15 Minutes of Fame!

Oh there are so many things to write about the last week. I am constantly thinking, 'oh I need to write about that, or oh I most definitely need to put that one in the blog' and then I sit down to write and without fail I forget! So I'll do my best to remember.By far the biggest event of this past week was ENGLISH CAMP! Myself and 3 other volunteers, Claire, Colette, and Tim, taught English for 2 days. We prepared 2 lessons each, which doesn't sound like much, but it took us a few days to work it all out. My two lessons were 'Greetings' and 'The Environment'. Both quite fun to teach! In true Sanna style, I prepared some lessons, but was not 100% sure how I would go about teaching them. I wasn't worried I would just wing it. What I find the most important when teaching is to have fun, then the kids will have fun... well that is only if they don't think you are nuts! Luckily these kids thought I was hilarious! Well that is what I am telling myself. I don't speak Thai, so who knows that they were saying, all I know is they were smiling and laughing. I had a great time teaching them words like; Happy, Sad, Hungry, Thirsty, Great, Good, Angry and the my personal favorite, HOT. I would just point to my dripping self and say HOT! They all got a good kick out of that!

The second day we drove the 1.5 hours to the school, where the 4 different schools meet and we began day 2. I really didn't have too much planned other then to teach them some environmental words and most importantly that littering is gross! What ended up happening was I simply taught them about 20 different words, then laid the pictures down on this stage and had them match the words to the pictures. I felt like I was facilitating again back at Hemlock. I was having more fun acting like a goon, dancing and jumping around and profusely sweating, and they were learning! How great is that! I realized that words like Arctic, and Mountains, and Prairie are really hard for Thai people to say. My trick was repetition. I also realized that these kids like most kids, love to yell. So we would start low and in the end we would all be screaming ARC-TIC, mimicking a sneeze! They loved it!The teachers also loved my animation as well! I received several compliments, great ego boost!

The teachers really wanted us to do some singing with the kids so we all racked our brains to remember some songs to sing with them. We ofcourse wanted to do the Hookie Pookie. But I was quickly corrected by my 3 co-volunteers, that in the British Isles it is called the Hookie cokie! What the... um ok! Well it was 3 against 1 so the hookie cokie it was! Slightly different so I had them lead it! We also did some head shoulders knees and toes, and old McDonalds farm.

This is a photo of all 50 students participating in the Hookie 'Cokie'

When the 2 days were over, the kids officially loved us! I truly felt like a celebrity, we were swarmed by the students for autographs and pictures!
The camp commenced with an awards ceremony where we were presented with a lobster! We all almost died laughing when they unveiled it. But we were respectful and held the laughter in!

When we returned on Friday after 2 LONG days of teaching we all decided we needed to have a good night out! So... we did! Going out in Khoa Lak is pretty easy, as everything is quite close, and all the bars are cheap! It was a great night! Colette and I at Songs Bar

Other big news to report, I am officially a Motor bike driver! At first I was quite slow, well 2 days of driving and I am good to go! Yesterday I drove up to White Sand beach! Super beautiful! I also drove up to the next town for dinner in a house! I haven't been in a house in.... well since I left D.C. So that was really nice! My friend Claire lives there with a manager of one of the nice resorts. We ate a delicious dinner and just chilled out... just what I needed after our crazy night, the night before!

This is one of the dogs at Claire house... her name is boom boom! So cute!

Today we all piled on our motorbikes and drove to a waterfall, Lampi Waterfall. It was beautiful, and nice to take a dip in fresh water! No salt in your eyes!

There is much more I want to write so I will try and get on here again tomorrow to add some more, but now I must run..dinner is calling!