สวัสดี ขาด โธมัส สาว

สวัสดี ขาด  โธมัส  สาว 

We hope that you are all well!  In case you are not completely fluent in reading Thai characters, the above says, "Hello from Thomas and Michelle."  Actually, a more accurate description would be, "Hello from Thomas and the lovely white woman."  Sadly, there is no Thai translation for Michelle, and that is why they have so much trouble pronouncing her name.  So there you go, a helpful lesson about Thai for everyone! 

 

Anyways, we sincerely apologize for the diminished quality of blobbing in the past few weeks.  Life in Thailand moves at a different pace, and therefore so do our blobs, if they were to move, which they do not.  Well, this is our attempt at giving our blob a fresh taste and smell.  We hope that you all enjoy it! 

Oh, and if anyone reading this is not a blob member, fear not!  Now you can post comments too!  The house of Driedger-Enns thoughtfully created a blobber for everyone to use.  It is blogthe9@gmail.com, and the password is blogger99.  Please feel free to use this, and we always love to hear from you guys!

On to blobbing!

We are almost done teaching at Ban Non Pho, we have only three days left and we are very sad to be leaving the students.  It has not always been easy, but we feel so close to each of the children, and saying goodbye will be very hard.

As the days have passed, we have been able to teach more and more to the students.  It has become so rewarding, and our teaching has become a lot more enthusiastic with the passing of time.

We have developed a certain style of teaching together that seems to work very well with the students.  Michelle is very talented at writing on the blackboard, and Thomas is good at sounding out words slowly in English, over and over, and over, and ooovvvvverrrrrr.  No, Ohh, not ooo, VERRR, not VEL, okay, good!  As you can see in the picture above, the students love Michelle, and they love Thomas too!  We make a good teaching team. 

See!  They do love Thomas!  Hooray!  Actually, this is the satanic (well they're not that bad, at least they are cute) grade one and two class.  We have worked hard, and they are doing much better.  Thomas looks like quite the teacher, he even has the stance and pursed hands of a teacher. 

One day last week there was a school lunch put on by someone in the community.  It was not the typical hot dog lunch however, it was a delicious green curry and rice meal.  We really enjoyed eating with the students, and all through the school you could hear the sound of children slurping up spicy food.  One thing of particular note would be that the main item in the green curry was chicken feet.  The students loved eating them, and all afternoon you could hear the cracking of chicken bones as the kids munched happily away.  We did not enjoy them quite as much, but they were still interesting to try.

Well, Besides the fact that Thomas barely fits into the photo...The teacher in the middle is Peekay.  She is a lovely women who has been very kind to us, and we often go for lunch together.  The language barrier has not been difficult with her, we just do a lot of smiling at each other, and laugh when someone does something funny. 

This is a student in patome four.  Whenever we get out the camera at school, the students go crazy, posing for the camera until we take their picture.  This class likes to draw and do anything involving art, so we do a whole bunch of crafts with them.  We have even made cut out snowflakes with them.  They are a lot of fun, and the boys really love and respect us, we make them laugh a lot, and they make us laugh a lot.

This is a photo that deserves an explanation.  We spent the weekend with our Thai mom, and on Saturday night we enjoyed a Korean BBQ night at our house.  This involves a grill heated by charcoal, seen directly above.  You put your meat and vegetables that yo

u want cooked on the grill, and a tasty soup goes around the outside of the grill, also heated by the charcoal.  This was one of the tastiest meals we have eaten, and we enjoyed it more because a friend that we have made was able to join us.  Her name is Nicole (one of the other volunthai volunteers), and she is sitting right beside Michelle, if you have not been able to guess.  The Korean BBQ night actually took place on Valentine's night.  For weeks our Thai mom had been planning this and reffering to it as "Volunthai day".  She would say, "we will invite Nikki and Tuk tik and Kaam over." or, "You can teach about volunthai day."  We were really confused for so long, and then figured out that in thai "volunthai" = "valentine's"! We felt a little silly.

Another photo of the students, and you can see two different varieties of the uniforms that they wear, we believe they have at least five different sets, one for each day of the school week.  These students are from patome (grade) 4, 5, and 6.  They are really wonderful students to teach....very helpful.  They catch on fast and then help us explain a concept to the other students.   

Now for a little story...Do not worry, the picture above will explain itself!

