Sometimes life throws opportunities at you that you don't even realize how much it will effect you until it's over. Was asked to go on a volunteer weekend teaching English at an English camp provided by the American Woman's Club (AWC). Not giving much thought of course, yes was my answer. Thank God I did.
Walter and Jack were left to hang out for the weekend by themselves. Erin and Andrew were off to Phuket for a football tournament with the school and me to Chiang Mai.
Jack and Walter got to do some awesome dad/son bonding. They went to the golf course, The Garage and even the Old Lady, all their favorite restaurants. When Jack sends me a text and says "MOM you missed it", then I know it was a good weekend. The Golf course had a party and a Real pig was roasted. (Jacks words) Walter also took him to the Ripleys Haunted House ( very scary says Jack) the Infinity Maze and some shoot-em up ride. It was a Jack kind of weekend.
Erin and Andrew were off to the island of Phuket. (Lucky kids, I never had a school trip or soccer tournament at a very popular beautiful island) An early morning plane ride got them to the island to start their tournament. Many many matches were played and Andrews team ended up 8 out of 20 teams and Erin 12 out of 20 teams. They had an absolute blast got to stay in a pretty resort near the Andaman Sea play football at an amazingly beautiful international school (Erin's words) run around with their friends, fly on a plane without their parents and even carry their own passport (Andrews words). Andrew was extremely happy with his level of play. Guess he got quite a lot of good feed back from his coach. (He hasn't played football (soccer) since he was 8). He played every game and most games never came off the field.
This was Andrew's first real independent travel and of course he loved it.
The camp I went to was in Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a province in northern Thailand. It is about 10 hrs away from where I live but is a quick flight from Bangkok. It was a weekend of firsts for me too. Samoeng was the district were I was. It is a very small town but don't worry it had a 7-11. Every corner in Thailand has a 7-11. Who ever started the 7-11 was a very smart person.
Samoeng is known for their strawberries, hill tribes, gorgeous scenery and seeing the "real" Thailand. In February there is a Strawberry Festival with a strawberry pageant. I can't even begin to describe the beauty of the landscape. It was Wow!
The camp is a tradition of the AWC (see above) scholarship program. 125 high school girls mostly from hill tribes, 23 teachers from 12 schools and 48 volunteers with about half being from the Peace Corps all attended this camp. The volunteers stayed at a gorgeous organic natural setting resort. It was extremely basic and very Thai, so beautiful. We worked from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon interacting with the students and playing school. The local school donated their facilities for us to use, actually the school had 12 girls attend the camp too.
Each girl receives a scholarship to stay in school. Most of the girls receive their scholarship from a private donor connected to the AWC in Bangkok. Shockingly it is only $200 USD to keep them in school. The girls are taught English in their school every week but it's like the US students learning Spanish maybe only 1 or 2 times a week for an hour. Plus they are not learning English from a native English speaker so this camp is a way for the girls to be around native English speakers so they can learn proper pronunciation.
Girls and teachers were broken into 8 groups and they rotated through classrooms that were set up in fun learning type games where the girls could practice their English and have fun at the same time. The Peace corps volunteers were the group leaders and the other volunteers ran the games. I was in Game Quiz (much like jeopardy). It was so neat seeing these girls through the course of the weekend become self confident in speaking even just a little bit of English. The games were designed to push them past their comfort zone and practice what they know. It was amazing to see how smart these girls were and with just a little bit of encouragement they would really try to speak English and read it. This camp is designed to give these girls a voice and encourage them to use their knowledge so they to can be somebody. Teaching them English empowers them to be able to do what they want in this world. It amazes me that something that I take for granted is such a powerful tool and makes their world so much bigger. Being able to speak English will allow these girls to have a greater income.
I can't even begin to describe the feelings that I had being a part of this camp.
Interacting with these girls who have basically nothing but were all so happy. It was funny, many of them were around Erin's age but had never done the Hokie Pokie, duck duck goose, tug of war, Simon Says, played with a hoola hoop. Many of them wore Mickey Mouse and Donald duck stuff. Hello Kitty is huge.
The last night we were together was a cultural show. Wow. The most fantastic thing about it - it was real. What do I mean? I did not pay for it. It was not Disney, no paid actors or fancy custom made costumes. These were girls who participated and learned these dances in their hometowns where a mother or grandmother made their costumes. These girls were so excited and so proud to show us their traditional dance. It was like watching your own child's recital. As we sat and watched these girls perform you realize how different our lives are until the very last performance when a groups of about 15 girls get on stage to perform to the one an only Village People YMCA and then you are see how much we are the same. This performance got us audience members to our feet as the dance party began. We all continued to dance together as the music played. A great night was had by all.
The weekend was over and we head to the airport. Having about 3 hours before our flight 3 of us (me of course never wanting to miss out anything) leave to go shop. We check our bags and grab a taxi and head to some stores in Chiang Mai. Me never having been there my girlfriends want to show me around. We shop have a tea and now head back, another first a tuk tuk ride.
Get back to the airport my girlfriend grabs her bag pulls out a bottle of wine and we proceed to sit on the airport floor drinking red wine out of paper cups. Celebrating our weekend together. Another first!
What a weekend!
Cheers
😘 M
If interested check out a few of the clips from the cultural show, including the dance party.
If interested check out a few of the clips from the cultural show, including the dance party.
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