A picture's worth a thousand words

For anyone who knows me well, I love taking pictures. And the word love could even be an understatement. Either way, I love the quotation "A picture's worth a thousand words". The picture's below are a pretty accurate picture of the last couple weeks of my life here, though I will provide a description.

My Mattayom 6 students put on a surprise party for me the day after my birthday! It was a complete surprise until P'Mai (my co-teacher for the class and a good friend) sat me down and told me that my students didn't like me anymore and wanted a new teacher. At that point I thought something was up but I wasn't sure what. They had decorated the classroom and written notes on the board to me. They even have a class gift and cake!

My wonderful 6/2 class. Notice my sunglasses - I had an awful allergy that turned my eyes red and the students wouldn't talk or look at me unless the sunglasses were on.

Just another day in the English Office with the EP students. Most of them are Mattayom 2 (Grade 8) and they're super entertaining.

Ooh and me at our English department party! Our English director held it at his house, complete with a bbq, fruit salad, and roasted veggies. And of course, karaoke late into the night!

My Thai co-teachers and their families at the party

I adore these boys. They are in the highest level class I teach, and our English director is the father of the boy on the left, thus the reason they were at the party.

All dressed up for our Mother's day Parade last week.

A string tying ceremony at a village wat we visited this weekend with Haleys' host family.

Yup, that's a baby pig. It's called Moo Han here, which literally means 'pig turn'. It's apparently a delicacy here, cause we drove about 60 or 70 km to get this food, after eating almost all day.

Students on Suntonpoo Day. Notice the really pretty girl in the front with all the makeup? Yup, that's a ladyboy, not a girl at all! She even talked in the microphone after her dance and I couldn't tell, the students had to tell me!

More ladyboys waiting for their turn to dance

Some of my M6 boys dressed up for the special day.

We also had a recycle fashion show during Suntonpoo day and these girls were all dolled up. There were some absolutely amazing costumes.

So there you have it, a window into my life in the last few weeks. There's bound to be many more to come.

A Lesson in Time

As August 4th came and went the other day, time seemed to speed up. It marked 10 month's to the day of my time here in Thailand. On one hand, I view it as an acheivement, but on the other, it's a reminder that there's not much time left to experience everything I want to here in Thailand.  For some reason, at the 2 month mark, I feel like I've got to get ready to go and I"m not quite there yet. It seems like just yesterday I was talking to the other volunteers and we were commenting on how we 'still had 6 months left' and didn't that seem like such a long time. Even at three months, you say to yourself, 'that's an entire summer' or 'that's almost an entire fall semester at school'. But at 2 months, you're saying 'that's only 8 more weekends' or 'how in the world will I get all of my things home?'.

While I can imagine being back in the USA, I can't even fathom leaving this place. I admit that I can imagine eating a sandwich with actual deli meat and sitting in a real coffee shop with real drip coffee. I can imagine seeing friends and family that I haven't seen for over a year. I can imagine actually cooking and baking again. I can imagine going shopping! But what I can hardly bear to think about is not walking to the office every morning and being greeted by hundreds of smiling faces saying 'hello, teacher!'. I can't imagine not having conversations in broken English with the Thai English teachers every afternoon when we are finished with classes. I can't imagine not going to the night market every night to buy food and running into all of my students.

With this new overwhelming feeling of running out of time, I'm trying to take it day by day. I'm spending more time on the campus grounds than inside the office these days and I try to have more conversations with the students.  Today we had several activities on campus and I spent most of my time taking pictures. That's not to say I didn't get to experience the activities, but I want to take as many pictures as possible. My camera is on me at all times these days.