We were just finished teaching for the morning, it had gone very well.  We had taught for three hourse already and felt very good about it.  Then, at lunch we were told that we would have lunch with the principle of a high school in a neighboring village.  We agreed of course.  The lunch was very good and the new principal paid, and after lunch we were told that we would teach at the new principals high school.  We were taken aback, but what could we do other then to agree?  We asked how many students we would teach, and he said, "not more than sixty."  This was something we were not used to, but we had to just go with it.  After three hours of teaching with absolutely no resources...it was over, and we decided that we like Ban Non Pho School much better.  The photo above is one of the three grades we taught during that time.   Oh, what a suprise that was! 

A picture taken on a weekend outing with our Thai mom, of two elderly women working in a large body of water that at one time used to be a field.  They are collecting little shrimp from the bottom.  Something that we have noticed a lot in Thailand so far is that there are many very old women who still work sooooo hard.  It is a very interesting thing to see.  They work so hard, and look so weather beaten....and yet you can always be sure of a smile from them.

The food in the centre of the photo is a dish that we have enjoyed in different forms.  It is live shrimp swimming in chili, lime sauce, and cilantro.  It is actually very delicious, and we both enjoyed it more than we thought that we would.  Well delicious in a strange sort of way...when you bite down on the shrimps they sort of crunch (you can feel the legs) and then burst.  We have also eaten this same dish minus the shrimp and adding ant eggs.    

Last weekend we decided to take a six hour bus trip to Khao Yai National Park.  Let's just say that the un-airconditioned and stiff seated bus ride was well worth it.  Khao Yai is a beautiful place!  We stayed at an inexpensive, but nice guesthouse outside of the park the close by town of Pak Chong.  We booked a "Jungle Safari" through the guesthouse and it was so wonderful.  On each day our guides were very friendly and knowledgable.  Our restful weekend became two days of action packed adventure.....we trekked through the forest, watched birds, climbed up cliff things, spotted snakes, and monkeys, explored bat caves (we covered our mouths to breath, don't worry), vistited wilderness Buddah temples, and much more!  This picture appears to be of a pond and rocks, but to the left of the photo is a gigantic waterfall...we just forget to include it in the picture.   

In Khao Yai there are many mountains and forests.  After driving up to almost the top of the tallest mountain we did a small hike and came to this beautiful cliff.  Our guide on this day was not only an ornathologist, fluent in English, and a outdoors women, but also a photographer!  She loved to take picture with our cameras, so were able to get lots of good pictures (not just of us but of animals and stuff too, we're not that vain).  In this picture you can see Michelle, Thomas, and our friend Nicole.  It was a really breathtaking site, and was a little scary to look down off the side of the cliff....we were really high up!  

This picture was taken on the evening of our first day of touring in Khao Yai and area.  You may wonder what the squigly black line accross the sky is....it is millions of bats exiting their cave to go out and hunt in the night time.  It was really an amazing thing.  Everyday the bats leave their cave like this at around 5-6 pm.  There are more than 2 million bats and it takes about two hourse for all of them to leave the cave in a long string like this.  It was quite an amazing thing to see.  

Thomas climbing a tall tree in Khao Yai.  And no, it is not many trees, it is just one.  The tree starts growing as just one trunk and then it's roots grow down, making it look like many trees....then when the inside roots die the tree is supported by it many other trunks and new ones continue to grow.   Oh, and you might wonder what his big funny socks are, and why he is wearing such strange things....well they are big funny socks and the reason you wear them is so you can tuck your pants into them and then it protects your legs and such from the attack of ticks and leeches.  We only found one after the day in the jungle, so we guess they work.  

Taken on our walk through the bat cave.  The intersting thing about this bat cave is that it is actually a holy Buddah cave where monks come to meditate.  And yes, it is a little bit of a creepy photo...Thomas does not usually smile like that!  
This is a picture of the fresh mineral springs we swam in.  The water was so beautifully blue and suprisingly warm.  The water comes up from the ground in this pool and then spills into other pools that are not in this picture.  All together it was a very beautiful sight, and a very welcome swim in the hot weather.  There were many Thai men swimming as well, and Michelle recieved many oggles and oogles...But everyone was friendly, and we had a good time.
A bad picture, we know, but it is in the small market in the small town of Pak Chong.  We were in this town, just exploring a bit and then it started to rain!!!  This was very strange and highly unusual because it is the dry season right now.  It was raining so hard that we had to find somewhere to go.  We ended up hanging out in the very small market for an hour or so.  It was pretty cool.  Michelle was wearing a white T-shirt, and after we sat down we sat down we noticed that her T-shirt was now brown.  The rain was the first in a long time, so it was filled with dust and pollution, which was attracted to our clothes.
Michelle with Naan (one of our students), and Nong oam and Nong am (the daughters of our Thai mom's wonderful sister).  This was also one our valentine's weekend tour and korean BBQ with our Thai mom.  Nong Oam and Am are the sweetest little girls.  They love us so much and they are always ready to play.  We don't think they know that we can't speak Thai, because they are always telling us stories and we listen.  They are very sweet and we will miss them when we leave from our homestay. 
Again, on the Valentine's tour.  The Water buffallo are swimming back home after a day grazing in a field acrross the big body of water.  Also we think that this is a very beautiful tree.  We think it looks like the tree of life. 
Thomas, the farmer, smelling the very sweetly fragrant grass of Isaan and looking out over the rice fields, water buffalo, and women harvesting shrimp.  He analysised that it was good grass, and must be good food for the water buffalo.

