CCT Volunteer Annie Kaplan Last Blog Post (Wat Kuang Singha School)

10 weeks ago I left on a plane to a place where I knew little to nothing about. I knew Thailand had a King, I knew I loved Thai food, and I knew I was ready for something different. Other than that, my knowledge of this country was extremely limited. Today, as I wrap up week 10 of being here and week 7 of working in a temple school, I have learned more than I could have learned in an entire semester of classes back home.

My work at Wat Khuang Sing School has been the most life-altering time I have yet to experience in my 21 years on Earth. I have been challenged as a person and as an educator, spending every waking moment attempting to improve myself and my teaching. I can remember my first day here like it was yesterday. I arrived shaky and nervous, unaware of the love I was about to receive from the students and teachers. Things have gotten better week by week too. As I grasp what my students know and want to learn, I have been able to adjust my lesson plans and simplify instructions to help comprehension. 

Last week was one of my favorite weeks by far. I taught all three classes I work with the Macarena, a personal party favorite of mine. It started with P4 last Monday as a way to kill time during the transition period, but slowly crept around school. By lunch the next day all of my coworkers were talking about how they had seen the dance and couldn’t wait to learn it themselves. P6 learned it next, bringing out a side of them which I had never seen before. I don’t have much of a chance to interact with them as my mentor teacher teaches that class alone, but this moment I’ll cherish forever. The character each child brings to such a simple dance is what I love the most about the Macarena. By the time I got around to teaching P5 the dance, many of the girls knew it already. They had seen their friends doing it and heard the music in the hallway throughout the week. By the end of Week 10, I hope to teach and have them master the Cupid Shuffle.

Something that has come along with this summer is my second guessing of my future profession. Like many of my family members and friends know, I want to be a Social Studies teacher initially but then eventually go into Education Policy. Every day I wake up though wishing I was working at summer camp or doing something different with my day. Preparing each day’s lesson became a nuisance which had me questioning if I even want to be an educator for the rest of my life.

cher teaches that class alone, but this moment I’ll cherish forever. The character each child brings to such a simple dance is what I love the most about the Macarena. By the time I got around to teaching P5 the dance, many of the girls knew it already. They had seen their friends doing it and heard the music in the hallway throughout the week. By the end of Week 10, I hope to teach and have them master the Cupid Shuffle.

 As I talk to my fellow interns and friends back home, I realize that hating work as a teenager is just kind of a part of life. We are all adjusting to the daily grind and figuring out how to balance work life and social life. We are testing the waters with jobs we like, dislike, and slightly tolerate. It’s a part of life I’m coming to terms with slowly but surely. With my final year of college approaching, I’m ready to see where life takes me and how this internship changed me for the better.

but this moment I’ll cherish forever. The character each child brings to such a simple dance is what I love the most about the Macarena. By the time I got around to teaching P5 the dance, many of the girls knew it already. They had seen their friends doing it and heard the music in the hallway throughout the week. By the end of Week 10, I hope to teach and have them master the Cupid Shuffle.

(Thank you Wat Khuang Sing for giving me these three)

CCT Volunteer Sarena Sanchez Last Blog Post (Wat Kuang Singha School)

Well, my final weeks at Wat Khuang Sing School as an English teacher have come! It's been a rollercoaster of emotions including stress, exhaust and SOOOO much joy! The kids at Wat Khuang Sing School are such a joy and bring a smile to my face every time i walk through the gate and hear "Teacher Arena!" (lots of them can't pronounce Sarena). Many of them have asked about my personal life since learning that i will be going back home to America this week. A few of the girls insisted i tell them about my boyfriend, who doesn't actually exist and others are very intrigued with the fact that i'm planning on returning to my old job at Disneyland! I'm definitely going to miss working with them everyday!

This past week i introduced Bingo to my younger classes and not only did they love it, but my co-teacher really enjoyed it as well! Since the younger kids don't have strong reading skills yet, we used pictures of vocab that we've learned over our time together. I had a hard time finding a Bingo card maker that uses photos online, so i ended up making all 25 by hand by cutting and pasting each picture into the individual squares. Sure, it was a bit tedious and super time consuming, but it was definitely worth it when i saw how excited the kids got when they realized they had Bingo! I'm glad i was able to introduce this game to them and i hope my teacher liked it enough to continue using it in the future!

