Blog 9 - English Camp

I’m right now on the minibus taking us to English camp. We number me, the Germans – Mattias, Sabine and Eva, James an American ex-pat and some Thai officials from the school. Apparently the driver is a professional. That means he’s allowed to watch music videos whilst driving. There’s a screen built into the dash board. We’re in a triple carriage way. Eep.

I’m probably going to narrate this day by day and post the whole thing up when I get back to Nong Khai so:

Day 1 – I don’t know what to think. They contacted Sabine for volunteer slightly more than a fortnight ago and have changed the dates twice since. And added an extra day when we boarded the minibus. I don’t know the accommodation yet, we could be in separate rooms, we could be in tents. We could be fed free every meal, we might get breakfast. We might have internet connection I might be forced to find an internet cafe to send my mum updates that I’m still alive and haven’t contracted hyper-maleria or turbo-dengue-fever. We’re cramped in a minibus, with about 2 hours ahead of us. Time to crank up the Spektor and watch the Tesco Lotus’, Seven Elevens and KFCs flash by. 

A few hours later, we arrived at Sriboonruangwittayakarn School. Where they got confused over where we were eating.

Second Day – I’m in two minds. The teachers and students are impossible to dislike. They seem like a very tight community. The teachers are friendly, very interested in who we are and where we come from. Many of them just wanted to chat about a very different culture to their own. It started with a giant sing song and dance – rarely a good idea in my books, however the sheer enthusiasm helped stop me smacking my head against the brick work.

We were assigned groups, me with Ratana and the unfortunately named Jureeporn, Ratana having been teaching for over a decade and Juree having only been out of university for a few years. Both were very friendly and I found myself with the best activity available – the treasure hunt. Basically I sat on my arse for 10 minutes and told students “yes that is a stick” or “no, that isn’t a straw”. However, there was almost no time for actually questions from students and they only had to repeat words they were told – hardly teaching. 

Another daily grind...

After a lunch, described in the least as hearty, afternoon activities continued. More sitting in the shade answering questions about how dull Kent is. Then we all congregated in the hall, for that horror that has persisted since childhood. Group dances. There were these silly songs about finding your group, marching and shooing flies. Each one had a little dance to do, which we did as a group. Still, to quote Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, a twat looking like a twat in a vast group of people looking like twats blends in more than the loner twat. What was more horrific was “vegetable swing”. You dangle a large unripe banana between your legs and use it to bat a lime across the hall.

Pictured: Sport

The trick I found was to bend low and use the banana to skid rather than swing, you get more control and a cleaner hit. Honestly, I think I’ve stumbled across the best drinking game of all time. Six people stumbling about with a green banana tied to their nether regions as they attempt to hit a small object on the floor? Add a kitten and you have a YouTube sensation. Hell, up the stakes. Each participant carries with them a bottle of their choice, each time you hit the lime, take a swig.

Then we danced with the teachers, not quite sure why. I offered a more sedate waltz with Ratana and Juree, sweeping them off their feet. Though that could have been the slippery floor and high heels.

We left at around 4, being driven home and warned not to walk alone, as there were no tuk-tuks around for when it got dark. We assumed the school were trying to scare the ignorant farangs and walked the kilometre or two to find dinner. We were then arrested. A man in shorts and a sports shirt driving a pick-up with his girlfriend demanded to see our Thai ID cards – something foreigners don’t get even if they marry a Thai girl. We refused of course, many of these people will look, mention how it’s invalid and demand a few hundred baht to “solve” the problem. He called someone on his phone and eventually (20 minutes on the side of a road) two patrolmen arrived, checked our passports and left. Apparently they were looking for someone. We then returned to the oldest of man’s rituals... well, one of the oldest, and foraged for food. And kind of failed, but we stumbled across a pork and rice shop for a decent dinner. Then, we found no tuk-tuks. We walked to the market, nothing. Looked up and down the road, nothing. Normally a white person can’t cross the road without a tuk-tuk driver offering a lift, but five of us walking down the motorway didn’t attract any taxi-esque attention. We also made the decision not to go on the bus tour. Each of us felt “meh” about the whole situation, and twenty hours with five coach loads of children, and having to be ready by 2am deserved rather more than a “meh”. So, we retire for the night, and prepare for our last day of teaching. Dibs not singing.

Day 3 – more singing!

But I had gone to bed at around 8pm so I could actually maintain coherent thought processes. On the accommodation; we assume it’s a sex hotel. In a country where whole families can share a couple of rooms it can be tricky to get some alone time, but of course there’s the good old fashioned “hire a room by the hour and get jiggy with the nearest prostitute” that civilisation was built on.

James first raised a warning sign – there was a large curtain over the parking garage, in small towns it’s easy to recognise your co-worker’s car – and that’s not his wife! He also gave some sage advice – hotels with numbers for names will be a sex hotel. I’m trying to remember the hotels from all my school trips, see if any long repressed memories surface. Still, Eva left her room locked, and returned to find a condom wrapper in her bin, which she swears isn’t hers. I found a pink wrapper under the bed, which is apparently colour coded for small. Made me giggle. Then weep openly and without shame about where I was. But hey, free internet. Which I of course abused by downloading the entire back catalogue of “The Bugle”.