Driving by a bright green rice field.  Because it is the dry seasone right now there aren't that many, but there will be more in the rainy season.  Right now we mostly see sugar cane for crops, and grasslands used for cattle.
Three more days and our teaching time in Isaan will come to a close--just like our blob entry is coming to a close now (hehehe).  It has been such an amazing experience to live with a family and do things that local people do, not just the touristy things.  We have eaten interesting food, and felt quite awkward at times.....and we are so thankful for all of those experiences.  Teaching and playing with the students has been so much fun and so rewarding.  We will miss them and think of them often--what will they do in their futures?  So like the end of anything good, the end of teaching in Isaan is bitter sweet.  We have been welcomed into a community and made wonderful connections with people....we will be sad to say goodbye.  At the same time, we are really looking forward to the next part of our trip.  There is so much to see and do, and we can't wait for more experiences!  

So with much love to all our blobbers and hoping that you are not too cold......we end this post.  Parting is such sweet sorrow!  

MICHELLE ALEXANDRA CLELAND AND THOMAS STUART DRIEDGER ENNS

SAWATDEE!

Hello Blobs!
After another great week of teaching it is the weekend....and a long weekend at that! so we decided to go on a bit of an adventure for our four day weekend. Right now we write to you from our beautiful bamboo guesthouse on the bank of the Mekong river in the small and sleepy town of Nong Kai. From our bamboo jungle village we can see Lao accross the river, and people in boats fishing. It's a very peaceful place to be.
Now...onto the bloppling!!!!

Sitting under one of the many bamboo shelters at our Mut Mee guest house this is our view of Laos and the Mekong river. This picture does not really do justice to the beautiful view, or plant life, or lovely huts and hamocks.....but it sort of gives you an idea.
As well as visiting the sculpture park, market, village weavers workshop, and other local places we have really enjoyed sitting in the garden of our very peacful and friendly guesthouse. there are quite an assortment of travellers here and everyone is exteremly friendly, it feels like a community of sorts. Here you can see Thomas sitting under a bamboo shelter, probably working on this very blob posting.
Along the Thai side of the Mekong there is a beautiful board walk. In the day time when you walk down it there are many people (but not too crowded or busy at all) and by about 8 o'clock there is almost no one....it is a very quite and relaxed town. This is us walking along the quite boarwalk one evening in search of mango and sticky rice at about 8 pm, and everything was closing....no sticky rice for us:(
Again, another boardwalk picture. is that the moon in the background?
So this is us in the city of Khon Kaen. We are enjoying an awesome meal, on one of our free weekends. Khon Kaen has been really great for us, because it offers us some relaxation in a place where we can just do nothing for a little while. The hotel where we stayed was super nice, and we watched movies, ate good food and used the internet.
The same meal mentioned above, only Michelle is seen enjoying Pat Thai and Som Tum. OUR FAVORITES! Here is a recipe for some som tum, for those who are interested.

4 oz Green papaya
1 garlic clove
3 small red or green chilis
lots of peanuts
1 oz long green beans, chopped
2 tb lime juice
3 tb fish sauce, or light soy sauce
1 ts sugar
1 tomato diced
Cabbage leaves

Instructions for Som Tam
Peel the outer skin from the green papaya and finely shred the flesh on a cheese grater or chop very finely into long thin shreds. Set aside. In a mortar, lightly pounnd the garlic, add the chilis and lightly pound while occasionally stirring with a spoon to prevent the resulting paste from thickening. Add the long beans and slightly bruise them. Add the shredded papaya, lightly pound and stir until all the ingredients are blended together. Add the lime juice, soy sauce and sugar and stir into the mixture. Finally add the tomato, stirring once. Arrange the Chinese cabbage leaves on a serving dish and turn the yam on to them. We hope that you make it!