Speaking of my teacher, in the beginning, it was difficult to adjust to having another adult in the classroom, but by the end of week 6, it has been so much easier! I have learned a lot from her teaching style and the activities that she prepares for the different age groups. I will be taking back a lot of useful information and techniques that hopefully i can use in my future career.

I hope the students and teachers at Wat Khuang Sing School won't forget me, because i will definitely not forget them any time soon!

CCT Volunteer Duncan Brady Last Blog Post (Wat Baan Thong Gai School)

On the Impending Journey home and the breeze off the Hudson...

*** THURSDAY, AUGUST 3RD, 10:25PM***

I think it would be fitting to begin my final internship-focused blog post by stating that this is my fourth attempt at formulating any sort of information of clarity surrounding my last two weeks (and cumulatively my last ten weeks) in Thailand. It’s not to say that I’ve been struggling so profoundly to find the right words, although that certainly adds to the challenge. The real reason is that I have been besieged by so many oncoming distractions and responsibilities that there is quite simply no time to take a seat, take a breath, and type a memoir. For anyone who knows me well enough, my inability to take a seat and take a breath is often the biggest challenge I have in accomplishing any sort of long term or difficult task. And if you don’t know, now you know…

I give thanks for the menial tasks and myriad red herrings that sprout up ahead on my metaphorical path to blog completion, however, as most of them manifest in the form of young children seeking love and attention or new coworkers back home in need of some words of advice from yours truly (Because I’m apparently an adult who can give work advice now). My ever-increasing plethora of busybody battles really just makes me feel at peace. The heavy weight of responsibility comforts me like a warm blanket in the winter in the same way that an ant receives comfort from the purpose it feels in carrying thrice its weight over its tiny shoulders from ant hill to queen.

Nonetheless, as I sit in my penultimate remaining pair of unwashed and unpacked shorts, (the rest are tightly rolled and stuffed into a collection of suitcases at the foot of my wooden rig I choose to call a bed) I am listening to “American Privilege” by Allen Stone in one ear and the sounds of my roommate waking up from his religiously taken 8-10pm nap in the other. I’m mulling over the mundane aspects of living in Thailand, and realizing that it’s only when you settle in to the moments of regularity in which the profound quality of your shock into a foreign world becomes your reality; when your distinct shift in paradigm holds such a clearness in its cogency that you forget, even if for just a moment, that there was ever a reality apart from that which you are currently held.

In my last entry, I think it is safe to say that I tipped my glass rather heavily into the bitter half of a bittersweet feeling. Luckily for anyone foolish enough to dissect my mind by reading what I have to say in this far-from-succinct account of myself, there is an omnipresent truth that our youth learn from an early age in the subtle art that is the Sour Patch Kids commercial: “First they’re sour….Then they’re sweet”. If the seventh inning stretch was the sour valley of my sinusoidal ride in Chiang Mai, the sweetness of melancholy is hitting my tooth now in the bottom of the ninth.

Before I left for this trip, I debated whether or not I should bring my big, shiny camera along with me. I’ve always lived by a precept that to take pictures is to remember what you did and to live in the moment is to remember how you felt (my ghoulish ramblings of the previous blog post are a testament to this). However, it occurred to me that there is really no other outlet for me to remember the faces of the 120+ children and teachers I experienced day in and day out for the last seven weeks. The Baan Thong Gai School is not a tourist attraction that I can Google and see in seconds. If I want to ever see the faces of my students again (something I may never have the chance to do in person), I’m going to need some pictures to do the job. I had not taken my camera out of it’s case in ten weeks, but yesterday I realized that the only thing really worth taking a picture of on this trip was right in the heart of Baan Thong Gai.

…So I made a day of it.