It was both Pasa Thai (Thai language) day and Suntonpoo day. Suntonpoo is a famous poet in Thailand and until today, I was unaware that the statue we have on campus is actually of this poet. He wrote famous poems and so the activities today were different classes acting out the poems. It was mostly different versions of Thai dance, though there was some more modern dancing. There were also a couple fashion shows - one showcasing outfits made from recycled material...there were some amazing costumes. The other one was a fashion show/ beauty pageant of the lady boys. They were decked out in full evening wear and 5 inch heels and wigs. It's amazing how different they view things like that here in Thailand. In any case, it was an awesome day.  We also have about 8 different volleyball teams staying here on campus (in classrooms) for a volleyball tournament we are hosting. Apparently there are 16 provinces involved, and I've been told that most students will probably skip classes tomorrow to go watch it.

This weekend brings some fun festivities - tomorrow night we are having a party with the English department at my English directors house complete with a menu we created and karaoke. Afterwards, it's Kate's birthday celebration here in the city of NKP. I've also picked up a couple of students for tutoring and while I'm not always that happy to plan for these extra lessons or lose time on the weekends, I find that I really enjoy them once I'm there. One session is a couple here in NKP and they are judges at our provincial hall. They've got three dogs and are expecting a baby in December. The other are two girls, one of whom is the daughter of the copy woman at our school.  Next week we've got a three day week and then Thursday is Mothers day, or the Queen's birthday. Originally I was headed to Bangkok, but I'm leaning more towards staying and hanging out in Nakhon Phanom. So we'll see.

Pictures on the way. Until next time!

A Weekend in Laos

As the rainy season really starts, monks begin a three month "rain retreat" called Khao Phansa or Buddhist Lent. The lent begins around late July and goes until the 15th of October.  During these three months, monks meditate and study. They do not leave the temple grounds, contrary to the rest of the year when they are free to travel. I have seen monks out and about, whether at the market or just on the road, so I'm not sure of the exact rules. I've also been told that some Buddhist monks these days are not as traditional as in years past, so some of the stricter rules don't apply. Traditionally, monks were made to stay in the temples for three months so that they would not trample the rice paddies, as this is the premier time for harvesting rice. Thai people get up early on the days that Buddhist lent begins to make merit and give the monks food. This three month time period is also seen as a time of spiritual rejuvenation.

Tha Kaek, Laos

While the Thai people were making merit and getting ready for Khao Phansa, I went to Laos with 6 of the other volunteers. We were able to experience the holiday there as well, for much of Laos is Buddhist. The temples had decorations and had traditional songs playing all day on Monday, July 26th, starting at 5:00 am. We only had 4 days to travel, so we spent our time in Vientienne (Vienjan in Thai), which is actually the capital of Laos, though you wouldn't know it after spending time there. It is a very slow moving capital, very quaint with remnants of the French occupation. There are bakery's on every corner, as well as street vendors that sell baguettes. There is also a huge about of Beer Lao, the countries national Beer. It's pretty good, but they don't sell it here in Thailand, or at least not in our area. I've heard that it isn't sold here because people would buy that instead of the local Thai beer, Chang or Leo.

Amazing food - real coffee and sandwiches with cheese!!

Our trip started out with a bus ride from Nakhon Phanom to Udon Thani on Friday afternoon. We picked up Val and Trish on the side of the road - I was afraid we would pass them - and arrived in Udon about 5 hours late.r The border crossing is in Nong Khai province (directly north of Udon) but we couldn't get there with the timing of our buses. Upon arrival in Udon, we immediately set out to go to McDonalds and Swensen's ice cream. (I held out for some traditional Thai noodles). The main city in Udon is quite a bit bigger than NKP, so it was a treat for sure. On Saturday, our travels took us to Vientienne, but not hassle free. Traveling never seems to be as easy as guidebooks say it will be. Despite all of us being well traveled in SE asia over these past 10 months, we fell victim to a Visa scam as we tried to cross the border.  Our tuk-tuk's brought us to a 'visa agency' and we decided to go with it. It must have taken twice as long to cross the border and our van driver was not happy with us. Perhaps as a result of the fact that we were not happy with getting scammed. In any case, I felt like the ugly American for a couple hours but I also felt justified as we DID get scammed. Of course, we finally make it into Laos, and the Immigration counter is at lunch. Sooo we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Eventually we made it through the gate and into Laos!