This is Michelle munching out on carbs that we do not usually get...and it was the best pastry that we have ever eaten. The hotel we stayed at was very nice, and had a bakery inside it, we ate a few cherry filled doughnuts and croissants, ok, maybe a dozen. HAHAHA

Vietnamese food. Very tasty, and very light. This meal consisted of rice paper (to wrap), lettuce, afew herbs, cucumber, garlic, chilis, starfruit, green banana, rice noodles, pork and peanut sauce. This food is awesome...but needless to say, you have to eat alot in order to feel full! This meal was eaten with our Thai mom and her sister and towards the end of the meal, They both started laughing. When they laugh, all you can do is laugh along, that is what we did. Then she translated their comments, by saying "ohhh michelle, you have gotten so fat!" Michelle is definetely starting to feel the push of being thin in Asian culture. Although her appearance has not changed at all, all of a sudden fat comments started and haven't stopped...but just from our thai mom.

An after school excursion with our students where we saw some of the countryside around Ban Non Pho. In this picture, Thomas is reaching for a tasty berry, that tastes almost exactly like tapioca pudding. Thomas was the only one tall enough to reach the tasty treat, so his services were indespensible for a while.
This is our Thai mom and our principle with us at a huge gathering of Thai scouts. The evening was Hawiian themed, and we both felt very overwhelmed by the sheer size of the gathering. There was hundreds of tents, and probably five hundred scouts in total. We were guests of honour for some reason, and got wreaths of flowers to go along with our status.

This is a lovely shot of Michelle with our students. This is primarily grade five and six students, and they all love to get photos with the two of us. After class is over, we not only teach them English, but they teach us lots of Thai!

We took a field trip to Khon Kaen with our school...Sixty students crammed into the backs of three pickup trucks, roaring down the highway...no big deal, they had permission slips! And We attended a festival held in the name of sustainability. The trip was mainly a shopping trip for our Thai mom, so we looked at orchids, orchids and more orchids. After that, we took care of a couple of students while our mom went shopping at a Thaimart. We had no idea what to do with them, and were tired from the orchid shopping, so we took them for pizza! We thought it would be an awesome idea, but they took one bite of the pizza and spat it onto the plate! One girl tried very hard to finish a slice of the stuff, but right after consuming it she ran out of the restaraunt to go to the bathroom. She must have really had to pee! Ironic that all of the children always say that their favorite food is pizza...We think that they are lying. we don't think they have ever put so much dough or cheese in their systems in their whole lives.This picture had to go into the blog, because those of you from RJC, and maybe still going there will recognize this sweet little boy. Thomas has dubbed him Chandler, in response to his mannerisms, moods and charming good looks. We love him to bits, and he makes us miss home!

The delicacy being consumed through a straw here is freshly pressed sugar cane juice. It is lightly sweet and very refreshing!
This monk grabbed Thomas' hand and gestured at Michelle to take a photo. That is what she did. It surprised us because we view them as such holy and highly regarded people. It made our day! Well, it made Thomas' day, and made Michelle a bit jealous. She is not even allowed to touch them! In any city you will see monks walking about, and they are sometimes surprisingly liberal. We have seen them doing everything from driving a scooter, to buying building supplies in a hardware store, to talking on cell phones to smoking cigarrettes. It seemed strange to us to see such holy figures doing things like this!

This is a picture that Thomas took on one of his WILD ANIMAL SAFARIS! There is a video of this, but we were unable to upload it. It is a praying mantis! And it was occupying the wall of our bathroom. It was as big as Thomas' hand, and has the most flourescent green. We were pretty sure that it could bite us if it wanted to.

This picture was also taken on our after school adventure in the country side around our village. We all went for a swim in the river, and had a jolly good time!Michelle is somewhere in this bean field...CAN YOU FIND HER?
Michelle enjoying some sugar cane. It is a bit more difficult to consume than sugar can juice, but is just as delicious.
We are playing with our students in a stream. The cold water was nice to splash...at us! Need we say more?

Our past week teaching was wonderful, we are really enjoying our students, and the Isaan culture is wonderful to learn about. We hope to teach about Canada next week, so we will be explaining what snow is! We barely remember what it is ourselves!

Well, this is the end of our post. We did not put many photos involving us in Nong Khai, we will do that next time! Much love and we hope to hear from you all via the comments!
T. and M.