This week I took every opportunity I could to go to the center. We did the usual stuff, but it meant more to me because I knew that it's not going to last for much longer. Ahmpaa and Nute joked that I should marry Joe to stay in Thailand, and then Joe yelled, "I love you!" I guess it's an option...except Joe is like, 40 so that wouldn't exactly work out.
Today (Friday) I teo-ed with Ning in the city because her school was hosting an open house at a hotel. To indulge the children's English program exhibit, I let a bunch of 10-year-olds weigh and measure me (literally). They also took my blood pressure, which is low apparently. It was a little bit freaky, because they definitely knew what they were talking about. And I didn't. Hello?? I'm the native English speaker here.
After the doctor visit, we sat down in an auditorium and watched the students' musical performances. Then most of the audience piled out and I was left sitting at a table with thirty high-schoolers. It wasn't long before they started taking jumping pictures, showing off their dance moves, and knocking things over, as high-schoolers do. Me, being the mature 20-year-old that I am, sat back and planned my English lesson for this evening.
Wondering, eating, singing, laughing, sitting, walking, singing....finally Ning and I peaced out and got a rot dang to Nimmanhaemin. I took her to soi one, down which is located the sweet eclectic shop I love so much, but unfortunately it was closed for lunch, so I asked Ning for other options while we waited. She said, "My aunt owns a coffee shop near here." And so off we walked.
Half a mile and two sweaty backs later, we reached her aunt's coffee shop, which actually turned out to be a COPY shop. Oh, Ning. The letters W T F may or may not have been running through my head, but the situation was just too funny not to laugh. We got a free drink of water from her cousins at least, and then we borrowed their bike to ride back to Nimmanhaemin. And when I say "we rode back" I really mean, "Ning pedaled and I sat on the baby seat behind her." If you're having a hard time picturing that, here's a visual:
Classy, right? I offered to be the driver, but after ten terrifying seconds in which I almost killed us ten times, Ning took the wheel again and we continued on our merry way. And you better believe every person we passed busted up. But really, can you blame them? Look at us.
Back at Ning's house (in case you were wondering, Ning is Yai's daughter, and Yai is Meredith's host mother) we had a little going-away-type party, complete with pizza, spaghetti, soda, and ice-cream. It was delish. Yai and Ning tried to teach us a Thai pick-up-sticks game, but after several failed attempts on our part, Yai finally admitted that farangs (or pharangs? I don't know guys. Somebody who knows romanized Thai, please correct me) don't have the coordination to play that game anyway.
A little after 5:00, John came to pick me up. I taught the older kids today--we reviewed shapes and colors and basic questions like "What are you doing?" At the end all of them (including the little ones) insisted on riding in the back of the truck with me, even though we were going all the way to Doi Saket. The whole way they kept leaning over and shouting, "teacher!" to offer me homemade bracelets. By the time I got off the truck I had six on each wrist. It made me want to cry. I'm going to miss them so much! I'm going to miss everything so much!
No comments:
Post a Comment