I brought the big ole’ Nikon D52 in, and the kids were glued to it like dry macaroni on the mane of a clipart lion. I’ve never been so concerned for the safety of my camera equipment, something I dropped a substantial amount of cash on two years ago, in my life. The kids were passing the camera around like a volleyball and their little hands could barely hold it up, but after several hours of walking around the school and snapping as many pictures of the kids as I could, I feel like I really documented a day in the life of the many Burmese, Laos, Indian, and Thai students I have the pleasure to hang out with on a daily basis.

Because all of the pictures are on a memory card that is not compatible with my broken SD card slot, you’re going to have to wait until I come back home with an adapter to see the lot of them, but I promise that they are worth the wait. Just scanning through the pictures quickly was enough to bring my heart to a melting point.

I had a lesson planned for my fourth graders this Tuesday, but when I told them it was my second to last class, they unanimously dropped what work they had, and rushed into the adjacent room, returning with a stack of blank papers shouting “Make a card! Make a card!” They then preceded to independently fold, cut, write, and color goodbye cards for me, without me ever instructing them to do a thing. I was speechless for about an hour, because these kids have so much love and kindness in their hearts that they just want to share it with me, and whoever else they can. You just can’t replace that with anything.

My stomach is actually sore from the absurd number of times I have been aggressively hugged around the waist by several students at once. Between the many hugs, the few tears shed from some of my students, the amazing gifts that the teachers and students have been giving me throughout the week, and the going away party that the teachers hosted for me this evening, I don’t know how I’m supposed to walk away from this school tomorrow. It’s just going to be too difficult.

As the age-old sour patch kids motto goes, “first they’re sour….than they’re sweet”. But earlier I failed to address the third, and arguably most important phase in the triumvirate of sour patch kid flavors. “Sour, Sweet, Gone”. If my last blog post was sour, and this was sweet, than unfortunately we all know where this is going.

Kids, honestly I could go on and on. There’s so much I could say about all of these students, and all of these teachers, but there just isn’t enough time in the world, as, like I’ve said before, my full day at work begins bright and early tomorrow, and I need to sleep some time. I’ll follow up some day soon with a trip conclusion and many, many pictures. For now however, enjoy what little I can give you, and take care. ((Also whoever read my blog from the Czech Republic, thank you so much. You have officially brought my viewership to four continents!))

—If you managed to catch all three of this week’s Lin-Manuel Miranda references, be the first to message me and win a souvenir prize from Thailand! — (Offer expires after 11:59pm August 3rd – EST)

CCT Volunteer Duncan Brady 2nd Blog Post (Wat Baan Thong Gai School)

Boy, is teaching people in a different language hard! It has been getting easier with each week, but is still by no stretch of the imagination easy. The difference between where I am now and where I was 3 weeks ago is that I actually have a grasp on how much English my students actually know. This allows me to plan ahead for them more successfully, rather than being surprised by their level of knowledge the hard way. Unfortunately, it is still difficult to lesson plan every day for a set of six different grade levels with six varying degrees of ability. Actually, I should rephrase that. Each grade has a varying ability level, but the spectrum of ability within each classroom is even more severe than the spectrums between, so making plans for a specific class here is incredibly difficult. The age range in every class is at least 3-4 years, and in one or two of my classes is upwards of 5-6 years between the youngest and oldest student. Needless to say, when you have a student from Burma who is twelve-years-old and speaks Thai as his second language and English as his third language, and a student from Indonesia who is six-years-old and is still learning the written fundamentals of her own first language in the same class, it can be tough to make an engaging lesson that accommodates all 25 students. So yes, it is still a tough job, but it is getting easier and easier.

I’ve been picking up particular Thai phrases that are helpful in school from the kids. Even though most of the time the young students just stand in front of me and spout Thai at lightning pace, I eventually can grab a phrase or two that they are trying to tell me. I would cautiously recommend to anyone considering ESL as a career that they become proficient in world languages before jumping into the career, however. I’m at the point where my face and presence are regular enough to the students, and the same in reverse, that I have an individual connection in some way with mostly all of the students. There are inside jokes and tendencies that I have developed with many of them (almost all of them in Thai or just with body language, because it would be too difficult in English to be funny to them). My Sixth grade class was even able to ask me when I’m going home to America, and when I drew out the days we had left on a calendar they all started complaining that it was too soon and that I needed to come back –Or at least that’s what it seemed like. Again this is all in very broken English-Thai conversations–.

