First day of School (Santitham)

First day of school!!! I woke up around 7am, got dressed, had some oatmeal and left for school around 7:50am. It was about a 7 minute bike ride to the school from Golee's house. When we got to the school I met some of the teachers and students as we walked through the school grounds. All the kids were playing in the field before the morning announcements. I met with Niyana and Nawarat, the couple that runs the school. They were both extremely nice and comforting and I immediately felt very comfortable around them. This, I thought, was a good sign. During the morning announcements Nawarat introduced me to the school and I had to say “hello” and introduce myself to all the kids and teachers.

The first class I went to with Golee. It was one of her English classes. She introduced me to the class and since it was the first day back for the students after a month long break, we played icebreaker games which allowed me to learn some of the kids names. All the kids have funny nicknames that their parents give to them; things like Boss, Got, Arm, Fern, Meow, and Book. But those names are a lot easier to remember than their full Thai names, so I was grateful! :) We then had another class where we did the same thing.. more games, more introductions, more names. It was a bit hard for me to remember the names, even the English ones because they all have such thick accents and don't pronoun all the letters..so Arm is Ahm and Book is Boog. I just hoped that I would get use to it all. (Pat and Golee, everyone wears pink on Monday or Tuesday to honor the Queen)

Next it was lunch time around 12pm. Golee and I helped to serve the kids food before we got to sit down and have some of our own. I finally got to try “som tam” or papiya salad that I had heard so much about. It has chopped up shreds of papyya and carrot with tomato, green beens, garlic, lime juice, sugar, chili, and fish sauce ( a very popular condiment, it's like salty fishy tasting water). The “som tam” was very spicy but good. People eat it EVERYDAY in this part of Thailand...and it's good but I don't think I could eat it everyday. (Main walk of the school)

After lunch I sat and talked with Niyana and Nawarat. They told me a bit about the history of the school . It turns out the 15 years ago the National Assembly of Thailand asked them to move from North Thailand to Yasothon to help with the school after the founder died. Since then, they've been there working hard on maintaining and updating the school. There are about 700 hundred kids from age 1 to 10. They have a nursery and a Kindergarten separated into K1, K2 and K3. Then there are grades 1-6. They also told me a bit about the Baha'is in Thailand. They said that they have a problem consolidating the believers being that most people are very receptive of the Faith, but that after they declare they do not become active members in their Baha'i communities.

Then I talk to Nawarat about what my schedule would be like. He wanted me really to be a moral role model for the kids and also help a lot with teaching them where I can. It's very important to the school that there are international volunteers that come to help often because the Thai families that send their children to the school really like to see their kids getting involved with foreigners and learning English. So basically just my presence there at the school helps them out a lot. Having international youth at the school is one of it's major attractions and everyone know around town about the “Baha'i school with international youth”. (Grade 4-6 Building, where I am usually)

After talking with them Nawarat took me on a short tour of the school. There are 6 main building: Nursery, Kindergarten, Grade 1 and 2, Canteen (Cafeteria), Administration, and Grades 4-6. There are a couple other smaller buildings like a snack stand, and activity centers. The school is very nice. It's known as the cleanest school in Thailand. It's actually one of the more expensive schools in the area so most of the government officials and wealthier families send their kids there. The first day got me really excited to start working with the school and community of Yasothon!!!! The school was better than I thought it would be, the kids were all so cute, everyone was very nice and receptive of me and I felt very comfortable already on the first day!!! =D I couldn't have asked for a better “first day”.
(English class)




(Typical classroom)
That afternoon I got home around 3pm. I didn't get too much time to relax or study some Thai like I wanted because I had to go with the youth (N'Arm, N'Pat, N'Lookmee, and N'Mook) to P'Wee's house to set up for Feast that evening. “N'” stands for “neung” which means younger brother or sister and “P'” stand for “pee” which is the same but for people older than you. Everyone is addressed this way. (Most of the youth call me Pee Shadow). P'Wee is an LSA member in the community and she also works as a legal consultant so her house was really nice and she had maids, which is very common in Thailand. Anyways, Feast...being on Thai time, took a while to start and I was really hungry and a bit tired from the day so I got a little frustrated. When it actually started it lasted FOREVER too.. probably because I couldn't understand anything that was happening and they were deciding things about the Birth of Baha'u'llah celebration which obviously took a long time. But finally we had dinner and I got home around 10pm. I was exhausted but still excited for school in the morning!!!