Mothers' Day (8-14)

Friday was the queen’s birthday/Mothers’ Day. It’s an official holiday, but the school had a special program in the morning we had to be there for. And we were all dressed up for the occasion. Rehearsing for the program took most of the first class Tuesday and Wednesday and the first two classes on Thursday. 

The activities began at 8:30 when the monks’ praying began in the back courtyard. Mothers and students were standing at tables with their food contributions. After the chanting/praying, the food was given to the monks. People not participating in this, the Catholics, waited in the front courtyard. 

After the monks left, the other activities began. Several of the sisters came to the stage and were honored. 

Then one I didn’t recognize spoke. I learned later that she is the Mother Superior, who was at the school for the program. She gave certificates to representatives of several classes and special plaques to three teachers. Then several of the sisters came to the stage and student representatives paid respect to them. All students bowed to show respect to them and then bowed to their mothers, who were sitting on the side. 

The rest of the program was student groups singing and dancing. Toward the end of the program, food was served and most people left to eat. Since this was an official holiday and student participation was optional, only about 150 students attended. During rehearsals, students not participating hung out in their classrooms.

After the program, I met with Pim to practice her speech. We were just finishing when a few people came into the room. They announced that the Mother Superior was there, and Pim stood up immediately and started to walk out. She knew what she was expected to do. I was a little irritated at the way she was treated, although I know this is normal here, and asked if we could please finish, since we only had a little more to discuss. Kru Irene came with the group to translate for the Mother Superior and me. The topic of discussion was the behavior of the one 8^th grade class that seldom listens to me and talks and is generally disrespectful, except for several students. The Mother Superior said that the school has many problem students who can’t go to other schools and will not have a school if they don’t come to this one. Many of them live with their grandparents. These comments felt like she was making excuses for their behavior, which didn’t go over well with me, as most of the village students live with their grandparents and were not so disrespectful and also because this is the case for students in other classes at this school, as well, and they are not so disrespectful. I refrained from mentioning this.  But I did say that the problem is that they behave well for Thai teachers and sisters; it is only when I am there that they don’t behave well. When a Thai teacher or sister is in the room, they are fine. Sister Viphaporn talked to the classes last week and their behavior was better. She says she’ll follow up with this class, and I think she will, as she wants to make sure the foreign teacher is OK. It’s not the best method of classroom control, but it seems to be the only one that works with this group. Kru Irene said the students say I am strict, as if this is a reason to misbehave. I am no stricter with them than with other classes. I expect them to be mostly quiet and to do the work. I walk around and tell them to open their notebooks and write and make them get a paper if they have no notebook. I have extra paper for those who don’t have any, and my giving a student paper often ends out with a notebook showing up. Most Thai teachers do not walk around; so this may be an example of my strictness.

I was also feeling irritated because I had told Khun Kwan I would be back to go to visit her mother with them and our meeting time had passed and I didn’t know how well she understood what I had said. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to visit Khun Toy and Khun Dakom. By the time we finished, she was gone. Fortunately, when I called her, they had not yet left the city and returned to the school to get me. We had a nice lunch together, along with Khun Teamjan. It was really good to be with them again. After lunch, Bitoy presented jasmine garlands to each of us old women. I’m not sure if one was planned for me or if it was the same one given to Khun Toy, as she and Khun Dakom insisted that I be honored, too. Either way, it was a nice gesture. When the garlands are presented, the giver kneels on the floor with bowed head. The receiver puts her hands on the person’s head and says some kind words. After Bitoy finished, Khun Kwan ran over to me so I could say something to her, too. When I said something about her being my good friend, she said she is my daughter. I was really moved by this.

After lunch, we went to see Khun Toy’s daughter-in-law and new granddaughter. When we arrived, she took the baby out of the cradle. I thought she was going to hold her, as an American grandmother would, but she laid Baibua on a table and we all looked at her and watched her stretch. This was a surprise to me, as babies I’ve seen are usually in someone’s arms. Perhaps they were a little older.

The dog bite is getting better. I can now walk down stairs with my foot at a 45 degree angle instead of a 90 degree angle. And I am walking faster and have more energy. This is good, as it was a rough week. After a couple days of not feeling well—extremely tired most of the time (I slept for 9-10 hours every night and napped during free time at school.), a little nauseous sometimes, and muscle pain in the arm—I looked on the Internet to see what the side effects of the rabies injections are. I learned that my symptoms are common side effects. I had the fourth injection on Friday and am hoping that it does not have side effects. I think this is a possibility, as only the third one had so many side effects. I think this may have been a result of the accumulation of three injections in one week. There was a full week for my body to recover before injection four. The disappointing news was that I still have to go in every day to have the wound cleaned. I talked with a doctor on Sunday (an additional 50 bahts, or about $1.65), as I wanted to talk with someone who speaks English. He said it looks good and is healing all right but will take another 7-10 days. I also asked him about going to a clinic for the cleaning, and he said that would be fine. Since I’m feeling well now, I decided that I can do that if the doctor said it would be OK.

I treated myself to two new orchids on Saturday and am enjoying their beauty.

The speech competition was Sunday. I met Pim at the site in the afternoon. She had to wait in a room with students, and I sat in the hall and listened to the other speakers. Pim was number 25, the last one. She got a little nervous while practicing before her time and called me three times to read a couple paragraphs to her. She hesitated several times while speaking to remember her speech but, overall, she spoke well. Several of the presenters forgot their speeches and a few couldn’t recover. I always feel bad for them. Pim’s speech was too long, and the man in charge stopped her after five minutes so she wouldn’t lose points for going overtime. Kru Toom had told me the time was 5-10 minutes. I think she didn’t know and made that up. I planned on 7 minutes, as the time for other contests has been 5-7 minutes. I was sitting beside the judges, and the woman next to me told me that the topic “The Country” meant living in the country as opposed to the city, not the country Thailand. Almost all of the students talked about Thailand; a few talked about Ubon province in terms of the sites that are here. The man came over and talked with Pim, telling her she spoke well and explaining why he stopped her. It think she got this extra attention because I was the only foreign teacher present and she was the last presenter; so there was a little time to talk to us.

Good news of the week: We now have our work permits and extended visas. These are tied to the job and expire when the contract ends on 30 April, 2012. Wednesday morning I was told that we would go on Thursday. Then at 10:30 we were paged. So we all left our classes to meet Kru Tang. We left the school at 11:30. The first stop was lunch. The school gave Kru Toom, our driver, money for us to eat out, which was a nice treat. Then we picked up our work permits. This didn’t take long, as Kru Tang had taken the paperwork to the office on Monday and they had called to say our permits were ready. They are small booklets like a passport. Next we went to Phibun to the immigration office to get our visa extensions. We were there for an hour and a half, completing the paperwork and having our applications examined. Kru Toom had to go out to make more copies—our new work permits, departure cards, the visa extensions. The visa extension (from the initial 3 months to the end of April) cost 1900 bahts (about $60). Tony and I paid an additional 3800 baht to make it a multiple entry visa so we can leave the country and come back without having to go through the process of getting and paying for a new visa. (The single entry visa expires when one leaves the country.)

A relative of the king’s died two weeks ago; so everyone wore black and white for two weeks and the flag was flown at half mast for the mourning period. I’m not sure what her relationship to the king was. First, I was told the king’s sister had died. Later I was told that it was not his actual sister (Thais call many family members and good friends “sister.”) but the daughter of Rama 6. Maybe she was a cousin.