We told the teachers we weren’t staying for the bus journey, which was well received. They get a day off. I passed another day managing the treasure hunt and took a few photos with Henry, with mixed reactions. We also had appalling breakfast; it’s called congee and is a kind of rice porridge with pork bits. Yum! Our first morning was cheap doughnuts and more shredded bloody pork sandwiches, next morning we had a traditional breakfast. Some traditions should just die out, like witch ducking and poking the village idiot for entertainment.

Because my students were the last sitting down, me and Ismo were punished – we were forced to have dance off. Kind of like Step Up, but with less twatty clothes, less twatty people and more twatty dancing. I did my usual “beautiful tree in the wind” routine, lots of arm waving and swaying but little in the way of actual movement. When I ran dry of ideas, I copied the group dancers in some very uncoordinated 70s style moves. I think I won, though Ismo got many cheers. Something about a rotund man in a tight T-shirt doing the hot potato stirs something primal in the human mind. 

Dance Dance Revolution!

With more bloody singing out the way and more bloody dancing, by this point Eva broke down from exhaustion and a heavy overdose on forced happiness, Matthias was physically sick of papaya salad and Sabine looked like she would punch the next child who asked to sing a song about marching. The day ended with more bloody vegetable swinging, where I lost patience and kicked the lime after a minute of fruitless swinging. Eva declined for moral reasons and Matthias struggled bravely to the end. Egged on by the announcer grunting like a woman in the throes of... tennis... whilst swinging a vegetable from her crotch.

That dragged on for the best part of an hour, where we said goodbye. Matthias and I were besieged by girls wanting photographs (I got 50+, but who’s counting?) and Eva heroically rallied to smile with some of the braver boys. We were presented with a large shawl of fabric, which I swear is a rug, unless it’s a shawl created for Jabba the Hut, and a fold out tissue paper holder. They’re big in Asia. I’m keeping them for my uni room, will be more original than an anarchy symbol and an empty Kingfisher bottle. Actually took me a minute of thinking to remember the name of a beer brand.

We had a long journey back, with a much more lacklustre minibus that before. We were spoilt by efficient air con, LCD screens and adequate legroom. We abandoned James at the Udon Thani Tesco Lotus, I really hope his friend picked him up and he isn’t still there living off a diet of own brand Cola and crisps.

Here follows my summing up of this eclectic three days:

The Staff – were amazing.

Banrith (Rich) was an amazing woman of 35, speaking very good English and being generally funny and a joy to work with. She always smiled and always tried to force food upon us, which is one of the best ways to get on my good side.

Ratana (Nina) fell in love with me, no joke. A woman of middle years who’s been teaching for nearly 20 years. She presented me with a fabulously camp purple and green bag her daughter made, it is right now replaced my unfortunate Plain Lazy bag for day to day travels. She was brilliant, funny and spoke great English. She wants me to come back next year, I had to explain I had uni. She then replied that it’s only two days. I told her I’d think about it.

Jureeporn (Juree) – was a very polite and well mannered young woman who assisted Ratana. I always got the feeling she wanted to be a bit more chatty and open, but felt restricted by her position as a teacher. I would have liked to talk to her more, but never got the chance between her issuing orders, being generally efficient and the very model of Thai organisation. She opened up a lot more on the last day, though I had to beckon for her to get a photo with us, I don’t think she’d have felt it appropriate to join uninvited. 

The Students – were also great. The vast majority (70%) were girls, and all were hard workers and very eager to learn. However, I think it was dulled by most of the “teaching” being boring repetition and hands on activities – fun, but not educational. Still, a few dozen girls now have new Facebook profile pictures, so I consider my job well done. One more thing me and Robert Pattinson have in common, both of us are loved by teenage girls, both of us make very unconvincing vampires and neither of us can act. Mixed in were a few very unconvincing ladyboys – it’s not the Adam’s Apple that gives them away, it’s the hairy legs.

The Associates – Lawrence, James (English, not American) and Ismo, a very portly Finnish gentleman. Ismo was a very loud and proud guy who was constantly eating but was happy to have a dance off with me and James seemed like me in 50 years, or so I hope. Unbowed by age, quiet on the border of anti-social and with a certain dry wit and sarcasm about him that I found refreshing. All he needed was a Trilby hat and I could be looking into the future. A silver fox in all but bushy tail. Still, all were a little obsessed with how I got a three month Visa.

The Actual Teaching – diddly squat. To put it politely. All English commands were followed by a Thai translation, all teaching was limited to the point of non-existence and the songs were mindless drivel like if Willow Smith joined forces with Beiber to create the most mind-numbing and vapid music since S Club 7. “Shoo Fly”, “English Camp go marching in” and “I am happy, you are happy” with too many “friends found” for my misanthropic tendencies. 

Pictured: Education

It was a fun couple of days, but I don’t know how much we actually taught them, or if they’ll remember anything of what we said. Maybe we will fade in to lore, that tall twat with bad dance moves and a silly accent no one understood. Merely a face in a photograph or the object of a middle aged woman’s fantasy.

Hey! Another connection with Pattinson!

I have no idea what I am doing. Or why they keep talking to us