I’ve been trying to learn the names of my students more effectively as well. The task was so daunting at the beginning that I almost ignored it altogether. There are just too many students, and the names are just too difficult to pronounce. But this last week I committed to memorizing the names of my sixth graders, which is the smallest class, and I was able to do it! So I moved on to my fourth graders, and I’m getting close. If I can keep up the pace, maybe I’ll have this whole school memorized before I leave. The problem is, that will likely only make me miss them more when the time comes for me to go.

The weird stage I’m at right now is in coming to grips with the impermanence of my time here in Chiang Mai. Although I miss home so much and want to be back in America, I’m terrified by the idea that it could be years, decades, or even until the day I die before I have the chance to see these people again. What it takes to fly to Thailand is just more than I have the capability to do a second time financially. Maybe someday though, it would be great to come back with my family and show them the place I called home for a few months. So I’m here in this seventh inning stretch, where I miss home and want to go as soon as I can, but I love my home here and want the trip to stretch on forever…

Despite all that, I can’t forget that I’m not here on a vacation. I’m here to do a job, and my job is to educate young, underprivileged Thai students and S.E. Asian refugees in the English language. When I remember that I’m here helping people, it makes it easier to continue forward during those nights when I just want to sit and miss home. The lesson planning, the early mornings (comparatively), and long days all come together for an incredibly rich experience.

CCT Volunteer Mansur Alam 2nd Blog Post (BEAM Foundation)

It has already been a month since I landed here in the beautiful city of Chiang Mai, Thailand but it only feels like a week. I have no idea how the time has passed so quickly and I only have 3 more weeks to go.

So here is what I have been up to for last five weeks. When I came here, first I had my orientation with the executive director of Cultural Canvas Thailand. We went out to a coffee shop where we talked about my work and everything that I needed to know about Thailand, Thai culture and places I can visit here in Chiang Mai.  It was an amazing day and I was so excited and looking forward to next day.

On the first week I did very little, I went out to meet with the people at BEAM foundation (the place where I will be working for the 8 weeks I am here) and had orientation with the ART relief director. Later on we visited the Hope home. Hope home is a foster home for children with disabilities. The home is for seven children but it also serves as respite for families of children with disabilities and provides loving and caring environment. 

BEAM

Teaching is never something I thought I would do, in fact, if someone would have suggested a year ago that my next job would be teaching high school level science I might not have believed them. It was not until few weeks before I came here I read about the lives and circumstance of the kids I would be working with that I felt it was something I had to do. I think I was very affected by the stories of the kids and how they relate to my own story.

 At the beginning I was extremely nervous, and still sometimes I have to put in a lot of extra work to keep up but so far I have loved every moment of it. I am proud that I have managed to grow and pick up other skills I may have been worried would hold me back in this position.

 It turns out that having a lot in common with the students has really helped me to connect with them and build some meaningful relationships. I love that the students are engaged and interested in learning, they try their best in every moment and some of them seem to love science as much as I do. I also enjoy moments in the class where I can hear small pieces of their stories and share small pieces of mine. I love how unique they all are, and how they are able to laugh at themselves and feel comfortable enough to bring their sense of humour to the class and make it more fun for everyone including me. 

Aside from occasionally being showered with messages in the evening about homework confusion and wifi “not working,” I really have nothing negative to say about my experience with the students at BEAM. I am just over half way through my time with them and I am already starting to feel sad about leaving.

ART Relief

I have had the privilege of working with Art Relief International by participating in some of their workshops in my free time. I spend most of my time preparing for my class at BEAM as it is my first time teaching I am not yet very fast with creating my own lesson plans.

I have enjoyed every workshop I have participated in, they are all great and educational. There are  great lessons behind every workshop and I am very glad to be a part of it.

Here are a few of the workshops I have attended: 

Hope Home

I had five workshops with the kids at the Hope Home and they have been my favourite ones out of all the workshops with ARI. Our main goal here is to improve and practice sensory and motor skills including touch, sight, and sound. Therefore our workshops involve drawing, painting, folding etc. It is very important that every workshops we do include everyone in the house so that we don’t leave out anyone just because they can’t do it in certain way, therefore we help them to get involved in the activity with whatever way possible.

