7/4 And this one time, I went to English Camp…

Ah. English Camp. Where to start? It’s been 3 great days since I left and I almost forgot about it. I think my brain is suppressing the traumatic memory for my own wellbeing and mental health. Ok maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but if I wasn’t overly dramatic I wouldn’t be myself and life would be so boring.

English Camp had its pros and cons

Cons:

Location. My godfather asked me on the phone, “So where are you guys?” Great question. Wish I had the answer. After 2 weeks here, Crystal and I have surrendered to 1. the mosquitoes (I give up. Bite me) and 2. the fact that communication is so painful that it is infinitely easier to not ask questions and just be surprised. We always just get into cars when we are told and are always surprised when we arrive somewhere. The teacher who sneak attacked us into agreeing to English camp (she asked us within 15 minutes of our arrival to school on the very first day-how could we say no?) is an absolute sweetheart. She means so well, which makes me feel so awful for wanting to rip her head off. I think she is an English teacher (who knows?) but she is so difficult to understand I couldn’t tell you. If you ask her a question (slowly and clearly) she will smile blankly back at you and say “yes”. Even if you ask (I promise I haven’t…but I’ve been tempted), “So you are annoying?” So yea. We had no idea where we were. Apparently it was the farm/resort of the Assistant Prime Minister. We stayed in an old cabin, which was less than desirable, but I’ve stayed in worse.

Dancing. If you know me at all, you’ll be well aware that unless country music is blaring, or I’ve had a few cocktails, dancing really isn’t my forte. Especially when forced to do so in front of, oh, 80 or so strangers. The teachers running the camp had “English songs” and dances that took up most the camp. I was hoping that we would really get to teach English in an intensive setting. I was sorely mistaken. Most of the camp consisted of us singing along to songs such as, and I quote,

Oh English Camp! Oh English Camp!
Oh English Camp makes me HAPPY!
We enjoy being together!
Oh English Camp!
Sung to the tune of “When the saints come marching in”

IF and only IF, the students had been ages 3-9, this would have been enjoyable and cute. Our students, however, were adults. I was horrified. At age 5 I would’ve protested and insisted I was “too cool”. Weirdly though-they didn’t seem to mind. I could never imagine American adults sitting cross-legged in lines, clapping and happily singing these songs. (Oh little Firefly was a good one). Thai people are different and the contrast with Americans is so interesting. My students, even though they are 16 or 17, are so much more innocent than American teenagers. Thai teenagers are not allowed the same level of independence and freedom (I shouldn’t say not allowed…it’s just how things are), they stay close to their family and disobedience to your elders is completely out of the question. You won’t see an eye-roll or a heavy sigh or an “I’m SO much cooler than this” look, whereas in the states I feel like that’s the essence of teenagers. Thai teenagers giggle and enjoy things that we (speaking for jaded, cynical Americans) would just consider silly. Similarly, these Thai adults were perfectly happy to sing children’s songs. I wonder who’s better off?

Either way, I hate being subjected to this kind of stuff and every time the teachers would wave us up to the front we would have to fake a smile and sing along.

Being a fat American: I never really felt “American” until university. I was clearly culturally American, but I never felt that sense of patriotism and allegiance with American-ess. That is, until someone decides to criticize Americans. Criticize the questionable choices of some of our leaders (but don’t you dare think that all Americans think one way), go ahead, but it is just plain rude to point out, at a dinner table, the things that are “wrong” with Americans. Every meal, Crystal and I make the (sad and tired now) joke about how Thai food is so great that we can’t eat too much or we will get so fat to avoid eating things we don’t like or having more food stuffed down our throats. So we made the obligatory, “no no...thank you so much but…” joke the first night at the end of dinner, and the director of the English camp, whose English was quite good and who was the “authority” on English after spending a year in England, felt the need to inform us that Americans are just fat and all of our food is fat naturally. She then said that all Thai people are thin because their food is not fattening.

Ok. So I get that McDonalds and such is fattening, yes I am aware, but last time I checked, it was common cultural courtesy NOT to blatantly point out the things wrong with another person’s culture. To their face. And for the record-all of the Thai fried dough, desserts and sugary drinks (they drink sugar syrup, let’s remember) aren’t exactly slim-fast. This same woman also felt the need to tell me, while thanking me for helping clear the table, that she was surprised that I was helping b/c Americans don’t usually help out, and that in THAI culture, they help each other.

So yea, just FYI-Americans are fat and rude. Always. Write that down. She asked me to come visit her school…yea don’t hold your breath lady.

Improper English: Again the biggest problem with Thai students is the teachers. All weekend, we felt so awkward having to correct teachers (especially given the Thai obsession with hierarchy) and listen to them tell students wrong things. At the “shopping” workshop, where we worked on phrases about the market, I just kept cringing at listening to the teachers act out a scene, saying “I’m going to go to shopping! I want buy bag”. I feel so weird correcting them because I do not want to step on their toes, but isn’t the whole point of me being here to teach English-the right way?

Taking pictures with everyone and their uncle and their uncle’s cousin’s dog: Back to the circus monkey act. EVERYONE wanted at least 5 pictures with us-which includes lots of touching and grabbing (Grrr). I am just over being the circus freak. Yes. I’m white. I get it.

Ok and on to the pros. I promise I am not all negative

The ostrich farm and vineyard: Yea, you heard me right. Apparently close to where we were there was an ostrich farm which we visited. Random, but kind of cool. I like to look at funny animals, it’s always a good time. Also, apparently whoever owned where we stayed likes wine, and so decided to grow grapes (in Thailand. Yea…I guess nobody told him about the climate) and make wine. We saw the vineyard and then even got to taste wine! We had one glass each, and it was absolutely disgusting. BUT, on a happy note, it was exactly what I needed after English camp, so I drank it anyways.

The students: To my surprise, we were teaching young adults and older adults. It turns out that this camp was for students in the “informal” education system, meaning students who had to drop out of school because their parent’s couldn’t afford it and needed them to work, or for the older students, have never even gone to school. Seeing them learning even the most basic things was so rewarding, and at the end when we were saying goodbye to them, some of the women were tearing up and I felt like the whole weekend was totally worth it. My favorite and funniest memory of the weekend was helping at the “clinic” workshop, where we talked about going to the doctor and describing what was wrong. I helped pronounce all of the words and had the students repeat after me. After saying loudly and clearly “I have Dia-RRHEA!” 15 times in front of a large group, you can’t not laugh.

And that was English camp. My first, and hopefully my last!

xoxo, More to come on Khao Kho and Bangkok. It's been a busy and crazy past couple of days!