At a Mexican restuarant for our first dinner in Laos

It didn't feel that different from Thailand, but it did have goats. I have yet to see a goat in Thailand. We stayed at a guesthouse called Mixay Guesthouse - Paradise. It was the 2nd building of an older Mixay Guesthouse and had only been opened for 2 weeks. It was wonderful though, and the staff was great. It seemed like there were more staff than guests, but they were some of the sweetest people and were always willing to help. Our time in Laos was relaxing and we only did one really touristy thing. I would have liked to see more of Vientienne, but I'm glad we relaxed the way we did. There are many other cities I would have loved to visit, so I'm sure I'll be back! We did rent motorbikes (automatic) and drive about 30 k outside of Vientienne to a buddha park. It turned out to be quite the interesting trip, complete with rain/ hail storms and flat tires. None of us brought any sort of rain gear and literally just as we are starting our journey, it starts drizzing. We tried to outrun the storm, but failed miserably. We were soaked through and about half of the ride was spent in pouring rain. The ride back was nice and sunny though, so sunny that I was pretty sunburnt when we returned to the hostel! The buddha park was really interesting, if not a bit strange. The Lao name is Xieng Khuan and it was built by Luang Pu (venerable Grandfather). It's a sculpture garden that consists of over 200 Hindi and Buddhist statues. The two main things are a reclining buddha that's over 40 meters long, and a giant pumpking that depicts Earth, Heaven, and Hell on the inside in three different levels. You can actually climb to the top of the pumpkin and you get a pretty awesome view of the whole park.

We went bowling!

On Tuesday, three of us (Kate, Haley, and I) had to head back to Nakhon Phanom as we all had to teach the following day. The rest of the volunteers had the whole week off. We though all would be well as we were catching a bus from Vientienne at noon to get to Tha Kaek (Lao town direction across the river from NKP) and from there, we were going to take the ferry over to Thailand. It was a pretty nice bus, 'VIP', comfortable reclining seats, with about 50 poeple on it. Well, about an hour and a half into our journey, our bus broke down. Like, bigtime broke down - the engine stopped working. We probably stayed on the bus for about 15 minutes, thinking and hoping that the bus would start again, but no can do. Everyone was standing around for a while, or going to the bathroom in the woods, and eventually poeple just started sitting down. I'm proud to say I lay down and almost took a little nap - the road was a liittle too rough though. One of the guys on the bus threw down a mat (almost like we were having a picnic) and emptied two bags of mints onto it for us to have while we waited.  About two hours into our 'picnic', these women appear literally out of nowhere selling drinks and local Isaan/Lao food. Of course, we jumped on this opportunity and bought some bbq meat and sticky rice, soymilk and coke. yummy. At about the 2.5 hour mark, the bus was fixed! Spare parts had been driven down from Vientienne and we were on our way. We didn't make the deadline for the ferry though, and ended up spending the night in Tha kaek.

The ferry the next day was about as eventful as our bus ride. I actually thought Haley was going to fall out of the boat a few times. There was a hose jury rigged inside the boat to get the excess water out. And it was absolutely pouring rain. I might add that the wood slats on teh bottom of the boat were almost all broken as well. But we crawled on in and fit about 20 people in that little boat and headed back to Thailand.

Haley's 'french toast' which was really toast and two eggs....

Crossing over to Thailand

Nakhon Phanom from across the river!!

A couple things I've recently found out:

1. It is rude to throw something at a student, such as a marker or a ball. In Thai culture, they see this behavior as fitting for a dog or other animals, so if you do this, you are actually treating that person like a dog. I can't count the number of times I've tossed a whiteboard marker to a student to write something on the board....