We go to hope home every Wednesday and do small workshop with the kids and it is really amazing, I absolutely love going there and doing different activities, playing and laughing with the kids, they make me smile so much and I really hope I can make a difference in their lives by just helping them in whatever way I can.

So far some of the things I have done with the kids at hope home are making Tambourines, Paper Plate Animals, sensory jet packs, kites, and textured painting. 

Wat Muen Ngen Kong

I have done two workshops with this school and both have been very fun and successful. I particularity  enjoyed one where we had the kids do portraits of their friends and were not allowed to look at their page. It was a fun way to get the kids to think differently and create something interesting they may not have made if they were allowed to look.

nd do small workshop with the kids and it is really amazing, I absolutely love going there and doing different activities, playing and laughing with the kids, they make me smile so much and I really hope I can make a difference in their lives by just helping them in whatever way I can.

So far some of the things I have done with the kids at hope home are making Tambourines, Paper Plate Animals, sensory jet packs, kites, and textured painting. 

Elderly Care

Going into the Elderly Care program, I was curious about how Art would be used or relevant as I am more familiar with working with kids using arts and crafts. I was pleasantly surprised by the ability that the simple art activities had to uplift the seniors and it made me happy to see them so happy. I was also quite entertained by the fact that many of them seemed to think I was Thai and made me feel quite welcomed (thanks to P’Noom translating everything they said.) So far I’ve only been able to attend one workshop with them where we did dot painting which they took to quite well. I would love to go back to Elderly Care before I leave.

CCT Volunteer Sarena Sanchez 2nd Blog Post (Wat Kuang Singha School)

The past couple of weeks have been such fun at Wat Khuang Sing School! I’ve really found my groove as a teacher and am really enjoying leading the classes!

One Friday we were lucky enough to be a part of an awesome celebration that included the entire school! At the end of the day the classrooms all lined up in a huge group with the band at the very front and the teachers right behind them. The regular teachers put us towards the front, where people of importance usually go. We then walked off of the school property and began a parade with the entire school where we walked around the neighborhood and ended at the temple. We went inside and listened to a monk talk and listened to the students recite many things. We also were given things to give to a certain monk. It was a super cool experience and I’m so glad we were able to be a part of it!

At the beginning of week 4 my teacher returned! It definitely took some adjusting to have someone else being in the classroom with me and feeling like I was being watched the entire time and almost evaluated. It was a bit nerve-wracking, but once I became a little more adjusted to it, it was such a huge help to have someone who could translate things that I struggled to get across. I also am really thankful to have her back because I am able to learn a lot from her. Teaching is what she does for a living and I have been using her strategies to make my own lesson plans better suited for the classes! 

I can’t believe there is only a little over a week left for me at Wat Khuang Sing and in Thailand! I am really going to miss the kids and other teachers in the school. I can’t wait to see what other adventures the last week brings!

CCT Volunteer Anne Kaplan 2nd Blog Post (Wat Kuang Singha School)

For today’s blog post I want to talk a little about my desire for cultural experiences and how working at Wat Khuang Sing is slowly fulfilling them. It’s been great, but the cultural experiences are happening just a little differently than how I’d imagined.

Friday July 7^th was the start of Buddhist Lent here in Thailand. To commemorate the holiday, my school had a procession and ceremony at the temple next door. We had heard throughout the week that Friday was not going to be a normal day, but we weren’t sure until Friday as to how we were going to be involved in it. The Vice Principal of our school approached us as lunch on Thursday and asked Sarena and me what our teaching schedule looked like on Fridays. We told her that we each only teach one class in the morning, but were more than excited to stick around to observe the ceremony after school.

