Arriving in Thawangpha

After a crazy week-long Bangkok hotel hopping orientation amongst 140 other kids my age James (my fellow teacher from New Jersey) and I were ready to head up North to the peaceful mountains. After a 14 hour bus ride had finally arrived in the village we would be teaching in called Thawangpha. I had heard this small northern area was supposed to be one of the more peaceful parts of the country, which was welcoming news after spending several crazy nights in the neon glow of Bangkok.

James and I at the Golden Palace in Bangkok

As we stepped off the bus in Thawangpha we were greeted by our school coordinator called Kru Lin. She is a wonderfully kind lady who radiates warmth and immediately gave us an awesome welcome by taking us to her home to meet her family and newly born baby called Nam, which means water. She will be our point of contact for the duration of our teaching contracts. 

View outside my apartment

After a nice family visit we were then shown our accommodations, which turned out to be the bottom part of an apartment flat – we each have a decent sized bedroom equipped with a bathroom and place to hang our clothes. Next to my room dwells the infamous kitchen, with a rice cooker and an electric cooking pan.

My sleeping quarters

After putting some tapestries up and removing ten or so snails from my room Kru Lin invited James and I over to her house for dinner. We helped her prepare a traditional Thai dish in her outside kitchen (all kitchens are outside in Thailand due to the intensity of spice that’s created in traditional Thai meals) that included sautéed vegetables over rice. During the meal she told us that we would be teaching classes composed of 40-45 Thai kids who would most likely have very little grasp of the English language with a tendency towards misbehaving and ignoring farang (westerner) teachers.

Kru Lin seemed entertained that neither James nor I had any proficiency speaking Thai or any experience teaching English. She alluded to the fact that the classroom was going to be a zoo and that maintaining any real control would be close to impossible (this was also very funny to her, not so much for us). To top the dinner off, Kru Lin told us that we would be required to give a speech in Thai on the first day of school to the 1,500+ teachers in students during the morning assembly. The combination of Kru Lin's lack of confidence in us coupled with the lack of anything in our kitchen has provided us with a unique start to an interesting 5 months. After dinner James and I headed back to our apartments feeling confused, scared, a very full. Although it was a Saturday night, Thawanhpha doesn’t exactly have a crazy nightlife scene so instead of hitting up a disco we decided to have some Chang beer in my flat while watching the popular movie about African Americans smoking grass entitled “Friday.” We laughed as we reminisced about how easy and less confusing everything in our life had been compared to the prospect of teaching English to 45 crazy Thai kids in just 2 days time who would probably be laughing at us for the at least the next several weeks.

We woke up the next morning and put some rice into the rice cooker. We had bought rice and eggs previously however had no frying pan. We ended up just putting the eggs into the rice cooker and got an interesting but edible result. Although lacking some basic necessities I have a good feeling about Thawangpha. This feeling will most likely disappear and turn into chaotic frustration over the course of the next few days when I try to teach however in the long run I think things will be “mai ben rai” (it’s all good).