2. In conservative Thai areas (such as the one I live in) black is reserved only for funerals. So to wear a black shirt during the workday or to an event is rude.  Now, most of what I own these days is black and since skirts here tend to be more colorful, my outfit generally consists of a flowery skirt and a black top. A Thai teacher told me this on Friday and when I asked when it took 10 months for someone to bring this to my attention, she said she didn't know how to tell me. I think I'm gonna be buying some new work shirts. I also must confess that I wore black to Angkor Wat, in Cambodia. While I was walking around, this woman stopped dead in her tracks, pointed at me, and started laughing. I didn't know why and was a little offended to say the least. Guess it was the black outfit thing.

3. It is inappropriate to cross your legs (like when you are sitting in a chair) when the Director is speaking. Again, something I do all the time, as I always viewed it as more appropriate to cross your legs. When I thought about it, I did remember students telling me to sit differently, but I never knew why. Guess this is it!

4. When you suspect that someone has been possessed by a ghost or has come into contact with a ghost, you must cover your eyes and stick out your tongue. My school thought I was posessed by the Thai ghost 'Pee Pob' this week, as severe allergies caused some bruising/ bleeding in my eyes. It was interesting to say the least, and after several days, both annoying and hurtful. I'm sure it will be a funny story in years to come, but as a foreigner who didn't quite understand these things, it was difficult to just grin and bear it.  It did prompt me to look into Thai ghosts though, so more on that later.

More pictures on their way

Long Overdue - Vietnam Travels

I'm pretty sure I mentioned that I would get these pictures up about 2 months go...oops...but better late than never, right?

Vietnam was both wonderful and a little stressful.  Traveler's had mentioned that you either 'love it or hate it'.  I'm not sure that's true as I would say I experienced both loving Vietnam and really resenting it. Caitlyn, Matt, Steph and I met up in Bangkok and flew to Vietnam very early the next day. Our flight was pretty uneventful, if I remember correctly. I think we were all a little shocked when we left the airport in Hanoi (after a visa delay that we never truly figured out) because everything was sooo green. It was beautiful and not at all what I expected, though I can't really describe what I thought Vietnam would look like. Thailand was in the middle of their dry/ hot season and there wasn't much green around, especially in Bangkok. Vietnam looked like a different world.

Cau Lau (local vietnamese dish)

Vietnamese Coffee = awesome

Matt and Caitlyn waiting for their Pho - Vietnamese noodles

We managed to get to our Hostel in Hanoi, Hanoi Backpacker's Hostel, on a Sunday afternoon to find out that they had a free beer promotion on Sunday from 5 pm until the kegs ran out! Perfect. In any case, we set off to explore the city a little and then came back to the hostel to relax and meet people. It was a bustling hostel with people everywhere. I happen to like these places best while traveling as it's the best way to meet people and get travel tips, etc. The four of us decided to do a 3 day tour in Halong Bay with our hostel which turned out to be amazing. Halong Bay is on the coast of Vietnam, about 3 hours from Hanoi, and is a World Heritage Site. It covers about 1500 square km and is made up of about 1960 limestone islands. We spent a day and a night aboard a big wooden boat, sort of like a tiny cruise ship for 20 people. Then the next day, us and 4 others got onto a little boat to take us to 'Castaway Island', where we stayed for a day and a night. The third day was spent on the boats getting back to mainland Vietnam. It was gorgeous and unlike anything I had really seen before. We got to go sea kayaking, explore some caves, swimming, and rock climbing.

Our boat for one day and one night 

 Halong Bay

Top deck of the boat 

Castaway Island

Local floating markets in Halong Bay

 Sea Kayaking

Our beds on Castaway Island!

 rock climbing buddies!

