Family in Thailand: Phichit

Tuesday of my family's trip was spent in Phichit where I live!  Monday night my family stayed at the garden home with Tang and her family.  They go to the school the next morning around 10:00.  Here are pictures of the garden home and around the school that Bryce took.  I'm used to seeing this place everyday, but here it is from an outsider's view :)

The garden home where Tang lives with all of her family.

The front building of the school where preschool and Kindergarten 1-3 are taught

The front lobby that sports a Christmas tree all year long.

The elementary building where I teach

The back of the elementary building and the back up water tanks.  To the left is the building where I live.

Left to right: My bedroom door, the shared sinks (used for washing dishes, faces, hands and teeth) and the hallway to the bathrooms.

Our room, the shared eating/kitchen area, then the volunteers' room.  Our biked on the left.

The back part of the property where the grounds keeper lives.  Eventually more buildings will go up back here (to the left)

In our room

In our room

My family spend the day in my classroom with the kids!  The kids have been so excited to meet them.  Bryce talked to them about hiking and the Grand Canyon.  My dad talked to them about flying an airplane.  My mom and Annie brought my guitar over and sang with them.  Welsey spoke in Spanish for them and talked about healthy and unhealthy foods.  The kids asked questions.  We even dances with them while teaching them "Once There Was a Snowman".  The kids loved it!  I loved having a change in the normal teaching routine.  And I think my family liked it too. 

First grade:

Annie, mom, me, dad, Wesley, Sun, Yipso, Basia, Tiger, MooPhee

Second grade:

Lining up to come into class

Teaching "Once There Was a Snowman"

My mom brought Jelly Bellies for the kids to try.  They each got 5 and tried to guess the flavors.

My dad talking about why planes fly.

Third Grade:

Bryce talking about hiking and the Grand Canyon.

For the last 10 minutes with 3rd grade we split up.  Dad and Wesley went outside to ply soccer and football.  Annie, my mom and I stayed inside and played songs and sang.  The kids picked where they wanted to go.  the boys + Mhew went outside, the rest of the girls stayed inside.

The girls who stayed in to sing with us: Jean, Praewa, Yada, Sydney, Lin, Ioon.

Tang and Ake took us all to lunch for Pad Thai.  There is this little hole in the wall restaurant that serves really good Pad Thai.  We ate and my family and my Thai work family got to know each other.

After I was done teaching we went out and about in Phichit.  We rode bikes and I showed then a bit of the town.

We went to the crocodile park.  We saw the live crocodiles in the crocodile pit as well as the ostriches and the humongous crock. 

We got fresh smoothies at my favorite smoothie place.

Candid

Posed and a little blurry

Bryce snapped a picture while we were riding.  This is what a lot of Phichit looks like.  Families will have a shop n the bottom floor and live on the second and third stories.

We ran into Ioon and her mom while we were at the smoothie shop.  She invited us to go out for ice cream later that night.  Unfortunately we couldn't join her since the family was leaving in a couple hours.  We thanked her and went on our way.  We went to the fabric shop next.  While we were there Ioon's mom showed up!  She was so sad that we couldn't meet her for ice cream tat she stopped at the market and bought us grapes.  She wanted to tell my mom how great she thought I was and how much her daughter loved being in my class :)  She's so great and I love her and her daughter! 

After the fabric shop we ordered some pizza.  While we waited for the pizza we walked around Tesco.  Then it was back to the school in the rain.  We ate pizza and visited for their last hour.  Then The girls, Tang, Ake, Ton and Flynn came to send them off.

I know I have said it before, but I had SO MUCH FUN with them here!!!  I's sad they had to go, but so glad they got to come!

Sundays + Me + Bikes = Disaster

It isn’t ALWAYS bad, but I have had enough Sunday bike troubles that it feel that way.

Exhibit a:

The bike I chose to ride was having a hard time on the way to the train station.  After church, on the way home it just seemed to be worse.  The chain wasn’t moving well and when I would peddle it was hard to do and would click a lot.  The back tire was skewed and was rubbing against other parts of the bike every rotation.  To top it off,  the tires were slowly leaking.  By the time I was on half a mile from the school I was red, SO very sweaty, tired, and thirsty.  With how hard it was to ride the blasted bike I figured it would be easier to just walk with the bike.  After walking it a few steps a guy in his shop on the side of the road offered to air up the tires.  I accepted.  After airing them up he realized how many other problems the bike had.  He went about pounding and loosening and tightening things.  He instructed me to sit down.  

When I sat in the sun he immediately motioned for me to move to the shade.  I drank some cold water while he ‘worked’ on the bike.  I don’t things he really knew what he was doing.  He had some tools out, but the work he did mostly consisted of pounding different parts of the bike.  When he finished he let me know it’s be 30 baht.  I gave him 20 and was on my way.  The bike was a little easier to pedal, but still not as easy as it should have been.

Exhibit b:

The train station in across the river which means we have to ride across a bridge.  The bridge has a fairly steep ramp on both sides.  The ride down the incline is great.  The ride up is not my favorite.  I like to build up some speed beforehand and then stand up to pedal as I go up the ramp.  This particular Sunday I gained some good speed and as I was going over the 3 tiny wanna-be speed bumps my tire hit just the wrong way.  The handlebars lurched.  The bike started going toward the edge of the ramp!  I tried to correct and over corrected.  I turned back the other way.  I put my legs down.  I lost a shoe!  Somehow the tire collided with the back of my leg.  I came within an inch of rocketing off the edge of the ramp which would have sent me down 5 feet into a mess of shrubs and trees.  2 weeks later and I still have the remains of bruises on my legs.

Exhibit c:

We were at the stop light in the right turn lane.  The light turned green and we all started to go.  I pedaled once and the pedals stopped.  In the middle of the intersection I couldn’t move.  I hopped of my bike and started running with it.  Once I got out of the intersection I pulled over only to discover that the chain was off and stuck.  We all tried to pull it out to no avail.  Luckily there was a guy a few shops down who had helped us in the past.  I walked the bike over and he unscrewed lots of pieces and got it put back together.   He did it free of charge and now I try to wave every time we ride past his shop.