Life's little mysteries

#1: Why can I never find a pen in my rucksack when I know that I always have one in there?
#2: Why is my rucksack so heavy?
#3: Is it possible there is a connection between #1 and #2?

This afternoon when we got back from the centre I emptied out my rucksack in a bid to solve these mysteries and, more to the point, to find my pen! This is the pile that appeared on my desk:

• Laptop
• Laptop lead
• Phone
• Phone lead
• Purse
• Year planner
• 2 copies of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1 English; 1 Thai)
• Notebook
• Scrap paper
• Folder with miscellaneous resources
• Stapler
• Staples
• Glue stick
• Masking tape
• Half a dozen paper cups
• Half a packet of drinking straws
• Bottle of water
• A selection of home-made percussion instruments (metal pan lid; metal spoon; plastic bottle; plastic spoon; yoghurt-pot-rice-shaker)
• Half a dozen bulldog clips
• Indoor school flip-flops
• Scarf (the morning bike ride is a bit chilly now)
• 4 bananas (afternoon snack - they are only small!)
• Tissues
• Mini 1st aid kit (plasters; wipes; painkillers)
• Insect repellent
• Throat sweets
• Chewing gum
• Hand gel
• Comb
• Length of string (for tying up my rucksack when I am carrying my ukulele)
• Pocket knife
• Small notebook

PLUS - a pen and a pencil!!

The presence of some of the more unusual items can be explained by the creative week we have been having this week, with the topic of butterflies. I had planned activities over a period of four days to try and illustrate how the teacher could do things slightly differently, even within the constraints of a large class. I am not sure how much she appreciated my efforts - she definitely didn't think much of my approach to creative activities (i.e. letting the children do their own thing with the materials).
The percussion instruments were for a movement activity in which the children acted out the stages of the butterfly life cycle, with a different percussion sound for each stage and full music for the final stage of the butterfly (Chopin's Waltz no. 14 in E minor).
Later we had a butterfly party, in which they wore hats with the paper butterflies that they had made earlier in the week and drank "nectar" (orange juice) with their "proboscis" (drinking straw) from a "flower" (paper cup with flower-shaped lid). I can't claim credit for the idea - I came across it when searching the internet for butterfly resources. The children loved it, though, and I think it is something they are likely to remember!

I left the teacher with some broad suggestions that we had been illustrating during the week with the activities we were doing:

• A shift from whole class teaching to working with half the class or smaller groups when appropriate
• Using open questions and giving children many opportunities to talk about their ideas and activities
• Providing a wide range of activities that children can do independently
• Allowing children to make their own choices and decisions in creative activities
• Giving children the opportunity to act out their ideas and learning in a physical way

These are the same points that keep coming up for all the centres, so we will explore at least some of them again when we do our next workshop in January.

And to finish:

 The Welcome Committee

My arrival in the mornings seems still to be a cause for a certain degree of curiosity and amusement. Perhaps it is the outsize motorbike helmet!

Better late than never

Finally I am getting around to posting an account of my week away in Chiang Mai and Sukhothai. I must confess that most of the pictures are courtesy of Antonella. She is a very keen photographer, with a proper camera, and I am afraid I was rather lazy and hardly took any photos at all. (That also explains why she is in so few of the photos!)

Saturday 30th November
The holiday got off to an inauspicious start when my flight from Mae Sot to Chiang Mai was cancelled and the airline laid on a replacement minibus service instead. A normal bus trip to Chiang Mai takes about 6 hours, with several stops. This driver got us there in 4.5 hours, with just one stop. I tried hard not to think about how fast he was driving.....
I met Antonella and Alessandro at the guesthouse - they had arrived earlier in the day on a flight from Bangkok

Sunday 1st December
We hired bicycles and spent a relaxing day exploring the old city of Chiang Mai.
Quote of the day:
"Shall we visit this Wat?"
"What?"

 

At one of the temples you can participate in "monk chat" - a fascinating insight into the life of a monk

Monday 2nd December
We took a songthaew up to Doi Suthep, with the intention of visiting the temple and then walking in the surrounding national park. This turned out to be more of a challenge than we had expected, as no-one wanted to give us any indication of where the trails were. They prefer to take you to a few pre-selected destinations, for a fee, of course.
Quote of the day:
"Excuse me - do you have a map of the national park?"
Alessandro never found a proper map of the park, but his persistent search resulted in us meeting some other intrepid explorers intent on doing their own thing - a Dutch couple and two Italians - so we all joined forces and found our way to some waterfalls together.

 Feeling sick after the songthaew ride

 Anyone home?

 

Antonella makes a rare appearance!

 "Don't you dare take a photo of my bottom disappearing under this tree..."