Halong Bay, exploring caves

After Hanoi and Halong Bay, we decided to head down to Hoi An. It's about halfway to Ho Chi Minh city, which was our final destination. We had planned on taking the sleeper trains as they were supposed to be super comfortable and relatively cheap buut things like Vietnamese holiday's got in the way of those plans. We found out that our first class train tickets were unavailable and we would have to take 2nd class. Well, we figured it was no big deal and could just deal with it. Then we found out that actually, no trains were available, so we'd have to take the sleeper bus. Still, figured that was okay. Of course we then found out that in fact there weren't any sleeper buses and we would have to take the sitting bus for about 12 hours. Wonderful. We've done that plenty of times in Thailand though, so I thought it would be fine. I was very wrong. We had bought our tickets from our hostel instead of through the bus company or a travel agency. This meant we were regarded as less than those people who bought from the bus company. We were unable to pick our seats or even say anything about what was going out and were banished to the back of the bus. I have to admit, I hardly remember this bus ride but it wasn't comfortable. We stopped along the way in Hue, which we hadn't known about and then had to wait there for 3 hours until we got our bus to our actual destination. In all, it took us 2 buses 24 hours to get from Hanoi to Hoi An.  Hue is supposed to be a great place to visit, but I was not in the mood to appreciate it.

market in Hanoi

Market in hoi an

Above the market in Hoi An

Hoi An was great, very quaint and peaceful. After our bus ordeal though, we didn't really want to walk around finding a hotel so we just got rooms at the first one we could. We drew straws and Caitlyn and I got the basement room while Matt and Steph got the 2nd floor room (complete with wireless internet!). During our two day stay in Hoi An, Caitlyn and I roomed with cockroaches and saw rats scurrying around outside our door. We also had a window that opened up to a brick wall. It was just a couple of those days where nothing seemed to go right. But, of course, it's all a part of traveling. I will say that I loved the city and would go back in a heartbeat if I could. It's a little tough to get to from where I am now though. Perhaps one day.

sleeper bus!

Next on the itinerary was Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and we managed to score tickets on the sleeper bus this time! It was absolutely amazing.  I have never seen anything like these buses before. It's a 'normal' sized bus with three rows and two stories of actual BEDS! you got a blanket and a little pillow and were able to aly down almost completely flat. It was paradise. For some reason though, the bus manager guy had it out for me. I'm not sure what I did, but I think I offended him and he just yelled at me in Vietnamese for a while. All the other people on the bus were trying to help me out and told me to just move seats, but it wasn't the most comfortable of situations. Then every time we were at a rest stop (these buses stop about every 3 hours for food or bathrooms, even at night), he would yell at me to get back on the bus. Again, couldn't tell you why. I was glad when we arrived at our destination. It was something like a 16 hour trip becuase we took the bus overnight from Hoi An to Nha Trang (which again, was a surprise) and arrived at about 5 am. Then we had another bus from Nha Trang to HCMC that left around 7 am.  Nha Trang looked awesome and I wish we had had more time there. We arrived super early in the morning and I looked at the street at there were just thousands of people flocking to the beach! I thought it was some sort of road race or holiday or something and was literally blown away. I looked it up online later and found out that no, this is just what happens every morning in Nha Trang. The whole city wakes up and goes to the beach to swim or play soccer and then heads back to go to school or work, all before 6 or 7 am.

Sunrise in Nha Trang

People exercises on the beach at 6 am!

Really, the beach was packed. crazy.

Ho Chi Minh city was great too and we spent more time learning historical information about Vietnam than just sightseeing and shopping. We went to the war remnants museum which was pretty well done and also very sad. There were a bunch of photography exhibits that were pretty tough to walk through.  One of the major differences between museums here and back in the USA is that almost nothing was encased or locked up. So you had these old missiles on display just laying out in the open. Someone actually knocked one off the display and it rolled around the floor making a ton of noise (everyone ducked, myself included...) until a guard came and hauled it back to it's place in the display. 

Post office in Saigon

We also walked by the Reunification Palace a few times and went to a few of fair-trade stores. They had beautiful things in Vietnam.  Okay, so I did still do a fair amount of shopping...

