It’s been a pretty quiet two weeks. Last Saturday I had a personal care day. It started with a hair cut at 9:00, which I had arranged on Friday. Because it was Saturday and I had time and needed to get the little pieces off my head, I also had it shampooed after the cut. A shampoo includes a vigorous scalp massage that was quite nice. Then I headed for a massage. I stopped at the place on the main road I’ve seen, but the door opened into a long hallway. I think the doors in the hall may have been for massage rooms, but no one was visible and it felt strange; so I went to the mall to patronize the massage place I’ve seen there. There was a one-hour wait, which was not a problem. After having a pad Thai lunch, which was also on my agenda for the day, I had a foot (up to the knee) massage. It was wonderful. It also took care of the small shoulder ache I’d had for a few days. Cost of haircut and massage: 280 bahts (about $9)
Sunday morning Khun Toy called to invite me to go with them to visit her brother in the hospital. I quickly agreed. The week before she had invited me, but I had misunderstood where they were going and thought they were going to Udon, which is about five hours away, not Det Udam, which is only an hour away. (I was tired and ready to go home and have some alone time when she asked me, and my understanding of Thai is worse than usual in such circumstances.) We laughed about that. I’m sure I’ll hear about it again. After she called, I quickly ate breakfast, as they were about twenty minutes from Ubon. Our first stop turned out to be Khun Kwan’s house, where we ate breakfast—again for me—and changed vehicles so Khun Oy could drive us to Det Udam. Khun Kwan was wearing a dress, which I’d not seen her do before and was not going with us. When I asked what she was going, I learned that she is going to weekend classes to get a Master’s degree. We dropped her off at the university on the way.
After visiting Khun Toy’s brother, which included taking him home from the hospital and hanging out a bit, we returned to Ubon and had lunch at Khun Somlan’s house. On the way there, we stopped at the market and bought fish and shrimp. When we arrived at the house, we had a cooking party. Khun Toy, Bitoy, and I cleaned the shrimp. Then it was decided that I would do the frying while Bitoy arranged the fried shrimp on the plates. The men made a delicious fish soup. In half an hour, lunch was ready. It was fun to help with the preparations, which I don’t often get to do.
This Saturday was Khun Dakom’s 65th birthday. He had planned to have dinner together but changed it to lunch, partly so I would not have to cancel my students. It was a small group consisting of Khu Kwan’s family and the usual group of good friends—me, Khun Suwit and Khun Teamjan, Khun Somlan and Khun Toy, and another good friend I’ve seen a few times. Khun Oy picked up Khun Kwan at the university so she could join us. She was wearing a dress again. I guess students in her class really dress up, unlike those in the U.S. We ate at a fancy Chinese restaurant in their small room. The room has a big TV on which the men watched Thai boxing.
We had eight different foods: a crab dish, spicy soup, spicy chicken claw skin salad, fried fish sausage, mushrooms, a special duck dish, fried rice, and a special mixture in a “bird’s nest.” The latter was delicious and had cashews, water chestnuts, mushrooms, and Chinese fruits.
The duck dish was also a special one I’d not seen before. It came as a deep fried mass with a layer of duck on the bottom and a mixture of rice and other white foods on the top. The mushrooms and duck were chosen for me. Khun Dakom had me look at the pictures and pick out what I wanted. I chose the mushrooms and said duck would be good.
School is winding down. Only one month of classes left before final exams in early March. Most of the students are done trying to learn. Attendance in 8th grade is down, and many of those who are there aren’t even trying any more. Now instead of copying their friends’ work they hand in blank papers. Even a few of the better students have stopped doing their best. Khun Toom told me that her 6th grade students, whom I have for math, have stopped studying and just want to talk about their futures and write in their friendship books. They’re still doing the work for me so far. 7th grade is still doing OK. I’ve actually noticed that a couple of the students who used to copy everything are starting to try to do the work themselves. One boy has even asked for help a few times to make sure he knows what to do. This was a nice surprise.
I remain content with my decision not to stay here another year. There have been days or moments (usually after a few good lessons, which does happen) when I think that I could teach here again and it would be easier because the students are used to me now. But I know the overall situation will not change much. The good 7th grade class will probably be divided into two classes. They are really two classes but are together because there aren’t enough students for the school to have two classes this year. But the school will take in new students for 8th grade, and the new students will be mostly those who have had problems or failed at other schools. (That happened this year, and many of the new students are the ones who are big problems in the 8th grade classes.) This will, of course, change the dynamics of the “good” class. I’m just not interested in dealing with that. Last week they changed the students’ seats so they are now separated into the two classes, one on each side of the room. I wondered if this is in preparation for dividing them into two separate classes next year.
I will miss some of the 7th grade students, though, as they’ve been a good class and they have become “mine.” It helps that Bank tells them to be quiet sometimes and translates when I tell them how “bad” they are being. It has also been good because I teach them English four hours a week instead of two because the school didn’t have enough English teachers to assign a Thai teacher to teach the class. This gives them a consistent English program instead of having one program with me for two days and a different one with the Thai teacher for two days. So they have really made progress and learned what I’ve taught.
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