It’s been a pretty quiet and uneventful two weeks. Last week began with a mass for Mothers’ Day at school on Monday. This took all of the first class. It was interesting in that it used modern, jazzy music instead of the traditional songs. All of it was recorded. The other foreign teachers did not attend, but I feel that, if an event is for the whole school, I/we should participate. It was a good way to have some quiet time.
I started going to the clinic instead of the hospital to have the dressing on the dog bite wound changed daily. Sometimes it’s very busy and I was there for an hour; sometimes I was there for only twenty minutes. One evening I was finished after 15 minutes and then waited another half hour to pay. I was glad I hadn’t gone earlier when I didn’t feel well and was totally exhausted after school, as waiting for an hour would have been difficult.
Service was good. Staff are employees at hospitals. I don’t know if they are earning a bit of extra money or if this is part of their assignment. The only people who were the same each day were the women taking money. After a few days, it was known who I was and why I was there. I saw three doctors and all spoke English well. Because I only needed the nurse, I didn’t always have to wait in line. The second day I saw the attending doctor. When she pressed lightly on red area around the wound, I winced. Since this meant it was infected, she put me on antibiotics again. I’d seen a doctor two days earlier at the hospital and it didn’t hurt when he touched it, but it was red. By the end of the week, I could see that it looked better, but the doctor said I still needed to go in daily for a few days. Finally, on Thursday the scab came off when the nurse cleaned it. She called the doctor over, and he pronounced it healed and said I don’t have to return. This was good news. I bought a jelly doughnut and a cream doughnut to celebrate. Not the same as a brownie or some good ice cream, but the best of what’s available in the local market. I also ate some good dark chocolate from the U.S. after dinner. That night I enjoyed my first shower since the bite during which I didn’t have to keep my leg dry.
Friday I returned to the hospital for the last rabies injection. I took Hershey’s minis to the office to celebrate. Nothing like good American chocolate.
I’m walking to school and home again this week for the first time. I walked one day last week when Kru Oy was out of town, and it completely exhausted me. I took a song taew the next days. Last Friday I noticed that my foot was pointing forward most of the time when I went down the stairs. This was a change that let me know it was almost healed. Monday I realized that I was walking almost at a normal pace. By Thursday everything was normal. As my body has healed, some of my energy has returned. I’m feeling pretty good these days. This is good in general and also because I’ve been giving unit tests and don’t have the new units planned. I now feel like I have the energy to do that.
One morning the dog owner saw me walking to school and picked me up on her motorcycle. She probably regrets that, as I took the opportunity to tell her I want 4000 more bahts (about $120). I’d been waiting until I was finished with the treatment so I would know the total cost and not have to keep going back and asking for more money. I also thought I’d wait until next week when pay day is. I’ll need to have someone take me there because I won’t walk there again and it would be good to have someone to translate so she understands why it is so much. But the opportunity presented itself; so I took it. She talked about why she doesn’t have the money. I told her it was OK that she didn’t have it that day, but I would return next week. Eventually, she said something about next month, which is next week. I’ve been told by a few people that it is customary for the dog owner to pay, but I wonder if she thinks she doesn’t have to because I’m foreign. So we’ll see what happens.
Friday we didn’t have class because there were special activities about environment for students all day. At 8:45 that morning, we were told we had an assignment. It is irritating when they don’t bother to let us know in advance; they planned the event Tuesday. Students went to nine different posts where a forest department person spoke. There were two teachers at each post to watch. The two Thai teachers with me left after ten minutes. I could see that my presence was contributing nothing, as students all sat quietly and listened and there was another teacher there; so I left after the first group, as I had work to do.
Classes were good this week, meaning that were mostly quiet and did what I told them to do. This was a definite improvement. I did walk out on one class Monday when they didn’t even stop talking when I entered and tried to start the lesson. I stuck it out for half of the class until they copied answers and handed me their papers and then continued talking. They were good the next two times I saw them.
I do get frustrated with this attitude and system in which all that matters is that they have a good grade, not that they are learning anything while they copy. Sister Viphaporn told me last week that I have to make sure everyone has a passing grade and that some of my grades need to be adjusted accordingly. (We turn in our record books each month. Since I didn’t know that until last month, it was the first they saw any grades.) Again, it doesn’t matter that the grades mean nothing. It only matters that the government and parents think the students are learning.
No comments:
Post a Comment