Beaches, Baywatch and Bedlam

It seems that I’m inexorably drawn towards danger. I’ve come to this conclusion because week 2 began with a bit of a scare. But before a little drama ensued, the weekend up until Sunday evening was delightful. As it was our first year wedding anniversary on the weekend prior to Week 2 of teaching, we decided to head to Khao Sok National Park, a 160 million year old jungle with huge limestone mountains shooting from many breathtaking lakes. Kayaking, trekking and taking in these amazing landscapes was a lovely way to celebrate a year of marriage and not many people can say they were still on honeymoon on their first year anniversary.

Honeymoon Suite

So to Sunday evening, we arrived in Kok Loi for the week of teaching ahead. As had become routine, all the volunteers decided to head to the beach. The beach that is so beautiful and void of over-development…the beach that is so glorious in its vastness and simplicity…the beach that peacefully provides the calming noise of the waves and the gentle refreshing breeze…with the sea that can be a cruel mistress!

As myself and Josh were generally being big kids jumping and diving against the big breaking waves, seeing who could swim the furthest towards shore with the wave as our engine and just generally reveling in the sea, little did we know what was to come. It’s all a bit of a blur but within a minute, Charlotte, who had come to join us, began screaming quite frantically.

“Help! I can’t breathe! I’m gonna die!”

My instant reaction was pure laughter. I thought Charlotte was just playing the fool and I genuinely began to laugh my head off at the appreciation of this funny and well-acted joke.

Whilst I found myself laughing uncontrollably at what I thought was an excellent piece of acting, a piece of acting that Hollywood greats would have been proud of, I found myself quite far out to sea, double the distance to 30 seconds previous. Without making too much of a drama out of it, I thought, ‘ok, let’s swim back to shore.’ As I began swimming, I realised I wasn’t making any progress and if anything, I was edging ever so slightly further out to sea. Once again, trusting in my ability as a reasonably strong swimmer, maintaining the essential importance to stay calm, I shot a quizzical glance around me. What was happening?

As Charlotte’s cries became muffled, and Josh, her knight in shining armour, was at her side, coaxing her to stay calm and to focus on breathing and staying afloat, I once again shot a glance back at the ever shrinking beach. Remembering all my swimming lessons as a child, I made my mission to swim as fast as an Olympic swimmer and gradually made progress back to shore. I then began to relax as I cruised up alongside Josh and Charlotte. Within a few seconds, while Charlotte was still screaming for dear life, we were back to shallow waters and Josh dryly announced to Charlotte that if you would stop your incessant screaming for one second, you’d realise that we can touch the bottom. From here, once again laughing as I had when this bizarre event began, we began walking back to the beach.

After talking to some locals about what could pass for a Baywatch opening scene (with me as the Hoff of course), we were told that we got caught in a riptide, which apparently run very low on the danger scale. They don’t pull you under water, they just pull you out to sea a little. All you have to do is swim parallel to the shore and you’ll swim out of its death-defining grasp and then you’re able to swim back to shore. As long as you stay afloat you’re pretty safe…apparently!

Anyway, Week 2 of teaching soon reared its happy head and it began with some lovely classes. The topics included transport; hospitals, illnesses and aliments (pretending to puke up was great fun); farm animals and a continuation of weather in Europe (trying to explain what ice and snow is to natives of a country where it’s wet or dry is quite amusing). The ‘wild monkeys’ that I was dreading turned out to be tame little kittens as the English Teacher insisted she sit in on the lesson. I certainly wasn’t going to protest! And boy did they behave!

It was a 3-day week at the school because for Thursday and Friday, we had been assigned to teach at English Camp. In this time however, we got wind of an English competition that two girls had been entered for as representatives of the school. So Susie and I signed up to tutor the two girls as the competition was the following Wednesday. No time to waste!

