So this morning, Crystal and I are sitting in the nice, cool teacher’s lounge planning our lessons for the day and preparing for our 8:30 class. All of a sudden, my phone rings and it is one of the teachers insisting we come down to the Buddhist ceremony. Every morning before school all of the students line up outside and sing the national anthem and raise the Thai flag. Usually, we try to sneak away into the air-conditioned teacher’s lounge, since it is the same every morning, but not today! Right now, it is a Thai holiday where all of the monks in Thailand will stay at their temples for 3 months without leaving. So, the school was having a ceremony with a young monk who gave a short sermon to the students. All of a sudden we are ushered into the front row of the teachers, where we sat and listened the monk. The monk was sitting on a raised platform, wrapped in his orange robes and speaking into a microphone. Next to him was the table with the offerings on it. There was a HUGE yellow candle, baskets of gifts and a big pot where people stuck money. Monks are not allowed to buy anything-food, amenities or toiletries, so it is the job of the people to give them food and everything they need. All over Thailand there are little stores with these gift baskets that include toilet paper, snacks, matches, candles and general goodies.
So after the monk is finished speaking, we got up and followed the “procession” to the temple. The teachers loaded the offering table into a flatbed truck, which was followed by the school band (playing some march I definitely think I heard in Grease), the teachers and us, and the rest of the school. We start off slowly down the road, heading straight into incoming traffic, marching to the temple. We finally arrived at the temple after trekking through the mud, and we all sat in front of the monks. After some praying and chanting (during which the two teachers next to me talked on their cell-phones…clearly whoever was calling was more important than Buddha at that moment in time), all of the teachers (us included) went up to the monks and gave them the gift basket. To give a monk something, you bend on your knees and they spread out a cloth that is part of their robe (sort of like an extra attachment) on the platform, and you slide the gift basket onto their cloth and bow. I think (the whole reasoning was lost in translation to me) it is because you are not allowed to touch monks…so to give them something you put it on their cloth. Either way, I gave my gift basket to the monk, bowed and then we all proceeded to march around the temple…around…and around…about 10 times, when we finally stopped, put our flowers near the statue of Buddha, and went back to school.
Here I was, thinking I was going to let my students listen to Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”, and the next thing I know, I’m at a Buddhist ceremony, giving offerings to a monk. Never a dull moment!
T.G.I.F.
Because of the impromptu parade and temple visit, I missed my first class, but I still got to teach 2 classes today. Yesterday, I was exhausted at the end of the day and decided to ditch teaching and just play a game, so I played Charades with my last period. You would've thought I was reinventing the wheel, they were laughing and clapping and just going crazy. SO much better than a grammar lesson where I speak at dinosaur pace and get blank stares back. Today after the regular lesson, I played some music for my students. Of course I had to have my country music shout out-and I played "Chicken Fried" by Zac Brown Band! I was dancing and singing along, and I think they kind of liked it too...I will spread country music, one convert at a time.
The past few days we have had tons of students come to the teachers lounge and chat with us. They are so fun and they ask us tons of questions and just want to practice their English. That is my favorite part of the day, just sitting and talking with them. I want to run and hide when the teachers come looking for us to drag us off to meet some other person or speak to some random group of people. I have never felt more like a pet monkey in my life. Thai's definitely do not have the same concept of personal space, so these teachers are constantly holding our hands and pulling us and putting their hands all over us. ARGHHHH. I barely like to be touched by people I know and like! I have to take many deep breaths everytime they decide to push and prod us somewhere. English camp should be...interesting tomorrow. I am dreading it actually, but we couldn't refuse, so here we go.
I probably won't have internet for the next 3 days or so. My host family is going to Bangkok so I'm staying with the other volunteer, Crystal, and then we are off to English camp until Sunday night.
More to come once I return from English camp. I am SURE I will have great, possibly horrifying stories.
XOXO
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