Skatbos in Thailand

English camp

We are officially done with our contract in Thailand.  We just returned from English camp and had a great time.  We went with 24 students and about 8 other teachers to a resort in the wilderness.  The foreign teachers (us) were in charge of the activities.  We played games, sang songs, and watched video clips in English.  The food was amazing, the kids were a lot of fun, and it was so great to be out of the city.

Rafting with the kids.

We went white water rafting with the kids.  That was interesting because all the instructions were given in Thai and we just had to figure it out.  During the first swell of rapids our instructor fell out of the boat and was pretty

River swim

much under the raft all the way through it.  He was okay but all the girls were screaming and then laughing.  We stopped part way through the trip to swim in the river.  It was fun getting pictures with the kids and just getting to be ourselves, not the mean, strict, cruel teachers we usually are.

We took a hike to nearby waterfalls and had more photo ops.

Dinner with our teacher friends.

The biggest “problem” had to do with a fairly large lizard that appeared in our room.  It ran across the wall while we were watching TV after the activities had ended for the day.  We looked at each other like, “Ummm….I’m not sure if that’s okay or not!”  We asked one of the Thai teachers and she said it was a gecko and that it wouldn’t hurt us.  We decided we would just leave it alone and it wouldn’t bother us.  About 4 minutes later there was a knock on the door and two of our Thai teacher friends were there with mops and sticks to try to get it out of the room.  We were informed that yes, they do bite.  I stood on the bed and watched these grown, barefoot, men chase the lizard out the back door.  We all slept comfortably and had no more reptile problems.

We spent our last night in Krathumbaen celebrating the retirement of 2 of the school’s janitors.  It was a nice way to finish up our stint as English teachers and say goodbye to the staff at Wiset school.  We are definitley going to miss some of our coworkers and new friends we have met.  We were bummed that it wasn’t until English camp that we really had the opportunity to get to know these people better.

We are feeling a mix of emotions as we finish packing up to start our SE Asia travels.  We bought our tickets and will be back in Chicago on November 3rd.