Written by Carole Breen, Norfolk (ENG)
One October half term I spent a very cold week on an island in the Inner Hebrides, running up and down seemingly enormous hills, giving impromptu lessons and digging potato beds; and mostly in the driving rain. Desperate to escape at the end of the week, we could not even be rescued by the ferry owing to bad weather. But for my efforts, I was awarded the opportunity to spend a year in Thailand with the charitable organisation Project Trust.
I was feeling uncharacteristically cavalier at the prospect of spending one whole year away from home. The greatest problem presented itself in the packing. One year and only one 20 kg suitcase. How could anyone survive on that, especially a girl, especially me? My desire to be prepared for all eventualities clashed with practicality and at the last minute I took the minimalist approach too far and left half the contents at home. So there I stood at Heathrow facing a year teaching conversational English at a Thai boarding school with my mother in Nigeria and my father too ill with cerebral malaria to take me to the airport. So a taxi driver waved me off. I now faced a long haul flight on Kuwait Airlines, a ‘dry’ airline without even the slightest hint of alcohol to soothe my nerves. Just my luck!
Sixteen of us in total were sent to Thailand. We were to spend the first two days in Bangkok and were almost immediately deposited in Patpong, Bangkok’s red light district, otherwise known as ‘The City of Sin’. Needless to say my education that night took on a new dimension the likes of which I had never encountered at Gresham’s.
I was to spend eight months teaching Conversational English at a prestigious science school in a Bangkok suburb to seven hundred students between the ages of 16 and 18. My home was a small apartment on the school campus which Alex, my Project Trust partner, and I shared, along with endless numbers of mosquitoes and ants. Whilst they seemed to find the apartment perfectly comfortable, I, on the other hand, seemed to spend a large part of the year trying to cope with diarrhoea and a squat toilet simultaneously.
Our life consisted of being woken at around five-thirty each morning by the National Anthem blaring out through loud-speakers scattered around the school. We always endeavoured to snatch a couple more hours of sleep before lessons started at nine. I taught conversational lessons to fifteen classes of around forty students and together Alex and I devised extra curricular activities for two afternoons a week. One of the classes was English Culture and on a couple of occasions we attempted to introduce them to English food with the help of such culinary ‘delights’ as baked beans, jelly, Angel Delight and gravy that we made from sachets sent from the UK; anything that either simply needed heating or water added to it. Unsurprisingly, it did little to revolutionise the global reputation of British cooking.
I loved teaching and found the students to be conscientious, well-mannered, diligent and extremely endearing. However, it wasn’t always easy such as the initial challenge of learning their names, although I must admit that some were easier than others – the names Beet, Bowling, Duck, Nut, Oat, Peach, Pear, Picnic, Porn, Tip, Tac, Toy, Turd weren’t easily forgotten! The students were all incredibly polite, a characteristic highly valued by Thai culture. Unexpectedly this led to problems as admitting to not understanding a concept or to question an instruction was considered an insult to one’s ability to teach and a challenge to an authority figure, both of which are unacceptable in Thai culture. As such, teaching required vast amounts of enthusiasm and energy, not always easy in temperatures of over 30C.
No one day was ever similar to the next as Alex and I were often thrown into unforeseen events. I remember on one occasion being given around two hours notice to prepare a lesson before being told that a camera crew would be recording it to make into an advert for national television. We would also often be asked to attend weddings and funerals or to judge singing competitions, which if you’ve ever heard me sing is particularly ironic.
My services were also required at Christmas. Being a Buddhist people the Thais don’t celebrate Christmas but nevertheless Alex and I were asked to talk to the school about the origins of the festival. Little did we know that this would be done in full costume, in front of the whole school. That morning with nerves I hadn’t felt since Chapel reading, I wedged a pillow under my jacket, strapped cotton wool to my chin, pulled a red, floppy hat over my face in a vain attempt at disguise and with a sack bursting with sweets I was ready, or rather not, for my first appearance as Father Christmas. Having scrambled onto the podium, struggling to cope with my expanded dimensions, my gaze met a crowd of 1,300 expectant, familiar and very amused faces. This was hardly reassurance and I was not exactly amused. As I caught sight of the microphone coming perilously closer, well, as far as I was concerned, the story of Christ’s birth was just going to have to wait until next year. Bouncing my newly acquired girth up and down, briefly mumbling “Ho, ho, ho Merry Christmas,” I bounded off again to throw the sweets to the seemingly starving gathering. By the time my job was over my ‘stomach’ hung round my ankles, sweat glistened over my face and my beard hung lop-sided from one ear. I spent the next week answering to “Santa”.
Certainly life in Thailand was never dull. The language was another aspect of life that kept us on our toes. Thai is a tonal language and as such each word can have up to five meanings depending on its pronunciation, which inevitably led to numerous embarrassing incidents. After a long holiday my closest friend returned to her school having spent part of the summer working in an elephant sanctuary. She proudly announced in assembly one morning that she had adored her time riding elephants; or so she thought. After a chorus of stifled giggles and disapproving looks it was made apparent to her that she had in fact confessed to loving the last two months she had spent excreting elephants!
