Misc. and more

Well the semester is winding down! We only have two weeks left :-( I gave out my first ever tests this week and it was super teacher-y! I feel like the past couple weeks we have been doing super fun things, like Chinese New Year celebrations, Valentine's Day hearts and a ton of my 6th grade classes have been canceled because they are being tutored for a huge test to get into high school. So this week was way more serious than usual!
I'll break the past couple weeks down a bit...

Chinese New Year:
The Friday that we got back from Cambodia was our school's celebration of Chinese New Year.  In the morning at assembly the Chinese teachers (who are Thai but teach Chinese, of course) led the students in some songs, kids were walking around in "Chinese" masks and outfits, and offerings for the New Year.  Then we heard some distant drumming and people ran in, set off fireworks everywhere, put on a show with dragons and then ran out! It was quite a whirlwind! And since the New Year lasts for a week they ran around Phrae setting off fireworks at random times during the day, many times waking us up thinking people were being shot! Crazy Thai people. The rest of the day though was really fun and the kids were so excited to celebrate!

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders went to different stations, tasting teas, making Chinese masks, and good luck bracelets.  The 4th, 5th and 6th graders put on different performances in the afternoon and sang and danced their hearts away! It was pretty fun!

Our Chinese New Year celebration begins with a bang!

Cute little Book!

Two of my 6th Grade boys, K and Poom, yes both are boys under those masks!

 Amanda, my co-teacher Kru Yui and Me!

Valentine's Day:

The students have been asking us about Valentine's Day since Halloween! They were super excited to make Valentine's Day cards, hearts to put around the room, and anything else V-Day related!

We taught them the song "Skidamarink" at assembly, which they thought was hilarious! 

 I had my 6th graders cut out hearts and fill it with things they love, decorate it and then we hung them all around the room.  They were so funny,

"I love iPad." "I love Girlfriend." "I love Ben 10."

My students were super excited to tell me everyone's girlfriends and boyfriends, which I was all too happy to gossip with them about! I have never seen my students get so into coloring and drawing, they are usually "too cool." You just gotta make them color for their gfs and bfs! 

Then the little kids gave us flowers, TONS of stickers, and some little treats! They were so sweet! 

We were all definitely all LOVING our students by the end of Valentine's week!

A 6th grade girl's Valentine to her BF

"Dear Jump?

Happy Valentine's Day, I love you.

Miss you, I love you, Only you, xoxo

Love, Form"

Me, Kate and Soddy at assembly!

Poom from 6/3 makin a Valentine!

Chiang Rai:

This past weekend we decided to go to Chiang Rai since some of the other newcomers haven't been before.  Amanda, Leah, and Mimi took off Friday and went on a trek in the mountains. The rest of us met Nick and Al in the city and did a bunch of different things! We went to the Black House, which is the house of a Thai artist that was SO weird. It had animal fur, snake skin, and skulls everywhere. 

I also went back to the White Temple with Kate, Soddy, Brandon and Nick and Al.  It was still as beautiful and as magical as ever!

The next day, Kate, Brandon and I decided to go visit some hill tribes! I have been wanting to do this for awhile so I was really excited that we were finally able to do it! We booked a tour through our hostel and it ended up being a personal tour with a guide who is from the Yellow Lahu tribe in Pai! It was so cool! He knows a ton of different languages and many different dialects.  In one instance we were moving from the Akha tribe to the Karen Longneck tribe switching between dialects and he would constantly be speaking to both tribes in both dialects! It was really amazing to see! While at the Akha and Karen tribes, Kate and I bought some rings that they usually use to wear around their necks.  We were interested to learn that they start when they are 5 years old and add a ring every year until their are at 25 rings! The highest number of rings is 28 and they are highly respected women in the tribes.  The tradition started because of a legend about tigers coming into the mountains and biting the necks of the women.  They didn't think the women could protect themselves so they put the rings on to protect them. Even though they are called long necks, their necks aren't getting longer, the rings are incredibly heavy, so it pushes on the sternum bones and pushes their shoulders down! Less and less are doing it and more and more are going to college so we felt lucky that we saw some that still had rings on.  What is kind of sad is that if they ever choose to take the rings off the women are not able to hold up their heads because those muscles have not been used! So crazy! 

They let us try on some neck bracelets to see how it feels and they were HEAVY!

Brandon doing weights with them

Kate lookin fab

Kids from the Akha Tribe helped us up a steep hill.  They were so cute and liked playing with our hair

A man from the Karen tribe and his home made guitars, so cool.

the leader of the Lahu Tribe pouring us some tea

So happy!