Around 3PM the procession started and Sarena and I watched from the back. We did not expect to do anything but observe until we were lovingly pulled to the front row by some of our favorite teachers. They wanted us to march in the parade AND carry alms! We walked for about 20 minutes (definitely the LONG route to the temple next door), until we were again lovingly dragged to the front of all the children. They wanted us to participate fully in one of their most religious, cultural events. There wasn’t a moment where we felt lost though. While the language being spoken wasn’t our own or the display of religion wasn’t something we were familiar with, the teachers translated all along the way. Words were chanted, monks spoke, teachers delivered baskets to each of the monks, and OF COURSE so many pictures were taken. My back and feet and smile hurt from all the laughing and kneeling but I couldn’t have cared less. 

In the end, it was so nice to be included in this incredible event put on by our school. I take for granted every day I have here until I experience moments like this. As a Comparative Cultures and Politics major, it’s the cultural immersions that I came here for. I wanted the change in pace, religion, culture, values, and overall difference than what I’ve had in America for the past 21 years. I spend so much time in university looking over case studies about the world that I tend to lose perspective that my studies are just representations of real life. Every case study in every class has real people they’re about.  

I’m so out of my comfort zone here, but there’s something so comforting about that. I walk into class most days expecting it to be horrible, but leave school every day with the biggest smile on my face. Each class has their own personality and specialty and now in one of my last weeks I’m learning how to use that to my advantage. P4 loves to dance, P5 has a thing for the game Hangman, P6 specializes in impromptu karaoke, but one thing I know they all have in common is that they LOVE to color.

Anyways, Annie Out.

Teaching... With a Twist!

From the 2nd November to the 18th of December I taught English at the Wat Kuang Singh school in Chiang Mai. 

The biggest challenge was the communication with the kids, because most of them had only learned English for a short time and so they understood next to nothing of what I was trying to say. But with the help of tooth and nail, pictures, a Thai speaking teacher or google translate, everything was possible. 


I taught 3 different classes and discussed different topics in every class. With the youngest (6-7 years old) I talked about pets and the numbers until 20. We learned new words with pictures and played pantomime games. 

The middle ones are about 8-10 years old and we spoke about our families and the different rooms in a house. We drew our family trees and the ground plots of our homes. 

The oldest ones are about 10-12 years old and they were the biggest class with about 48 students. It was really hard to work with such different levels in one class. But they all had fun when we talked about weekend activities or the western Christmas. Furthermore we played a lot of hangman to learn and remember new words. 

The other teachers were really nice and from my first day on I was a part of the team. One day we made a school trip to Doi Suithep and to the Bhubing Palace. Because the guided tour was in Thai the teachers did everything to explain the whole tour to me. And at the temple a few girls took me with them and showed everything to me.



Furthermore I learned how to build a krathong, a traditional, boats like structure made from banana leaves and flowers as part of the Loy Krathong Festival. I was a bit helpless at the beginning but the teachers and also the students showed me how to fold banana leaves and how to fix them on the banana trunk. 

The father's day ceremony was also a great experience. Everybody wore a yellow shirt and girls of all ages performed traditional thai dances. They also sang the National Anthem and other Thai songs and every adult had to write greetings for the King in a book. After the ceremony every class made their own chilli paste and then sold them. 

I should also say something about the food because I've never had such delicious food at a school. I am really impressed that one person is able to cook such good food for so many people.

All in all I had a awesome time here and I am really upset that this time has ended so fast. But the time here showed me that I really want to become a teacher in the future and I'm thankful that I was able to have all these experiences.


Alina, Germany

Teaching English to Mums and Kids Alike!

Hey there,

My name is Alina and I'm from Stuttgart, Germany. I'm 19 years old and I finished High School this year. My volunteer programme will take three months to complete, from September to December 2015.

I decided to spend some time in Thailand because I am really interested in Asian cultures and I hope to get to know the Thai culture. I want to become at teacher later so the work at a School here will prepare me for my occupational future. I also think that it is really exciting to get to know how kids in other countries are taught and how their parents nurture them. In addition I hope that the time here will be a great and unforgettable life experience.

Because of the school holidays I spent the first 4 weeks of my volunteer programme at the Wild Flower Home. This is a home for single mothers who are either pregnant or have young children. During my time there I took care of the kids, helped in the garden or in the office and I helped to clean the Buddhist temple kitchen from where the foundation gets most of their food and drinks. In addition I taught English to some of the older kids and to a few of the mothers.

