Hello Everyone,
It's hard to believe another week is over, my time here in Thailand is going way too quickly. I am glad to report though that I am really enjoying the experience and getting see and do lots of different things both at the school, with my fellow volunteers that I share the house with and I have also done a bit of exploring on my own.
After last two school outings last week it was back to full time lessons for the students this week. P6 are learning all about the weather and the different seasons. I talked a bit about the weather in Ireland and the students were very interested to learn more about "snow". It made me realize that living in Ireland I take for granted that I get to experience many different weather types even if it does rain far more than I like it to!! The students are very good and their main Teacher May has a great teacher : student relationship which is really great to see. Last Thursday I got to participate in a workshop that my fellow volunteers run every week at the school I am teaching in. This was great fun and it was lovely both to both get an opportunity to work with my colleagues and to experience first hand another one of the many excellent projects that CCT manage.
As I mentioned last week, I am only teaching 1 - 2 hours a day so I spend the rest of the day in the CCT office. Last week I worked on preparing a "Quick Reference Guide on Thai Culture and Volunteering with CCT" . It is just in a table, A4 size that calls out the key points to remember while in Thailand. I know from my own experience that when you sign up for volunteering you receive a lot of reading material and a "Quick Reference Guide" would have been really useful to have to hand to refresh my memory. So hopefully this is something that future volunteers will find beneficial.
So on the social side of things what have I been up to.... On Wednesday, I had my second "Family Dinner" with all the volunteers and staff at CCT. The food as always was great, who doesn't like Spring Rolls.... On Friday, Steph was leaving the house to return home to Scotland, so we all went out for drinks. I can't remember the name of the bar, not because I had too much to drink but because the name totally slips my mind.....but anyway it was great, we started out on the rooftop but due to rain we went one floor down to inside bar which was equally as nice. From there we headed over to another bar for one more before heading back to Riverside. Me being the oldest of the volunteers bailed out at this point, I can't party like I used to:-)
On Saturday, I went on a Thai Cooking Class. It was excellent. I was picked up at 9:00 a.m. and then we went to the local Market. Here we saw how coconut milk is extracted from coconuts, Sammy (Chef) went through the local ingredients with us and we then had some time to look around the market before we continued on our journey to Sammy's Organic Farm. Once inside we got to taste some freshly baked rice cakes and then we put on our aprons and got cooking!! First I cooked Thai Green Curry followed by Chicken Stir Fry and Cashew Nuts, both turned out really well considering that I do not do much cooking at home, in fact my reputation for cooking in Ireland is so bad, my friends bought me a mug as a present a few years about that read "I only have a kitchen because it came with the house"!!! Of course I had to take some photos as evidence that I actually managed to cook a decent dish"😊 After we demolished our dishes we then had an hour to relax in one of the lovely hammocks, this was so relaxing and a real treat. Once we recharged our batteries it was back to the kitchen to prepare our final two dishes, Spring Rolls and Sticky Rice and Mango, both of which were delicious. Everyone got a cookbook to takeaway so I guess I don't have any more excuses for not cooking a nice Thai meal when I get back home from my travels.
On Sunday, I went into Chiang Mai and walked around the city, the weather was beautiful and it was really nice strolling around and exploring the many streets and visiting the temples. In the evening I went to the SundayMarket and bought some gifts for my family. I then met up with Nicola and we went for some food and a catch up before walking home. Before I knew where I was the weekend was over and I found myself getting ready for my last week at Wat Muen Nyeun Gong School.
Well that's about it for now, catch up again later.
Rita
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