A similarly unfortunate incident befell Alex and me. Soon after arriving in the country we were taken to dinner by her host family and on scouring the menu we spotted a mistake that we felt needed to be captured on film. We spent the next ten minutes endeavouring to drag the menu under the table and ensure the particular phrase was in frame whilst maintaining a suitable level of conversation. All that was then needed was the simple push of a button and we could have our photo immortalised forever. Unfortunately we failed to account for the darkness under the table and from between our legs escaped a long lengthy flash followed by the grinding sound of the film rewinding, at which the whole table and restaurant stopped and stared. What could we do but bury our heads in our hands? At least we had our picture, “Spring rolls stuffed with shrimp and crap”.
Valentine’s Day caused similar distress. A friend had offered to cook Alex and me dinner so just before we ate I went to wash my hands when a movement close to my feet caught my eye. Disbelief and abject horror rooted me to the spot for right in front of my startled eyes writhed what was unmistakably a snake. In a split second of deliberation I realised that acting the snake charmer by reciting some hypnotic drivel would probably only serve to agitate it further. So, having stumbled backwards out of snake’s reach, with a distressed waving of hands I ran screaming into the road outside, explaining to anyone within earshot that there was a snake in the house. I appealed for any hero amongst them to reveal himself and capture the object of my distress, reminding them that the best course of action would be most definitely to kill it. Eventually, the cook from the restaurant next door took it upon himself to locate the snake. I spent the next half-hour running to and from the window in a ‘can I, can’t I’ watch scenario. Eventually, the reptile was caught, waved around in a celebratory parade and killed. Any hopes that this might turn into a local delicacy and be sold to the highest bidder were soon dashed. The snake was unceremoniously dumped on a pile of rubbish and any attempts at being an aspiring businesswoman would have to wait.
Halfway through my time in Thailand, the summer holidays arrived giving me the opportunity to travel extensively and learn to dive, something I had always wanted to do. Whilst on an island in the south of the country, I quite literally bumped into a friend from school when leaving a restaurant one evening. After five days of dives and tests we completed our PADI Open Water qualification. Despite being qualified divers it quickly became apparent that our delusions of expertise were, unfortunately, premature. I remember on one occasion having supposedly completed our buddy checks and ready to jump in, we stood up to make our way to the edge of the boat, Poppy first with me waddling just behind her. In a bid for its freedom her air tank slid straight out of her BCD and almost severed my foot in the process. Desperate to avoid further catastrophe I hastily leapt in, sank, enjoyed the surroundings, sank, inhaled deeply and choked. In all my haste I had forgotten to turn on my air supply.
After several weeks in the south, I returned to Chang Mai. On arrival in Thailand we had all been sent to Chang Mai for a three-week language course which was mandatory if we were ever to gain an understanding of the country’s complex culture and language. Chang Mai is a beautiful city, infinitely less chaotic than Bangkok, and enjoys the landscape made famous by the Golden Triangle which lies slightly further to the north. I returned to Chang Mai in order to undertake a voluntary project that would allow me to work in an orphanage with babies, some of whom were infected with the HIV virus. This I enjoyed far more than teaching. AIDS, like in so many other parts of the world, is becoming an epidemic in Thailand, more so in the north of the country than in Bangkok. Thais consider the fairer skin of the north to be more beautiful than darker skin. Many girls are lured into going to Bangkok, others kidnapped and sold into prostitution. Having made money, those that can return home and unknowingly spread the disease. Owing to extreme poverty many babies are simply abandoned. The orphanages cannot cope with the number of abandoned babies and they remain largely unwanted until they are old enough to leave. Only a lucky few are adopted.
What I remember from the first time I walked into the ward was the sound of so many babies crying simultaneously, the dripping noses and the wet pants and the fact that it all seemed to go unnoticed. I received no sort of introduction and had no idea what to do but got on with things as best as I knew how. I found feeding a nightmare. You would sit on the floor with your legs spread out and in the little enclosure you created the child would sit and face you. I’ll never forget one little girl who was terrible when it came to feeding and I dreaded seeing her crawl towards me. When she was curious to see how little food was left in her bowl she would lunge forward, grab the bowl and peer into it. In horror that there was so little left she would throw herself backwards, punching her fists everywhere. Launching into a tantrum she’d repeatedly bang her head against the floor. It was frightening to see a human being bear such resemblance to a caged animal.
Working in this environment was difficult but immensely rewarding and I wished that this could have constituted a greater part of my year. At the orphanage it became apparent to me that particular babies were lavished with attention by the Thai carers; those lucky babies were the ones fortunate enough to be born with paler skin. As a result they were dressed in the best clothes, were never left screaming, would never go unnoticed in soaked nappies. However, even after only a few weeks I could notice the positive improvement that my being there had on some of the children. Even if it only meant that they had the attention of an extra person. In comparison, the lasting effect I had on the students I taught at the school, a school that educated some of the most privileged children in the country, will unfortunately, but realistically, be negligible in the long run.
My year in Thailand gave me the opportunity to experience some amazing things. I, like most Gap students, will tell you that it is the most fantastic year imaginable. It was life-enhancing if not life-altering, but I didn’t find myself and I wasn’t looking to. Now back in England taxi drivers no longer request renditions of Britney Spears and the language errors that provided hours of amusement have long since stopped. Encountering signposts that say “City limits, produce speed” and “Have nice sleep, police is awake” have become a thing of the past and restaurant menus in all their accuracy seem dull in comparison.