Our day started with something Thais call ABF: American Breakfast. Ava talked about it a few days ago, and when we had no idea what ABF meant she was shocked and said "you guys don't call it that??" It was unseasoned fried eggs, hot dog slices, some tomato slices and really strange toast. It is 2 slices of white bread put together with copious amounts of butter in the middle, then put into some kind of press like a George Foreman so it ends up really flat with a weird grill mark down the middle. I choked it down by puttin the egg in the soggy toast for a makeshift ABF sandwhich.
Molly and I got our chance to DJ the English hour on DEPDC's radio Thurs morning. It went from 9 to 10 and we picked music from a list of random English songs they had. I picked the music, Molly provided the witty banter between songs. We would chat back and forth and totally got into it, we called it Molly and Natalie in the Morning--reminded me of Troy and Abed. I wish I could do it again, sitting in an air conditioned booth listening to music was so much better than the wall. But I won't have the chance, no school=no DJ next week.
I managed to snag a spot helping with the kindergarteners afterwards to avoid the wall. We split the 2 hour period into 2 shifts, and the second shift was tough. They were bouncing off the walls. One of the girls had the bright idea to bring in tootsie rolls at the beginning of class.... they literally swarmed her and were climbing on her, on each other, on a mission to get as much candy as possible out of her. No matter what we tried we could not get them off and away from her to move on to something else. I think we resorted to piggy back rides. These became a reoccurring last resort activity the rest of the time with them on Fri. Eventually we got them settled into coloring, then they took our cameras and took pictures of each other for the rest of the time. In short, we did absolutely nothing productive with them. Kindergarten is tough.
Then it was back to the wall... We spent the day unlaying the bricks we had previously laid so that we could cement a smaller portion of the wall together, then build it back up. We were given buckets of cement and water bottles cut in half to use as pouring cups. Then we needed to pour cement into the holes in the stacked bricks, thus cementing them together. Cement was going everywhere as we poured and we were told to "pour neatly guys!!" I talked back a little bit and told her it wasn't possible to be all that neat with this set up, and eventually Ava understood. Then she gave up and just followed us with a hose to wash off the excess cement.
As this was happening the two boys got volunteered to dig up old fence posts. Once they were done with that backbreaking task Ava told them to take a break but "come back quick because we need your cemen." All of us girls standing there at the wall burst into a fit of giggles. Even now Ava still forgets the t at the end of cement, and it has become a running joke. That and "grubs" instead of "gloves." The Ava-isms just keep coming.
She could tell we were hating the wall work Thursday so she said we could finish at 4 instead of 430. But as we're walking away the workers, who had been sitting, smoking, and watching us work, told us we can't leave until we use all the cement. We were PISSED, half the group didn't even come back we were so over it. So we poured the remainder as quickly as possible and left by 430.
Thankfully we salvaged the night with well earned showers and a trip to the market. This time we went without Ava (but still had her make all the arrangements) and got ourselves roti. New favorite treat. Molly and I also, just for the heck of it, split some phad thai we got from a street cart. It wasn't bad, it was our late night 4th meal. Like Thai Taco Bell.
And you'll never guess what was for breakfast this morning. Phad thai. Yes, really. It wasn't bad but it was too spicy, so we couldn't eat much of it. Then it was back out to the f'ing wall again. I think we relayed brick on top of the cemented portion today, though I'm not sure how that took all morning. It is now back to it's original height. We took a break at 1030, during which I asked if we would be building on Saturday. I knew we were going on a little field trip with some people in charge of DEPDC, they're taking us on a walk to a village some of the kids come from. We were mostly under the assumption that this would mean no building, but to my surprise Ava said we'd come back and build the rest of the day.
Here's where I take full responsibility for a potential turning point. To this news I asked her to please not make us build after the field trip. She responded "this is what you came here for." Then I inform her "no, I came here to teach." Ava was shocked and just said "What??" I was the only one speaking up but I think one or two people may have nodded along with me, at least I hope so, though I don't know. Then we discussed the technicalities of our project preferences and I clarified that the wall is not the problem, the problem is that now we are no longer splitting our time with teaching.
To my surprise Ava responded really well. She agreed to let us all forego the wall that afternoon in favor of everyone leading activity together, one last day with the kids. Then once activity was over we found that she had magically found some teaching for us to do. It's all day English classes with the 14-17 year old kids, and she had drafted us a full schedule of team and individual teaching over 3 days. I don't know why this wasn't an option before.... But it seems like my speaking up got everyone on the same page again. At least now we get to balance our time a little better between projects.
As the kids were leaving they got the whole school out in front to say good bye to us. They presented us all with scarves and had the kids come give us hugs and thank you's. It was pretty sweet. Then we got to leave early as well, and took an hour long truck ride to another DEPDC site with an olympic swimming pool. Sompob, the founder of DEPDC and 4 time peace price nominee, said it was "his pool" so we were all envisioning hanging out in his back yard in his pool. Not exactly. They made us wear shirts over our bikini's and swim caps. I kid you not, swim caps. But no one else was wearing them! We laughed about this the entire time and kept making fun of how ridiculous we looked. Got some great pictures though, I'll try and get a hold of some soon.
The plot thickens. So glad you spoke up. They definitely were not holding up their end of the deal. Well done. Absolutely cannot wait to see the swim cap pics! :D
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