Susie's artwork coming into action

But the highlight of the week by far was English Camp. English Camp was a two day event where a local high school, who’s pupils have the unfortunate task of completing many examinations in a week’s time, need some intense English tuition to help them on their way. Fully clad in our striking blue English Camp T-shirts, we headed to the best classroom in the world, a glorious beach situated 10 minutes drive from Khao Lak.

A little intimidated at first by the fact that some of these boys towered above me at the tender age of 15, I realised that they were a really nice bunch of kids and I also realised if they wanted to misbehave, they’d soon get the cold, hard stare! It was actually a really enjoyable experience because the children’s level of English was that bit higher than the children we had been teaching in the school and you could do more advanced lessons with them.

Understand?

Spot of lunch from the best classroom in the world

Presentations

Once again, it was an incredibly enjoyable week and it felt sad that we only had one more week of teaching to go. However, we had the English competition to win!

Next Week – English competition with lots of monkeys at the school (yes real monkeys).

Sun, sea and snakes

So when I left you last, we had just finished 3 weeks of teaching in a rural village in Cambodia. I left this beautiful country with some amazing memories but also with a bittersweet feeling. On the one hand, I was so proud and privileged to have had the opportunity to teach and meet some inspirational children. On the other hand it was very sad to say our farewells uncertain whether we'd ever see those lovable rogues again.

Luckily for us, there was the rest of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos to explore over the course of the next 3 months. In as fewer words as possible, here is a summing up of those 3 months: fresh water dolphins in the mighty Mekong river, white sandy beaches, paradise, ridiculously cheap beer, glorious food, cycling around the cities, sand dune sledding, easy riding, elephant trekking, stunning national parks, caving, jungle trekking, boat trips, beautiful bays, sea kayaking, home-stays in rural...and I mean...rural villages, eating cobra, beautiful french colonial towns, live music by the river, partying, cooking courses, foot massages, full body massages, tubing, stunning waterfalls, jumping off big rocks, white-water rafting, sleeping in tree-houses, zip wiring through the jungle at heights amassing 150 metres from ground level.

Hopefully the last sentence caught your eye because I have to say 'The Gibbon Experience' was one of the best 2 days of my life. In the Laos jungle, there are a series of cables linking trees from distances ranging up to 600m across. With just a harness for company, you soar through the air for what seems like a lifetime and then you come to an abrupt halt on the other side. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Superman? No it's the Fentonian warriors screaming with joy (and a little fear) as they zip wire through the jungle. We were also lucky enough to sleep in a treehouse about 100 metrres up from ground level.

Harnessed up and about to enter the jungle

The long walk into the jungle

Ready to fly

The best shower in the world. Don't worry I'm donning a big pair of swimming shorts.

The view from the treehouse

So to our current situation. There's not a more apt occasion than now to teach english for a few weeks in the hot, sunny, beach laden country of Thailand as it corresponds with children in the UK returning to school for another exciting year ahead of them. I know for a fact that teachers and pupils alike are jumping with joy and can't hide their broad smiles about the prospect of returning to school.

Background to teaching in Thailand

On Boxing Day 2004, one of the biggest natural disasters in history took place. The devastating earthquake induced tsunami destroyed many countries in Southeast Asia including Southern Thailand causing over 5000 fatalities and destroying many coastal towns, villages and communities. The basic humanitarian needs of the affected communities were addressed within days. The longer-term recovery of the affected communities and the local economy is now the focus... and that's where we come in. As part of this response, the Thai Government believe that English is an essential part of children's learning in the poor areas affected by the tsunami so they can go to university and/or get jobs in the towns and cities when they're older. Cue Mr and Mrs Fenton.

So finally we arrive at our first week of teaching. Susie and I plus another volunteer were placed in a school in the town of Khok Kloi; a small town offering local Thai restaurants, a beautiful beach, small shops and a Tesco Lotus! Bizarre! But we certainly weren't complaining. We arrived at the school slightly apprehensive, were greeted by the english teacher who knew very little english but had been teaching it for 20 years and were told that we have 16 different classes this week, all with 30 plus pupils in them. Aaaaghhhh!!!

