Back in Bua Yai

• As the bus drove into my town I was hit with a magical site, a site I once dreamed about……..KFC had arrived back in BUA YAI along with a department store size Tesco Lotus. I now have the option to eat western fast food or buy a much larger variety of food, electronics and clothes!

•  I returned home to a new place as my landlord had kindly moved all my stuff without telling me! Thankfully the new place is an improvement with very strong WIFI and a kitchen area out the back that means I can actually cook some food. The previous owner had left gas and a burner there J.

• Like most people after a holiday they want to get healthy again by exercising and eating well. So I went to the Saturday fruit market where an old lady vendor was struggling with an umbrella in the wind. The umbrella fell so I instinctively dropped my bags and went around to lift it back up. I placed a block on the base to secure it and she thanked me. I wanted to buy some small cucumbers from her and asked how much. It took me awhile to understand she was giving them to me for free! It is things like this that make Thai people and especially Thai people from Esan great.

• As usual on the first day of teaching we ended up not teaching and instead showed the two new teachers around the school and the town. They are James and Dave from the UK and seem like two good lads. The school has a new director who likes to have a clean school so everyone on the first day or two was cleaning and moving documents/furniture around. The consequence of which has made the English department a much nicer place to work.

• Bua Yai festival and community sports week also took place in October and involved the entire main street being taken over by stalls and sporting courts for volleyball, futsol and others. It was really good with amusements and a large variety of different food. I spent a fortune trying to win a soft toy but failed! However I did consume a lot of chicken, pork, smoothies, pancakes, waffles and food which I can’t explain!! There was a great buzz around the town with crowds of people on the main street.

• Without warning and with little time to prepare I had to find and prep two students for an English speech competition, Mod (M5) and Fourth (M1). Competitions are taken very seriously in Thailand and a significant amount of time is put into winning. It is common practice for students and teachers to sleep in the school for a few nights while practicing. I admire their time effort but the approach is not one I would employ.

So I wrote the two speeches and altered them accordingly to the abilities of both students. We started rehearsals on Friday and I came into school on Saturday for 5 hours of practice. Classes got cancelled on Monday and Tuesday so I could work with the two students. It was hard going trying to get them to memorize the speeches, pronounce the words and act a little. I even bribed them with Magnums and Pepsi!!

The competition was Wednesday with a very early 5am start! It’s kind of cold at 5am which is a change. I was pumped up for this competition and wanted to win and show that I had mentored the students well. Sadly I was judging the English projects in a different building while the speeches took place. I finally got the news that Mod had smashed the speech and taken first place. Delighted! Fourth didn’t do so well and stumbled during the speech. That was a pity and I think she was just lacking that drive to win through hard work.

Being a judge at the competition was a new experience that I took seriously as It has to be remembered a lot of effort has been put into these projects and it’s not fair to just markdown any score. There was twenty grading criteria per project!!

The drama plays were interesting. The randomness of the play, the music and storyline literally shocked me! At one point I saw an astronaut and Jesus on a cross up on stage with the Transformers soundtrack playing!!

In the end Bua Yai (my school) won 5 out of 7 events and we are going to the regional competition in January. Lots of work to do!!

• The weekend arrived and once again I had planned to stay in Bua Yai due to finances! But after a few hours Saturday morning it was clearly time to venture out for the day. With Golf’s car this was made a lot easier. I remembered Bustin visiting some ruins not far from my town called Phi Mai ruins in Phi Mai! Off we went, stocked up on snacks. The ruins were pretty cool and only 40 baht because I work in Thailand.

After that we went to some other random place that had tourists but for what and why I don’t know! Maybe some bridge tribute to the King. We took a bicycle taxi there, the first guy wanted 200 baht…. an old man showed up and said 50 baht. This poor guy was old with no bike gears and flip flops that wouldn’t look out of place in a Nazi concentration camp. I was nearly going to get out and push him along! He was heavily tipped for his troubles and he waited to bring us back which was nice. I bought some very cool handmade transformers made of mental and based on the characters in ‘Pacific Rim’ and ‘Alien’.

The best part of the day was driving home. It’s been seven months since I drove a car and I have been itching to get on the road behind the wheel! It was completely illegal but this is Thailand!! Awesome.

• My birthday fell on a Monday this year and it was the first time I wasn’t with my family and Irish friends on my birthday. Normally I would arrange some party or event but this time I did nothing!!

I got a card from home and over 120 birthday messages which is very much appreciated. That morning I opened my door to a card from Helen that she had made as it is very difficult to find birthday cards in Thailand, especially in Bua Yai! I went to school as if it were a normal day but it’s not, I’m 28 years old so I told my classes and they broke out into some serious song!! It was great standing there hearing 50 kids belt out happy birthday!! After work I went home and had asked some friends to join me for dinner. Golf, James, David, Helen and Pum all came.

Now this is where it gets interesting!! Pum shows up with a bottle of Red label and a very large Birthday cake that they had got for me! I was genuinely surprised and delighted to do something that felt like it was indeed my birthday. The meal was very nice in Smiles, coupled with good banter and a few drinks made a great night.

But wait there is more….I arrive home to a very thoughtful and elaborate treasure hunt of clues from Golf that led to a wrapped present in the boot of her car!! Again this was totally unexpected. As some of you are aware I play the odd game of chess from time to time some of which are against Golf online. The present was a very original wooden chess set in a well presented box. It’s very cool!! That pretty much topped off the evening and I am very appreciative to have such good friends around the world and around me now.