Cremation of the Head Monk:

On Tuesday we were told that we needed to wear a white shirt and black skirt to school because a monk had died and there was going to be some celebration for him.  We had no idea how big of a deal it really was! The teachers told us about a ceremony that would happen on Wednesday night and that the Princess of Thailand was coming! Of course, we were all intrigued. We headed over around 8:30 (it was supposed to start around 9) and woah it was already super packed! This nothing park had been converted into a stadium with this in the middle:

There were also monks everywhere and they were chanting over the loudspeakers. We all kind of split up and Mimi, Amanda and I ended up right by the monk headquarters, if you will. Different monks chanted for about an hour or so when suddenly fireworks started going off! There are some on strings that shoot all around the park, ones that come out of the elephant/dragon's nose and huge ones right above us that I am sure were not regulated! lol so Thailand. The last one ended on the Stupa by the elephant/dragon and it started burning.  Eventually the WHOLE stage burned. Not just that little pagoda with the monk's body but the elephant/dragon and everything around it eventually burned to the ground! At one point Thai people were running away because the flames were so high and the the fire was so hot...it got a little scary for a second! 

Monks taking some pics

 SO many fireworks!

The stupa on fire

 EVERYTHING on fire!

We ran into one of the teachers from our school, Teacher Tiantong and she told us a little bit more about what we had just seen.  The monk was the Head Monk of the North and he was from Phrae. He was 95 years old and the Princess came in the afternoon with "fire from the King" and then left. :-( This is the first time there has ever been a cremation of a monk in Phrae so this was very exciting for our town. Tiantong said this was the first time she had seen it so we felt lucky to be a part of it.  Here is a video that one of our teachers shot, it's kinda long but interesting!

I know this was a long one but SO much has happened! Thanks for everyone who made it through!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from 1/1!!!

The Kingdom of Cambodia

Just got back from Cambodia! It was quite an adventure! Mel, Kate, Mimi, Amanda and I headed down on the night bus on Sunday night to Bangkok.  When we arrived at 4:30 am, we headed straight for immigration to apply for our re-entry permits.  It didn't open until 8:30 am so we waited in the coffee area and all found out at the same time that we got our E-VISAs into Cambodia! We had applied online for visas on Friday and were really nervous we weren't going to hear back in time before we got to the border.  This was, again, all very last minute! We found a printing center and then waited in line for our permits.  (We have to get permission from Thailand to leave and reenter on our visas)  After everything was in order, we headed back to the bus station and caught a noon bus to the border of Cambodia! The border was INSANE! We had read about scammers, which was why we got our visa prior to arriving, but they were like vultures! We finally found a taxi at a semi reasonable price and headed into Siem Reap.  The whole trip, night bus to immigration center to the border to Siem Reap took 24 hours! But it was worth it! This was my first time out of Thailand in almost nine months and I was so ready to see a little something new!

Getting my re-entry permit into Thailand!

From one Kingdom to another!

We slept in the next day but then headed straight  for Angkor Wat where we bought a three day pass.  A tuk tuk drove us around from temple to temple until sunset and the temples closed.  I was really excited, because Mel and I had watched a documentary about Angkor Wat so I felt a little more informed about what I was seeing. One fun fact, it is not just the quintessential temple that everyone thinks of, it is actually made up of hundreds of temples and is the largest religious monument in the world! It was constructed in 40 years by King Suryavarman II as a mausoleum for himself in the 1200s. Engineers say it would take 300 years to complete today! Crazy! It is mostly Hindu but with some Buddhist images when Cambodia would change their main religion.

We started at some of the lesser known temples, Preah Khan being one of them! It is interesting because it is built half Buddhist and half Hindu for four different Gods.  The jungle is overtaking this temple and it has not been restored as much as others so it is cool to see the natural deterioration of this ancient temple.

Note: I played Indiana Jones where ever I could, it was a very "Indy" place! This is me swinging on a vine, a la Indy.

The next morning we woke up at 4 am and left for the temples at 4:30 to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat! We had heard extremely mixed reviews about whether to do it or not, whether it was worth it or not, but seriously, why not?! We walked across the moat and into the Angkor Wat complex.  We were one of the first groups there and found great seats by the pond outside of the Wat.  Our friend had come for the sunrise the morning before and told us the sun rises to the right of it so we knew exactly where to go.  We got some coffees from some nearby stands and waited eagerly to see the sun rise! And you know what? It was totally worth it! It was my favorite part of the whole trip. We were all huddled together taking a million pictures of every different aspect of the sun rising and it was beautiful! One of those once in a lifetime experiences that I will never forget. 

Look, ma! I made it!

The gang, Amanda, Mel, Me, Kate, and Mimi!

We had a little breakfast and then headed over to Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom is made up of a bunch of temples, my favorite out of all of them being Bayon! It has 216 faces carved into it and is seriously beautiful! I walked around and stared at it for hours.  It was hands down my favorite.

Can you make out all of the faces?

Lovin' it.

So cool.

