Moving to my school.....

Blog Entry 2 On Thursday, I was picked up by my coordinator, Pinwadee. She was super sweet, and we drove the two hours back to my town, Bangplama. When we got there, we quickly dropped my things off and went out for dinner with two other foreign teachers who live at the school. We had pizza for dinner (in Thailand, they think that pizza is something to put massive amounts of ketchup onto). After, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some prelimnary supplies. I got some toilet paper (a rarity here), as well as some snacks and coffee of course! When I got back to my apartment, true panic began to set in. There was a toilet, but no holding tank, so I had to pour water down it to make it flush. There was no shower; I was expected to pour water over myself from a tank using a bucket. There was also no air conditioning, and at a low of 80, I felt this rapidly becoming a problem. I settled into bed, but was immeditly swarmed by bugs that appeared to be living there. At this point I couldn’t stop crying and went to take refuge in the apartment of one of the other foreign teachers. She very sweetly let me stay the night with her. The next day, I told my coordinator about my problems. She was very helpful, and sent some students to clean the apartment and put down new floor coverings. The students were so, so helpful, and worked amazingly hard to help me. I tried to unpack after, but was so hot that I put that activity on hold. That night, I went out to dinner with the other foreign teachers and to a night market. The shopping is amazing here!!! On Saturday, I discovered that a group of American teachers is living in the town about 5 miles away. I also discovered that one of them had gone to Clark, and we made plans to go to Bangkok the next day. It was such a fun day! We went to a famous weekend market, had the most delicious food, and got lost in a massive pet market. They were selling squirrels (all sizes) and porcupines to name a few of the items I could have selected. We also got massages. While we were there, Christine (my new Clark friend) informed me that there may be space in the apartment where she was living. As there are only about 3 people living at the school, I had gotten pretty lonely by this point and was excited at the prospect of not only sanitary living conditions, but living with other Americans! The next day, I went to visit the apartment with another teacher from my school, Marci. She lives with a Thai family because she also had problems with the accomadations that the school had provided. She let me sleep over in her lovely air conditioned room! I talked with the building manager, and am all set to move in on Thursday to my new apartment! I am so so excited. Teaching has been wonderful. As horrible and scary as the rest of it has been, teaching really has made being here worth it. I teach M3 (9th grade) and M6(12th grade). All of my students are very silly and I love teaching so far!! Well that’s it for now! I will keep you all updated! I miss everyone so so much!!!!!