Nicknames & Kids

Hello all,

well it is nearly the end of month two here in Thailand and as teachers we have been realizing that this blog is bereft of any mention of the kids we are teaching, so we thought we would add a little information about the little darlings.

First of all, kids here in Thailand are referred to by foreigners by their "Nicknames". These are names, that are designed to help out the farang of the world who when trying to pronounce Thai names can become so terribly lost. Quite a helpful gesture really...

We have been told that these nicknames are chosen sometimes because of a trait of the child (for instance a small child may be nicknamed Lek or Noi which both mean small), because of something the parents like (for instance Paytong -a Thai form of bocce ball), a short form of the actual name, something that the parents think will be fortunate for the kids, because the word sounds good or even more spiritual reasons. Sometimes they choose thai words, other times they choose English words, and sometimes the English words strike us as funny... not because there is anything wrong with the Nickname Bank but only because it is generally different from what we are used to calling each other back home! So, here are some of the nicknames of kids in our classes...

Bank, Bong, Bomb, Arm, Manow (means lemon), Filmy, Tankwa (means cucumber -being cool-headed is extremely valuable in Thai culture), Pee, Poo (in the same class and one after another on the attendance list), God, First, Best, Mail, Guy, Pet (means duck), and many others... These caused us a smile when we arrived at school.

Another common occurance in Thailand... well actually apparently just at our school, is kids throwing up out the window. Not so much on Shane's matayom (high school) side, but in the Kindergarten and Prathom (grade school) classes this happens on basically a weekly basis. Here is an actual conversation that occurred between Hannah and another teacher here:
Hannah: "so... do kids like, throw up a lot in your class?"
Other teacher: "No... why?"
Hannah: "Oh, I guess it's just my kids then. They throw up all the time."
Same goes for nose bleeds and any other messy incidences... straight out the window.

Another thing that Hannah has had to get used to here in Thailand is the limited resources. For instance, the activity book we have to use includes MANY pages of cutting and pasting things... However, we do not have a full class set of scissors (only around 15) or squeezy glue bottles. At the beginning of the semester Hannah was handed a bottle of white glue. One with a screw top. It didn't even have a stick to get the glue out. The common practice with this is to walk around the classroom allowing each child to stick their fingers in the jar and get some glue... as you can imagine this results in utter chaos. Hannah has now graduated to cutting open old water bottles and finding stick-like objects to hold and spread the glue.

Another thing we're having to get used to is the practice of selling dangerous firecrackers to children. These are sold at the morning market that occurs on the school grounds just before school begins. Some charming man sits out there selling these improvised explosives to the highschool kids, who spend their day merrily throwing them off the top of the building to land in the courtyard below. One such blast knocked Shane's and most of of his class's hearing out for most of an afternoon. THese are not those little black cats that you throw at the ground with a pop, these things may be made out of TNT and have a boom loud enough that you feel it in your chest. They don't light up, they just make noise... and now if you are caught with one you are headed straight to the Thai disciplinarian at the school.

If we haven't mentioned the Thai disciplinarian before... his name makes kids tremble in their seats. He went around to the parents' houses at the beginning of his time at school and asked if he could hit their children. They agreed, and so he does, with a bamboo rod. These aren't your old-fashioned slaps on the wrist either, this guy gets his whole body into the swing. We try not to get kids in trouble with him.

Sorry no pictures tonight, we're working on compiling a collage of soi dogs...

Chicken Loom

Yikes! Sorry about the long delay between posts this time... it has been pretty crazy around here.

One of us (Shane) got quite ill with some sort of food poisoning (but with the help of lots of bedrest and antibiotics is now feeling much better) which made for somewhat less adventuring on our part. It was also the first week back to school for the primary classes and was therefore very busy with lesson planning and such.

Junior kindergarten is, as expected, completely adorable. The kids refer to Hannah as "Teacha Na", an oversight which is in the process of being corrected. One trait of Thai speakers is the tendency to put the emphasis on the last syllable... something which we are trying (and failing) to not aquire! For example: copY this off the board or simply when saying Hannah's name "hanNAH". Currently in Kindergarten and grade two we are learning the rooms of the house, you know, your usual bed loom, bath loom, living loom and chicken loom... We are trying our best to pronounce kitchen with the utmost clarity (and actually at this point we are winning!).

This past weekend was the Thai festival of Loy Krathong, a beautiful festival where Thais apologize and give thanks to the river gods for all of their sins of the past year and float krathongs down the river with lit candles to symbolize wiping the slate clean. The longer your candle burns, the more luck you will recieve in the coming year. We were unable to make it to one of the bigger river festivals because of Shane's food poisoning but luckily our condo complex had a smaller version of the festivities so we didn't miss out entirely.

We have also moved into our new apartment! Apart from some minor hiccups while we get all the logistics sorted out we are really loving the new place. Pictures will come once we have everything settled and maybe some decorating done!