Thankfully it turned out that the first 3 classes on our first day were delightful and our teaching of 'things in a house', 'weather in europe' and 'sports' passed without too much trouble and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The fourth class of day one however was STRESSFUL and so out of character to the rest of the classes we had taught. I thought we'd somehow crossed into another dimension. As you know by now, I like to spin a good yarn...or a bad one depending on your interpretation, so here's how it all unfolded:

The class that we were about to teach were situated on the second floor of one of the buildings so as we walked up the stairs with smiles broadening, tired but proud from our day's work so far, we walked along the corridor and were greeted with enthusiastic 'hello teacher' by the children we had already taught that day. High fives were clumsily been thrown but we made sure all the children received their quota and we felt like movie stars on the red carpet. However, this all came to an abrupt end when we walked into the 'lion's den!'

As we entered the classroom (no teacher in sight! Which was a recurring theme throughout the week) the children were behaving like they'd just taken a plethora of hyper-activity inducing drugs, gulped down numerous cans of redbull and had just been hypnotised to act in no uncertain terms like over-excited monkeys who'd just found out that if they behave like they've lost the plot, they would be given a lifelong supply of bananas.

I have to say I almost admitted defeat and sought help from a native Thai teacher because after shouting sit down! be quiet! silence! and even counting to 5 in Thai whilst clapping my hands assertively, had little to no effect. All this encouraged the children to do was repeat exactly what I just said (rather impressively) and then continue to dance, wrestle, kick, punch, pinch, hug, run around and jump on the tables as before. But somehow and it's all a bit of a blur how, we managed to actually get them all sat down. Once again I have to confess something slightly embarrassing. I resorted to shouting very loudly and scarily (in my mind) and even though they had no idea what I was saying, it sought of had the desired effect. So 10 minutes in, we started our lesson only for disaster to strike...again!

The children, although a little boisterous and naughty were playing the games we'd set up, actually learning the words we'd taught them and although there were little fires that needed to be put out every now and again, it was going ok. Then for what seemed no reason whatsoever, the children started shouting and screaming like crazy hyenas! This was different to their wild monkey behaviour at the beginning of the lesson and for a few seconds I wondered what all the commotion was. Then I saw it, the tail-end of a snake dangling through a whole in the ceiling above the whiteboard in which we'd been teaching in front off.  I swiftly stepped aside, well out of the way and all of a sudden, we had a stampede of children running out of the classroom. 

Seconds later, their class teacher came in with a big stick and poked at it prompting the snake to scurry back through the whole from whence it came. I thought then that the teacher, seeing that the children were as hysterical as some kind of Disney villain would settle them down again and explain to them that everything was ok and to sit down and behave for our English guests. Ha! I thought wrong! The teacher then left the class behaving like they did when we first entered. Let's just say a few curses were muttered under my breath! But the children, probably sensing my annoyance actually settled back down again and we continued with the lesson. They were ok for the rest of the lesson but not perfect. The boys just seemed to take great pleasure in smacking each other around the head, pushing each other off their chairs and throwing each others pencils and books across the classroom. 

I told the English teacher about their behaviour and she was genuinely shocked and signalled with her hand in a smacking motion that they may receive some kind of punishment. Now I felt really guilty. I didn't want their blood on my hands so to speak but she reassured me that it wouldn't hurt. It would only serve as a warning not to do it again. Eek! 

The rest of the week continued in the same vein with mainly lovely, respectful and delightful classes followed by the odd naughty class. It was a wonderful week though and once again we'd met some great children who were so welcoming and happy that we were there. 

Milk in the morning

This girl kept drawing us pictures and making us gifts.

The English teacher with her minions

After a day's teaching, all the volunteers including our new found friends Josh and Charlotte (from my neck of the woods up north) would head to the beautiful beach, swim in the refreshing sea and watch the sun go down. With no-one is sight apart from a view local fisherman, this beach really did feel exclusive to us.

Next week - More teaching and then English Camp to finish the week.