shows off to his other director friends.
The other weekend, Brian and I went to Sisaket to watch the students play footsong (indoor soccer with 5 people on each team and boundaries, very entertaining) and badmitton (not so entertaining as you can imagine). We were there with the teachers only and sat in the stands and really enjoyed cheering our students on. We even went out to a Thai disco with the teachers and drank whiskey and water which is apparently the drink of choice. The disco was pretty interesting and was more like a concert with the same band, but about 7 revolving singers and back up dancers who changed costumes everytime they were on stage. And Thai modesty definitely went out the window with these costumes of mini skirts and basically bra tops. Why I love Brian is because it wasn't the costumes that got his attention as much as it was that the women lacked any rhythm. It really bothered him to the point he said that he couldn't watch any more and that he was ready to immediately start teaching dancing at our school in order to stop this kind of tragedy from happening again. (Side note: we have since taught our students American dances including, but not limited to the water sprinkler, the shopping cart and in honor of Mike Ferrante, the Young Jocs "It's going down" motorcycle move from the video. We have pictures don't worry!)
But I digress, The Sisaket sports fesitival was a week long thing where the students slept on the floor of the gym and then got up in the morning to participate (again, this was something that bothered Brian terribly because he thought "this is no way to get ready for a game"). We spent the weekend with the teachers and then later in the week the director wanted to take us to see Thai boxing. When we arrived we went to sit with our students in the stands, but the director shook his head and pointed to these leather couches in the centerof the stadium. We sat there and were fed and provided water throughout the whole event. We were very comfortable with a fan blowing on us although it remained 99 F in the stadium. The director had the announcer tell the whole crowd that we were there which received big cheers from our students. As we watched I adjusted in my seat and realized I was sweating more than I had realized, but thought that it couldn't be too bad. I kind of whispered to Brian that I thought that the back of my legs were sweating where I was sitting on leather (who thought LEATHER was a good idea! And these couches are at ALL big events). I stood up slightly and I will never forget Brian's face when I turned around. It was a combination of laughing and sheer panic. I was not sweating a little, I had legitimate sweat marks from my bum to the middle of my hamstring. I did not know what to do so I adjusted myself so just the very edge of my butt was on the couch (you can imagine how awkward this looked). The I slid myslef awkwardly to the concrete seats next to the couches claiming they were "more comfortable." Then I thought I would make a run for the bathroom while the director went to go talk to a friend. So I slid off the couch made a run for the wall and shimmied along it (all the while Brian is watching and laughing). I turn the corner and there is the director and he wants to introduce me to his friends. I am not sure if anyone noticed, but I do know that directly after that interaction it was the director's idea to leave the Thai boxing stadium. I was so grateful when we finally got into the car and then he stopped and said "time for volleyball." Brian and I somehow managed a way for me to cover the sweat with my bag and a hankerchief (I am still not sure how we managed this, but thank you Greg Bruce and Talia for suggesting bringing the hankerchiefs). And of course , to add insult to injury, I get in there and they offer me hot coffee. The only thing that made me forget about the sweating was the fact that this was not just volleyball, but it was gay volleyball. I am not sure how to describe these young boys to you, but there was a lot of very stereotypical gay men movements, high pitched screaming and running around literally flapping their arms like fairies after every point. It was like nothing we have ever seen and certainly not at a sporting event featuring 16-18 year old boys. Anyhow, by the end of the match the sweat had dried and we returned home.
On the way back, the director randomly stopped and bought us icecream. I took it as a sign that he had noticed my over heating. Brian isn't so sure, but we will never know because it isn't the Thai way to embarrass a guest like that.

Brian's most embarassing story

So I decide that going to the bathroom at this point in time is an excellent idea. Three factors go into this decision. 1) It was an actual toilet. 2) The director of our school had stepped out of the room leaving Brigid and I alone. 3) I had to use the toilet. You have to understand that when travelling in a foreign country when you have an opportunity to go #2 it is essential that you do so, however, in this case I wish I had refrained. Sparing you some details after finishing my business I flush the toilet and everything seems to be going well. I realize that and additional flush is necessary and thought to myself "this shouldn't be a problem". The toilet doesn't flush. Immediate panic sets in and I start to sweat, and I mean sweat profusely. I keep trying and nothing is working. In the room outside I hear that the director has returned and I can only imagine that the other director of the primary school (whom we haven't met yet, and whose bathroom it is) is there as well. More sweating, I try to lift the top toilet cover and fill it with water from the sink hoping that somehow this would help. It doesn't. After repeated flushes I think " you know what Thailand has been fun and if they end up not letting me teach because they are digusted with me I am ok with that." I end up leaving the bathroom and returning to a room with Brigid talking with our school's director. The look on her face confirms that I look extremely panicked and really really sweaty. After a few minutes of conversation with the director he gets a phone call.....Thank God! I tell Brigid what happens, she immediately laughs in my face. I race to the bathroom and try to flush one more time and IT WORKED, I am saved. I may have really stunk but that bathroom was as clean as it was when I entered and thats all that matters.

a day in the life of the director leads to our most embarrassing moments . . . so far

The first day of school we are asked to come at 7:45 am for the flag raising ceremony. Brian and I arrive there standing quietly in the back as they sing the national anthem and say a couple of prayers. Then a few teachers go up and speak. Clearly we understand none of this so we stand in there smiling wondering what the day is going to bring, when we suddenly hear our names and realize one of the English teachers is talking about us (to this day we don't know what was said, but there was a lot of laughing). They are then ushering us up there and ask us to introduce ourselves. I went first and it should come as no surprise to anyone (especially you dad), but I spoke to fast and had to introduce myself again. Needless to say, Brigid is not a name that flows off of the Thai tongue. Brian went next and after seeing my mistake spoke really slowly and no one had any problem with his name. We have now been here two weeks and the students still call Brian "Brian" and me just "teacher." However, this does not come close to our embarrassing moments.
After the flag ceremony the director of our school really wanted to talk to us and show us the primary school that we will be teaching at on Fridays. We piled into his truck and were on our way. At the primary school we were greeted once again with many shouts of Hello and "my name is." The kids were so enthusiastic that we were instantly excited to teach there. We were then sent into the office of the primary school director. There we sat and talked for a bit, took a tour of thew school and had lunch. We then came back to the directors office (who still had not shown up. People seem to go away for long periods of time without explanation here. It is very odd) to chat some more. I decided to use the rest room and to my delight it was an actual toilet. We had been using little holes in the ground until then and pretty much since then. I came out and told Brian who was so thrilled that he decided to use it to and so Brian's story begins . . .