Since November I have been working at the Wat Kuang Singh school. These children are essentially refugees from Myanmar and kids from the hilltribe villages in Thailand attending the school. I teach 3 lessons a week in 3 different classes. The most difficult part is the size of the classes (up to 48 kids) and the communication barrier, especially with the little kids. But I have a Thai teacher by my side and I realize that it is getting easier from lesson to lesson.

I'm looking forward to the following weeks and every experience I will get there.

Alina

A Day in the Life of Volunteer Teaching in Thailand

Hello,

My name is Tang and I am from the University of Kansas. My major is Global and International Studies along with a minor in Anthropology. 

I am currently volunteering as an English teacher at Wat Khuang Singha School in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The Thai students that I teach English to range from ages 6 to 12 years old. Almost every day I assist the Thai teachers with teaching English and one day a week I teach on my own, which has become a wonderful experience.

To be honest, I am loving this volunteer work! The Thai teachers and students are very polite and respectful towards everyone and I felt very welcomed when I first arrived at the school. There are so many things that I enjoy about this school, such as everyone singing the Thai national anthem every morning, the food, and the people. I really enjoy teaching the Thai students because they love to participate which makes teaching much easier for me. 

I would recommend this volunteer work to anyone who loves kids and who loves to teach. You don’t even have to be highly experienced in teaching because the volunteer work itself assists and provides you with the necessary skills. It’s not difficult, nor is it easy, but once you get the hang of it you will enjoy teaching as much as I am, especially with these wonderful Thai students.

Until next time, 

Tang

IT’S NOT A GOODBYE, IT’S A “SEE YOU LATER”

I don’t even know how to start telling how wonderful this experience was for me. As I said before, everyone was just so kind and welcoming! But aside from that, I definitely need to say how Chiang Mai was beyond any of my expectations. I just love how the city is surrounded by rivers, how street food is the best and the cheapest, and how you feel so safe walking at night. That being said, I do have to point out my favorite places / attractions:  The Elephant Nature Park , Zoe’s, Bus Bar, Tiddin, Sunday Walking Street Market, Doi Suthep and the Night Bazaar.

As for my teaching project, it was wonderful! As the kids got to know me, they were asking for my autograph (it was crazy, I loved it!) and kept telling me they loved me and were making “I Love You” hand-signs. It was too sweet. On my last day of teaching, everyone seemed pretty upset I was leaving. During the morning one of the teachers I was closer to gave me a scarf and said she was going to miss me! 

At lunch time they asked me to go up to the stage in the cafeteria and make a farewell announcement. I just didn’t know what to say, it was very unexpected, so I just thanked all of them, said it was wonderful, and that I was really going to miss everything and everyone. After that, a couple of kids gave me a teddy bear with “Thank You Teacher” written on a piece of paper and some Thai treats! I just didn’t know what to say, it was a lovely gesture! 

Finally in my last class, the kids made me Goodbye Cards and asked for my Facebook profile! Soooo sweet. I truly did learn a lot from these kids and teachers, they are very different, not only for being Thai, but because they truly respect one another and try their hardest to make you feel welcome and special!

Other than work, I had a nice time with the other volunteers and the Cultural Canvas staff. On my last night, we all joined in for a night out at Zoe’s.  It was a fun way to say goodbye.  Everyone at Cultural Canvas is just awesome! And I really love how they have family dinner every Wednesday, it’s such a nice way to have a fun night, get to know everyone a bit better and have plenty of laughs. I just wished I had more time to get to know everyone better, although I already feel like everyone is just so kind, wonderful, and funny.  So thanks everyone for making me feel welcome.

I’m always going to remember this experience. It was a nice way to get to know an NGO and another country while helping others at the same time. I would definitely recommend this to everyone. I know I only stayed for 3 weeks, but in that short period of time I got to experience and see things from a different perspective and appreciate the Thai culture. That being said, I definitely want to come back to visit, or volunteer again. So this is definitely not a goodbye, but a “See you later”. Thank you Cultural Canvas and Thank you everyone at the school and the other volunteers! You all rock!