Fall of Saigon poster...we missed the anniversary by just a few days

Oprah House

(lack of) Adult Supervision

This morning I looked out my window to see two of the boys on the volleyball team hanging out next to the girls' bathrooms, which are a mere 50 feet from my house. This isn't that unusual, as the girls' bathrooms are a hangout for many students before, during, and after class.  However, the boys that hang out in this area are generally the ladyboys who say 'ka' (for women) instead of 'krap (for men) and identify more as a girl. After I notice the kids, Kara comes to my door asking if I've got any food, as the boys are hungry....

This year, our school has decided to have a first class volleyball team, which means we had to recruit students from other schools. Since we weren't here this time last year, I'm not sure if the volleyball team is a new thing, or if we are just improving upon the old one. In any case, there are about 20 boys who have been recruited for this team who live on campus in a classroom - with no adult supervision. I believe the coach is supposed to be around, but even so, he is only one guy for 20 students, aged 13 - 18.  Some weekends he is away for one reason or another, sometimes traveling to Bangkok and getting back mid-week. While this seems utterly unthinkable in the USA, it's fairly common here. So much of the time you see small children taking care of even smaller children. If they 5 year old is the oldest of a family of three, that 5 year old will be taking care of their younger siblings while the parents work, eat, or even nap. They will watch out for the kids, get them ready for dinner, feed them, and even go as far as going out to buy food. A lot of young kids here are already selling food on the side of the road at their families establishment.  There is a food stand near my house that I go to fairly often and the 8 or 9 year old is always counting out the money and getting me what I need. As far as I have seen, it seems to work out well enough. Adult supervision just isn't something that is a priority here, but the kids don't know any different so they all work together to make sure everyone is okay.

Usually, this lack of supervision works, and it works well here in Thailand. However the two boys this morning demonstrated how hard it can be sometimes. They are the youngest of the group of boys living on campus and were either left behind  or didn't want to hang out with the older boys, who left campus for most of the day. I guess their old coach has come to campus and is trying to recruit the boys to go back home. In theory, this sounds okay. In reality, the boys are pretty scared of this coach and spent most of the morning hiding from his as they were afraid he would hit them. They wandered over to our place at around 1:00, driven by hunger since they had no money and no way to get any food. I had tutoring, but Kara and I were able to scrap together enough food to give them a decent lunch. She stayed with them until she had to head out later, and they told her that it was okay, they would just hide somewhere else on campus.

What's sad about this situation is that it's unlikely to change. The kids are away from home for the first time, living in a classroom, and being sort of stalked by their old coach. Of course, all of this has been spoken in thai and then translated into English so I'm sure there are some things that are lost in translation. I was under the impression that the school was trying to find an actual house for the kids, but that could take any amount of time. In the meantime, I suppose our house (kara's and mine) will be a sort of safe place for them, assuming we are home. It's these kinds of things that are so different from life back home and we get used to because they seem to work okay, until they don't.

Wai Kru (Teacher Appreciation Day)

 With two of the English teachers before the ceremony

Today marked the day that all students acknowledge what their teachers do for them, here in Thailand. It was about an hour and a half ceremony in which students recited several buddhist prayers, sang songs dedicated to the teachers, and presented them with these flower displays that they made themselves. It's been an ongoing project for most of the week with my M.6 students preparing the actual ceremony and students from every class helping to create the offerings. Instead of having morning assembly today, we started off the ceremony at 8 am, raising the flag and saying the normal prayers. All of us teachers had seats (in the shade of course) and the student representatives from each class stood behind us. They were meant to carry their offerings and present them to the directer/ older teachers. First the M.1 students lined up to offer their flower displays (I'm not sure what they are called in Thai) and they had a certain way to sit and bow in front of the teachers taht I didn't quite pick up on. I was, of course, wandering all around taking pictures, esp as many of my students had helped to set up the whole thing. Once the flowers were offered and received, the students 'walked' to the end of the procession (on their knees), and M.6 students took the offerings and placed them on tables behind the teachers.