 

After a few moments debating what was the worst that could happen to us if we ignored the sign we carried on anyway

 

 And then there were seven

 

Finally made it - and without the aid of a map!

 

A well-deserved dinner back in Chiang Mai

 

Tuesday 3rd December

We spent the day doing a Thai cookery course on a farm outside Chiang Mai. They showed us around the garden where they grow their own herbs and vegetables that are used in the recipes, before launching into the day's cooking. I chose:

• Thai vegetable soup
• Green curry with tofu
• Stir-fried tofu with cashew nuts
• Fresh spring rolls
• Bananas in coconut milk

It was all very tasty, and as I was cooking it myself I was able to have full control over the amount of chilli in it (i.e. hardly any!) The lady who was teaching us was full of fun and energy and had us laughing all day.
Quote of the day:
"Good for your man!" (referring to many of the plants grown in their garden!)

 

Wednesday 4th December
We met up again with the people we had met on Monday and went to Huey Tueng Tao Lake outside Chiang Mai. We spent a very relaxing day wandering at a leisurely pace around the lake and eating lunch at one of the little outdoor restaurants.
Quote of the day:
"No pressure, but we've done 0.2km in 40 minutes! (From Antonella, who was tracking our snail-like progress on her GPS gadget)

Thursday 5th December
The King's birthday and a public holiday. We spent most of the day travelling by bus to Sukhothai. After several hours of suffering, Antonella came up with this simple but effective solution to the relentless cold blast of the air conditioning:

The very pleasant guesthouse where we stayed in new Sukhothai - little individual bungalows

Friday 6th December
Another very relaxing, leisurely and enjoyable day, exploring the ruins of the old city of Sukhothai by bicycle.
Quote of the day:
"What does this Buddha pose mean?"
Closely followed by:
"Shall we visit this Wat?"
"What?" (The old ones are always the best!)

 

 

 

Saturday 7th December

Sukhothai to Mae Sot via Tak by minibus.

Quote of the day:

"How much further?" (From Antonella, who, despite the fact that we had the most careful minibus driver in the whole of Thailand, found the bumps and bends of the road from Tak to Mae Sot rather a challenge...)

 

Sunday 8th December

We explored some of the sights of Mae Sot together (of which there are more than the guide book would have you believe), including a couple of temples, the Rim Moei market at the border, the Reclining Buddha and the Burmese market)

 

Monday 9th December

I went back to work and Alessandro and Antonella went on a day trip to visit a gibbon sanctuary. We had planned to do a yoga lesson in the evening at the guesthouse where they were staying, but the teacher was sick so the lesson was cancelled. We asked if we could use the room anyway, and Antonella gave me my first yoga lesson! We had dinner together before finally saying farewell - they were continuing on for the last week of their three week break.

Quote of the evening:

"Where shall we go tomorrow?"

(They had still not decided by the time I left, but I have since heard that they went back south to Phuket and met up with the Dutch couple that we met in Chiang Mai.)

 

It was a wonderful break, and so lovely to meet up with friends from back home!

Seasonal signs

I have been appreciating not being surrounded by all the usual commercial trappings of Christmas. In fact, with the seasons here being so different, I have lost all sense of the passing year, and have been almost oblivious to the approach of Christmas and the end of the year.
That all ended when I went to do some shopping in Tesco yesterday. The first thing I saw when I walked in was all the checkout staff resplendent in Santa hats, and the pillars decorated with tinsel. Ah well, I thought, serves me right for shopping in Tesco in the first place!

Today I indulged in some decoration myself. A colleague from WE was going to get her nails done, so I said I would go along with her and get my toes done - first time for everything!
It was a very pleasant and relaxing experience - full pedicure and foot massage, followed by the nail-painting itself. I chose my favourite colour, of course, so now my toe nails match many of my clothes and accessories!

Something weird has happened to the weather today. It has been cool and overcast all day and now we seem to have returned to rainy season, with heavy rain setting in all afternoon. I hope it stops before evening. I'm planning to go out to the film, and I've got out of the habit of having to wear my poncho. I'm simply not psychologically prepared!

Trespassers beware!

