Imagine me laughing hysterically. That describes yesterday, today, tomorrow and the entirety of English Camp. And only some of the laughter is from incredulity. Okay, maybe more than a little. It has been such a crazy time that I find it hard to even start at the beginning, but I will try.
So, the beginning was Tuesday night. All of my teachers had already left for English Camp, so I had the office to myself, and coincidentally all of my classes as well. My lesson plans this week were on Labor Day since I needed an easy worksheet for the substitute teachers to do. However, I did not think about teaching the class without a co-teacher. I think I did pretty well, though you try explaining what the word 'labor' means to a group of 8 year olds that don't speak much English. I called it a four hour challenge. I let my last class out ten minutes early. They were my older students and they did not mind and I was just done. Four hours in a row without a co-teacher and with a difficult lesson and I was finished.
Okay, so that was during the day. That evening, one of my farang friends took me to a French restaurant. It was beautiful. It was within walking distance (like 30 minute walk). It was so delicious that it made me tear up for most of the dinner. It had air conditioning. It was unambiguous food. Heaven. But then within an hour, I was contemplating (seriously), sleeping on my bathroom floor. I was ill for about 5 hours and it made it difficult to pack for English Camp. But I was stubborn and refused to throw up perfectly good food. I won that battle :-) Then, late that night one of my farang friends showed up. Of course, by that time we were only able to get 3-4 hours of sleep before we had to be up for the bus. The shower that night was also interesting.....The water had a mind of its own, much to our amusement. It is so funny that the water stops working when I am brushing my teeth. And even funnier when I shrug and just get my water bottle to finish brushing my teeth with. Lol.
Okay, so now it is Wednesday. Like four hours into Wednesday, but still. So my other farang friend arrived and we got on the earrrrrly bus to Bangkok (really an outskirt of it). We ended up leaving at 6am and then we arrived at 4:30pm. So just a little bit of a drive. I managed two hours of sleep before I was woken up with loud Thai karaoke (oh yeah, it was one of those buses, all the way to Bangkok, baby). Then, later I got one hour of sleep before I woke up simply because I was so hot. The air conditioning wasn't exactly broken, but it wasn't exactly working either.
But anyways, we arrive only two and a half hours late, mai pen rai. And here is where my laughing started. So by the word "resort" I was thinking hotel. Bahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! Uhhhh no! We are in floating one room cabins. With 16 mats on the floors for beds. One pillow and one blanket per bed. But air conditioning, given that you can find the breaker to turn it on. The bathroom is communal, outside, and a decent walk away. Needless to say, it was another one of those laugh or cry moments. I knew I was grumpy, hungry, very hot, and tired but when this hit......of course! So they sent the driver to get us towels so we can have showers and I share our cabin-thingy with all the other female teachers. Oh, and internet is simply wishful thinking.
So we put our stuff down, have a ten minute break and it is time to start this camp (so teaching). Yep, we had English songs and games and dances, a lot of which were done by flashlight or under the large overhang that is our Camp center. At nine that night, we finally finished, ate and sent the kids to bed.
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