The Beach and Starting My Job

This week has been more structured in that I started working, but work has felt very unstructured. We had several meetings during the first few days and we were supposed to start planning our lessons and decorating our classrooms. As a brand new teacher, I am not very clear about what to do about lessons and decorating, but I know that God is in control and He will help me ease into it. Several of the teachers in my department are new this year and we are all learning together.

One of my co-teachers is a Christian and another Christian teacher from Lee University is coming soon. I know that there are other Christians in other departments, but there are very few in my department. I am also one of 5 women in my department. I am really praying for my fellow teachers and asking the Lord to guide me in building relationships with them. I believe God has me in this school for a reason.

Friday was a special service with 4 other Christian schools. One of the best things about the service was a children's group playing a Thai instrument called an ankalung. It was like a human xylophone! Each child held two ankalungs. The ankalung has two wooden pipes with a 6 inch space between them. Part of the side of each pipe is carved out and the children shook their instruments to produce a sound. For any music lovers out there, the program was similar to a handbell choir. They played hymns that I recognized. It was great! The meal and entertainment after the service were very different...my co-teachers and I were not sure what was going on.

I got to go to the beach on Saturday with my churchmates (as my Filipino friends would say)! We played in the ocean at Rayong Beach and saw an elephant. I payed about 75 cents to feed it.

Interesting food:
Adidas (pronounced just like the sports brand name): chicken feet boiled with garlic, sugar, oyster sauce, etc. Not too bad--once I got over the fact that it was chicken feet:)
Banana hearts: The flower of banana trees that will eventually become bananas. They are cut off when they are young cooked with spices and eaten as a vegetable --it was spicy but tasted very good!
(both cooked by my Filipino friends)

After eating lunch at Rayong Beach, we went to a fruit farm. We had lots tropical fruit. Arroy mach ma (very delicious in Thai). Some of the types of fruit were: durian, dragonfruit, jackfruit, mango, rambutan, mangosteen (my favorite), pomelo, pinapple, guava, papaya, and grapes (not tropical, I know). Spending the day with my churchmates was wonderful. I am really glad that I am here.