last two days in phrae

nam and i at dinner, she was such a great help while a vol, we had a great, great reconnect, shared much

nam's son new, great kid!

on sunday i had lunch with nam, new and nam’s aunt.  after lunch we decided we’d hook up again for dinner because we discovered that we all had a favorite restaurant in phrae.  my second year in phrae, i moved from the district of song, out in the country, to the big city because of thailand restructuring where its education ministry offices were located, they were decentralizing.  so i was really lucky having got the opportunity to live out in the country, and then the city.

close to my house there was a restaraunt owned by a sikh, from india, i don’t know his name/remember, he spoke amazing english, and he was very kind to me and my fellow pc volunteer john who also lived in phrae.  several times a week i think we had dinner there, drank a beer and downed a place of chicken and cashew nuts.  well New goes there often with his buddies to watch football…and nam is no stranger to football or beer either….so these are these pics, and john, here’s a place to gi mit matt muang for you friend!

the best place to get this in thailand i think

so in thailand they serve your sing ha beer with ice

so this is ma who cooks

when she saw me, she just smiled big, i asked her if she remembered me and she mi chi “no!” and started laughing…she’s a real firecracker, she loved to make fun of us and her husband…here’s her husband

so when i arrived in phrae and discovered that i’d need to change gears in order to do some kind of evaluation/programming that would be of some benefit to peace corps…chadarat let me know they would be having a curriculum meeting with over a hundred teachers the monday i was supposed to arrive back in bangkok…just like old times, they wanted me to help out…so i agreed to do a how to test training for the teachers…just like old times.  it worked out well, very well.  it’s strange how much more calm and how much more of an idea i have of what is going on.  with the curriculum project i just took off on it, it gave me something concrete to do, something to do.  anyway, spending two weeks here, everyone already comfortable with me, everyone speaking to me without “gran jai” which means telling me what i want to hear.  they’ve been amazingly honest on the weaknesses of volunteers including lack of experience, lack of interest in coteaching, just observing, not staying at site, not learning the langauge…etc, some of the same complaints we had…so a real honest dialogue, facilitated by some of the tools i learned at american…and really building on the relationships from before…and coming up with some great ideas when phrae gets 3 new volunteers next year…for example for pc kids…if phrae gets 3, the education supervisor chadarat and the three coteachers…we discused they and their volunteers meeting twice a month, planning 2 weeks of classes together, going to the schools, doing the classes, meeting again for feedback on how the classes went and then planning for the next two weeks.  this way we’re coteaching, spending quality together, so bonds can be strengthened, and after a year of doing that, everyone can scale up and reach out to more teachers based on the techniques the volunteers and coteachers used…blah blah blah…but it gets me excited…so here’s some pics from my last teacher training in phrae…i filmed it all, and will again, hopefully have some clips up at some point…

This is Pee Goon, or Mrs. Goon, my coteacher the first six months in Phrae five years ago…she’s still leading the teachers as she should.

actually, the above teachers are those who have worked with peace corps volunteers before and some of them will most likely work with the new volunteers.  they were also the members of the focus group i led on my 3rd day in phrae…they were amazing honest, but also very positive.  Natalie, in yellow, is a volunteer in Song, where i lived the first year…she’s connected to the community development project, not the english teaching project, but because her counterpart moved her first six months, and she had difficulties finding a community organization that she could work with, she’s been teaching at a school instead.  i met up with her on sunday, invited her to the training, she helped awesome with the testing module…we had a great time, she’s doing great, has adjusted well under difficult circumstances.  she’s also been wonderfully adopted by the teachers at her school. Natalie’s originally from columbia, moved to new york when she was 12, just cool seeing the wide variety of volunteers that represent the growing face of america.

ok, all for now, my stomach hurts, gotta go…now that i’ve figured out how to upload more than one pic at one time on word press, i’ll be catching up with some of this….alll best, and peace, c