Move-In Day

So we got picked up from our hotel on Tuesday evening (Oct. 27) and went immediately to Satit Bangna School where we had to introduce ourselves to the school director/staff. The school is really pretty nice (I don't have much to compare it to in Thailand, but I like it) It consists of 4 different white buildings all joined by a huge open courtyard. There is a big olympic size swimming pool, basketball courts, tennis courts (a little beaten up) and a soccer field. Each building has different students (we are building 2 where the English Program kids take their classes).

Our school has 3 different programs: Regular Program (the kids take all their classes in Thai excpect English), English Progressive Program (EPP) (the kids take all their classes in Thai except they take English with a native speaker --aka us) and EP or English program (the kids take all their classes in English except Thai language and Thai history). This leads to a bit of a school heirarchy as the EP pays more tuition than EPP who pays more tuition than RP, but that I'll talk about later; argh, Thai politics/social system.

Dr. Aree is about 80 yrs old and is the school principal. Her english is pretty good and she has a ton of energy for her age/how busy she is. The other Thai teachers are really nice and tried their hardest to welcome us into the school. It was definitely a shock to get out of the van (or Wan) as they call it) and be thrown into a nearly 100% Thai speaking environment, but it's all part of the experience.

After some intros we were taken to the school dorms where we live. It's a big white building with 20 some dorms (each person has their own room and own bathroom). We were all a little taken aback when we moved in. My room is really big, but I'm not sure when the last time someone lived in it was (the calendar in the room says July 2008). It has the smell of a dank, musty swamp and is hot/humid. I have 2 beds, 2 closet armoirs and 3 desks (why so much furniture remains a mystery). Josie has 3 closets and 2 beds...ryan has 3 beds, etc. It makes no sense like many things in Thailand. I also have a bathroom with a wall covered in mold, unswept floors, a toilet seat that is jagged enough to cut through glass (may be an exaggeration, but it definitely is peeling apart) and many marks/dirt on the walls.

Thais also have kind of shoddy toilet systems (aka flushing T.P can cause major issues) so they have these hoses (you know the ones that you have in your sinks at home to wash dishes?) to clean themselves after using the toilet. I'm pretty sure the amount of water pressure that comes out of the hose is somewhere in between a raging, class 5 rapids river and a hose that the fire fighters have to have 3 people holding to put out the fires. Let's just say that I'm pushing my luck flushing the toilet paper. My shower is pretty standard for anywhere but America: a hose with a shower head that you use while standing by the drain about 2.56" from the toilet. I've learned to take pretty quick showers as the flooding of the bathroom floor takes but a few minutes!

We were all pretty overwhelmed I think, but our program director, Dr. Absorn, and our two coordinators Ann and Oil (yes that's her name--I'll get more into Thai nicknames later on) took us to Big C which is like Thailand's WalMart for some shopping and PIZZA! We ate ourselves silly and then bought some essentials to get us through the night and our first few days. I definitely felt a little uncomfortable, hot/sweaty, lonely and many other emotions that first night aka my first night was spent wishing I had a plane ticket home! Still, life has definitely improved since then. Plus I have some friends that live in my room to keep me company: Glen the Gecko chills in my bathroom and does his job eating bugs along with Stacy the Spider whose brother Sid lives on my bedroom ceiling and catches any mosquitos that sneak in. I mean I know it's kind of weird to name these critters that I would normally kill and/or throw out immediately at home, but as long as they just chill out and do their business I'm fine keeping them around.

I was so tired from all the adjustments that I just kinda curled up and slipped into a sweaty slumber... As you can see my first night was one for the record books.