After Bayon, we headed home for a nap and lunch.  Then it was back out again! We went straight to Ta Prohm, where Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was filmed! It is most famous for this and for the trees that are now growing around and within the temples.  

Tomb Raiders.

Famous Angelina Jolie tree!

The next day we visited more temples and said goodbye to Angkor Wat! :-( It was quite an experience! The next day we got on a bus to the capitol city of Phnom Penh! This was really neat because we got to see the Cambodian countryside and the differences between Thailand and Cambodia.  Let's just say, when we arrived back in Bangkok the next week, we were all super surprised at how CLEAN it was. Bangkok is not known for it's cleanness. 

I havent talked much yet about how Cambodia itself was, it was very eye opening, to say the least.  It is definitely the poorest country I have ever been to.  There are piles of trash everywhere. Wherever you walk children are begging to buy their bracelets, women want you to buy their scarves and men are yelling "Hey lady, tuk tuk!" They were relentless. The whole country is still recovering from the horrific genocide that the Khmer Rouge inflicted on it's people in the 70's. I didn't know that much about it before so I watched a documentary about it and read as much as I could to gain a better understanding.  I have been to a concentration camp in Germany and it was incredibly sad but it did not prepare me for what Cambodia had in store for us. The Khmer Rouge was a Communist Party formed by men in the late 60's who idolized and lusted after the idea of a completely self-sufficient agricultural society. The Khmer Rouge leaders wanted to purify the existing society and saw anyone who wasn't on board as a threat to their idyllic future. These alleged "threats" included educated people industrious people, anyone who associated with foreigners, and most tragically, any of the listed people's children. The reasoning behind eliminating these people and their families, children included, was that if anyone was left after the mass extermination they could grow to seek revenge up the Khmer Rouge.  KR leader Pol Pot felt it was better to sacrifice an innocent by accident than to spare an enemy by accident. This meant that 1 in 3 people in Cambodia were killed between the years of 1975-1979.  The country is still reeling from this, obviously, as everyone likely knew someone who was killed, and the population is still in low numbers.

In 1979, right after the Khmer Rouge was defeated, museums sprang up all over Cambodia to spread the word about this genocide so it would never happen again.  We went to the Tuol Sleng High School, known during the KR reign as S-21.  This high school was converted into a torture and interrogation center.  It was incredibly eery because it looked so similar to our school in Thailand.  We were all hit extremely hard by it. 

A blackboard still up from it's classroom days...

The Khmer Rouge were extremely diligent with record keeping and took pictures of anyone who came through S-21's doors. This is just one of the walls of the thousands of pictures that stare back at you as you walk through the museum.

We were privileged enough to meet a survivor of S-21.  He didn't speak much English but was able to tell us that he was deaf in one ear from the KR sticking something in it and causing him to go deaf during a torture session.  He also had his toenails ripped off, and showed us his gnarled hands that had scars  all over them. He was able to survive because he knew how to fix a typewriter for the KR, so they spared his life.

After the high school, we headed to the Killing Fields. After they were tortured at S-21 they were shipped to the Killing Fields, just outside of Phnom Penh and put to death.  The KR felt bullets were too valuable to be wasted on these mass murders, so instead they ordered their soldiers to kill the victims with anything possible-gardening utensils, sheer beatings, palm branches to the neck, anything available in the fields.  One of the most horrific additions to the death toll was babies. There is a tree among The Killing Fields where Khmer Rouge soldiers would take babies by their feet and smash their heads into the trunk of the tree.  This is where I broke down and cried. The Killing Fields had an audio tour that lead you around the genocide museum and was very informative.  It was really hard to hear survivor stories and see the memorial monument filled with skulls and bones that they dug up from the mass graves.  

Bracelets that fellow travelers have left in remembrance and respect. I left one of my own.

The monument

I know this was a rollercoaster of emotions and not as fun as my other posts but I felt that I needed to talk about it and let people know about everything I learned.  I never learned about this genocide growing up and it was so hard to hear first hand, but so important to hear.  I feel so incredibly lucky that we were all able to go to Cambodia and learn all that we learned.  It was a journey and an adventure I never expected to go on but indeed, did. 

One last interesting thing that happened while we were there. Apparently the King of Cambodia died in October and he has been "on display" so his people can pay respect and mourn for him.  We happened to be in Phnom Penh for the weekend of his cremation and burial. Every night the Khmer people would walk along the river's edge dressed in white, set off fireworks, and were all wearing pins to commemorate him.  Although he abdicated in 2004 and his son took over, he was the King for most of the people's lives and it was a really interesting and once in a lifetime experience to be a part of.  The night before his cremation thousands gathered at the Royal Palace and prayed and paid tribute to him.  I felt honored to be even a little bit a part of it.

Thanks for everything Cambodia!