Raising the flag every morning 

two of my M.6 students and their offerings 

M.1 students to start off the ceremony

Kneeling before the Po'ow (Director)

When all this was finished, going through each grade seperately, there were prizes for the best display. The prizes consisted of bags or tins of cookies, and like in many competitions, all students received some sort of prize. Afterwards, the students seemed to be dispersing and those that had extra roses or incense or something went off to find the teacher they wished to honor for the day. I'm happy to say I got a few roses - but from students I don't teach...hmm. To further wai kru day, the students all had strings for the string tying ceremony. We didn't actually do the string tying ceremony with these students with the official singer and all, but we did say things like 'out with the bad, in with the new', 'good luck and good fortune', 'happiness and success', which is what they say in Thai. You brush the strings over the wrists and then tie them while the student holds up one hand. I'm not sure exactly why this is done or how it truly originated but we do it fairly often.

M.6 with their prize cookies

String tying in the office

I had been informed yesterday that M.4 students had 'camp' Thursday, Friday, and Saturday but I didn't know that they first had a party! M.1 students and M.4 students are considered to be new students at the beginning of the school year. M.1 has come from another school and M.4 are now in the 'upper' school. So they had an initiation of sorts this morning after the wai kru ceremony, which just turned into this massive party. Again, M.6 was in charge of organizing most of it so I spent most of my day in the grand hall with the students. We did the official string tying ceremony here and it was chaos of hundreds of students trying to find certain teachers to tie the string on their wrist. All of a sudden the karaoke came on and some of the M.6's started singing some popular Thai songs. It was incredible. All attention turned towards the stage and all of a sudden everyone was jumping up and down. The teachers told me it was a mini concert for the kids -while I was loving it and having a great time watching it all, they were grimacing with the noise. I got to take a lot of pictures with the kids and then there were a couple dance performances. Again, my students. With the language barrier, it's hard for me to find out anything about my students, but with activities like this, I get to see who is involved in which clubs, etc. Some of my M.6 students and some of my more mischevious M.4 students are involved in the "A Two High's Crew" which is a break dancing group. They were great, and I realized I've seen them practicing before. I never thought it was an organized thing though. The students went wild when the group came on stage and were enthralled for about 10 minutes. Lunch came next and school returned to normal for the most part. I still didn't have any classes as M.4 is involved in this bootcamp and yet again, M.6 is running it.

The B Boy break dancing 'crew'! Mostly M.4 and M.6

More M.6 students - some of them were too shy to look at the camera

And M.6 again 

The 'altar' that's part of the official string tying ceremony

'Blessing' some students - 'out with the old, in with the new'

Dancin time

M.4 students

The bootcamp seems to consist of a lot of chanting and reciting, but other than that, I don't quite understand it. It reminds me of our HS lock in, but where we had fun and games, these students are being drilled by actual soldiers. It's three days and the students sleep on campus, wake up at 5 am, and then do bootcamp activities until about 11 pm. Just a few minutes ago I had about 6 students come to my house to use my shower as 500 students have an hour to shower in the few bathrooms on campus. Or something like that. I'm planning on checking the whole thing out tomorrow as I will have a light classload.

 We had a heavy thunderstorm this afternoon and the students took this as an oppurtunity to p
lay in the rain - who wouldn't? It started off with the boys just running through and then turned into this pushing competition.

M.1 EP students running from the rain. Most of the students were soaked by the time they were meant to go home - the storm came from out of nowhere and most were in the field or at the benches hanging out.

Classes this semester are going wonderfully - lots of singing and games but I feel like I'm teaching at a different school. It's been fun getting to know the M.6 students and hopefully we'll start having class again on a regular basis...even so, it's an improvement from last semester!