My next door neighbours have two dogs, who spend most of their time in their front yard, which is within spitting distance of my bedroom window. One of them is very laid back and docile, preferring to leave any house-guarding duties to his companion, who spends much of his time standing behind the front gate barking with great enthusiasm at anyone or thing that passes by. (Don't dogs ever get sore throats?)
Yesterday morning, when I opened my curtains, I noticed that only the quiet dog was in the yard. The vocal one was lying at the side of the road on the other side of the gate which was firmly closed. I wondered if this was a deliberate strategy on the part of the owners to get him to stop barking - he certainly seemed quite tranquil.
A little while later, I opened the curtains to the other window, which looks out onto my own front yard, and who should I see in my yard but the very same dog! I could not imagine how on earth he got in there, as my gate was closed and locked and I am sure he is too big to have squeezed through the tiny gap underneath. However, working on the assumption that if he found a way in he must also be able to find his way back out I went to the front door, threw it open and, in a loud and authoritative voice with appropriate accompanying arm gestures, uttered such useful phrases as "Get out!" and "Go away!" and even a terrifying "Shoo!"
He regarded me with a somewhat quizzical expression, but did not show any signs of removing himself from the premises. People have told me that throwing something at dogs is usually quite effective at getting them to go away, so I picked up one of my trainers from the shoe rack just inside the front door and hurled it across the yard at him. At this he ran down the side of the house, only to reappear again a few seconds later. At this point I realised that he had no idea how to get out, and that he was starting to get distressed, so I decided to leave him alone for a bit and go back inside to appraise the situation.
I was stuck in my house with a large and by now nervous dog between me and my locked front gate. My only option was to go back out there, unlock the gate and let him out. I waited a while and then ventured out, armed with a broom, just in case. He was eyeing me very warily and cowered against the gate as I crossed the yard. I decided a total change of tactic was needed, so I talked to him in a "You-daft-dog-how-did-you-manage-to-get-in-here-shall-we-get-this-gate-open-and-let-you-out?" sort of way. He ran out as soon as the gate was open, and returned to his spot outside his own front gate.
I began to wonder if maybe I had been unwise to upset him. After all, I have to pass his house every day, and if he was going to be on the wrong side of the gate, he might decide to take his revenge... On the other hand, I absolutely did not want him to start regarding my front yard as his territory. I had to pass him several times during the day as I went back and forth on my motorbike doing all my Saturday errands. At first, he was still looking at me with a rather nervous and wary expression, but eventually he relaxed, and when I came back from the market in the afternoon he came sniffing around my bike, wagging his tail and looking for all the world as if he might even invite himself back in. "Don't even think about it!" I said. Clearly, he either has a very short memory, or else we have now established some sort of relationship with me as dominant dog!
This morning when I opened the curtains, both dogs were back in their yard. I still have no idea how he got in to mine....

Butter wouldn't melt.... (He's the one with the brown face)

 



Musical Mayhem

Forget glue and coloured paper - today I really stirred things up. A fundamental concept in early childhood education that I have been trying to get across is the idea of the teacher as facilitator - observing children at play and finding appropriate ways to support and extend what they are doing beyond what they would have achieved on their own.
One little boy today was playing a drum, and was clearly very interested in it. I sat down with him and joined in with a tambourine, following his lead with the rhythm. After a while I gave him the tambourine and he started to play them both together. His sense of rhythm is amazing:

 

After the tambourine was stolen from under his nose by another little boy, they started to play together. They were beginning to vary the tempo of their playing, so I encouraged this by moving to their music, marching slowly on the spot and then speeding up to a fast tip-toe jog as they got faster. They thought this was fantastic and might have continued endlessly if my energy levels had been up to it!

 

 

By this time, other children were starting to take an interest, and the teacher was beginning to regard me with a certain degree of scepticism and alarm. Several other children joined in, using anything that came to hand to serve as drums and drumsticks. It did get rather noisy...

I was impressed, though, with their level of cooperation and concentration.

 

 

I suggested to the teacher that we could incorporate these children's interest in the percussion instruments into an activity with the whole class. So just before lunchtime we played some movement games and sang songs with children taking turns to lead on the percussion.

 

When the children were sleeping after lunch, we talked through the morning. I explained the method in my apparent musical madness, and encouraged the teacher to give the children further opportunities to use the instruments. I wonder if she will...



Winter in Mae Sot

While I was away last week, it seems that winter arrived in Mae Sot. Top 5 give-away signs are:

• the locals are going around in woolly hats, scarves and jumpers
• I have started sleeping under a cover
• the motorbike journey to work is chilly enough to merit a jacket
• I have turned the shower dial up a notch to have a properly hot shower in the morning
• walking barefoot on the tiled floor at home is just the wrong side of pleasantly cool, necessitating a further addition to my footwear collection:

To put all this in perspective for those of you shivering back home, daytime temperatures are still in the high 20s, dropping at night to 18-20 degrees, though the long range forecast is predicting a further fall, possibly as low as 16 at night! Then it will be socks and slippers!

I had a great week away last week with Alessandro and Antonella, friends who came to visit from UK. We spent time in and around Chiang Mai and Sukhothai, before coming back to Mae Sot at the weekend. I will do a proper write-up in due course....