Teacher Retreat
Anna, Erin, Me, Bank, Laura, Thomas, Madame Chong, Phi Tuk
So last weekend, January 5-6 was the Amnuayvidhya Teacher’s
Retreat. This happens every year to celebrate the New Year, and to thank the
teachers for all their work. This year, it was being held in Khao Yai, a famous
national park a few hours northeast-ish of Bangkok. Beforehand, we were given a
booklet outlining the weekend: itineraries, a seating charts, descriptions of
where we were going, and what not. Of course, it was all in Thai. We tried to
get the Thai teachers to tell us what was going to happen and when, but we
largely resigned to the fact that we would have no idea what was going on the
entire weekend. I spend about 80% of my time having no idea what’s going on in
general. I was quite excited for the trip, even though I was still recovering
from New Year’s...
On Saturday, we all met at the school around 6:30am. I
realised as I was walking to the school that this was the second sunrise I had
seen that week. Ugh. We waited around for quite a while for the buses to
arrive. There were about 120 people going: teachers, administrators, and other
various school employees. The buses eventually arrived, and I think we left
between 7 and 7:30am?
After an hour-ish, we stopped at a Thai “service station”
for breakfast. This was basically a large open air building with a multitude of
food stands. It was too much to take in at 8:00am and while being sleep
deprived. I decided it was too early to
try to decipher what was being served where, so I just ate my 7-11 banana bread
(which is actually quite delicious).
We then stopped at a temple called... (looks at
booklet)(tries to sound out Thai script) Wat... Noon...Gum? Anyway at said
temple, there is the largest monk statue in Thailand – I believe that’s what
the teachers said anyway, although we were told it’s not an actual temple but
more like a “chapel”. The temple itself was very beautiful. It had lovely
grounds, with walkways decorated with flowers and fountains. Inside the actual
building was a very large golden monk statue. It was pretty impressive. I still
wish I knew more about Buddhism, or at least the various rituals, as there were
several occurring at the time. Oh well.
On the way out, Laura and I joined in the Thai teacher photo
shoot that was happening on the walkway. So far, I’ve noticed that Thai people
take A LOT of photos. Was good times. A couple of the younger teachers had
already started to get into some beer, which was entertaining. Many of the
teachers on the trip I had never seen before...
Laura, Me, Deaw, Bank, Thomas, Erin
Laura, Bank, Me
From there we got back on the bus – I slept most of the way
to our next stop, a placed called Palio Khao Yai. This was probably one of the
strangest places I’ve been in Thailand. Basically, someone decided to built a
Tuscan-style town thing in the middle of nowhere. I think it’s attached to a
hotel maybe. Seriously though, it felt like we stepped off the bus into
Florence or Verona. It is mainly a shopping location, but they also had a
haunted house. We wandered around the narrow streets, taking pictures of the
alleys, buildings, and gardens. I think my pictures can explain what it was
like better than I can.
We finally arrived at the hotel/resort around 4pm or so. As
usual, we had no idea what was going on but one of the Thai English teachers
said she would go get our room/key sorted. Most of the male teachers were
sitting at a couple of stone tables (which would later be dubbed the “man
cave”), so Laura, Anna and I decided to join them. A couple of younger teachers
that we (the foreign teachers) are friends with were there: Bank (PE) and Deaw
(English). The rest I either only recognised, or had never seen before. They
had already started drinking, and one of the older teachers handed me a whiskey
soda when I sat down. When I had finished that drink, he immediately poured me
another one. And so it continued. At one point, I tried to stop him by saying
“Oh, I think we’re going to our room soon” but he just kept pouring... He even
started pouring more whiskey in my glass when my glass was half-full. Oh my. So
we all sat around and hung out. They had a set of bongos, a Thai flute/recorder
thing and a guitar. I tried out the flute and was able to kind of figure it
out. The Thai music teacher started teaching me a song with solfege, but we
abandoned that pretty quickly. There was also large chunks of pork (still on
the bone) that we were picking at. Classy. At one point, we were talking about
boyfriends, Bank and Deaw asked where my boyfriend was. I said I didn’t have
one. So, immediately, they started yelling “We will find you a Thai boyfriend!”
Hahaha.
Around 5:30pm, we went back to our room to cowboy-ify
(cowboys being the theme of the evening). Laura, Erin, Anna and I were staying
in the second story of a bungalow, and the room was VERY nice. Well, compared
to the rooms I’ve been staying in so far. After getting dressed, we went back
to the field (where the man cave was) for dinner. Cue drinking more beer. The
head administrator gave a speech in Thai, I think mainly thanking the teachers
for their hard work and whatnot. After dinner, there was karaoke and dancing. I
sang a couple songs with the other foreign teachers. It was a lot of fun seeing
the Thai teachers being able to relax... and also in the cowboy outfits. Some
certainly went all out! We spent the rest of the night basically dancing, and when
the music had to stop, just hanging out and chatting. Drank a fair amount of
beer. For whatever reason, two of my students were on the retreat. I really
hoped they wouldn’t notice me, or at least, wouldn’t tell their friends!
No Thai party is complete without Gangnam Style
The next day, we had to get up early for breakfast. It was
quite cool in the night and in the morning – it was nice to be able to snuggle
up in an actual duvet over night. I was glad I brought my jeans and a sweater.
After breakfast, we slowly got our stuff together, and piled back on the bus. I
definitely had a moment where I remembered “Oh yeah! I took pictures last
night!” (best feeling after a night of drinking).
We left around 9:00am or so. The plan was to first stop at
an outlet mall, but when we arrived, it was closed. So we continued on to our
next stop – a cornfield. I kid you not. It was very scenic though: there was a
lovely garden and a shop to buy goods from the farm. We had a nice time walking
around and taking more pictures (naturally). Funnily enough, we didn’t see much
of the younger male Thai teachers – they were passed out in their van.
From there, we went to a Thai vineyard. There was a shop
where you could buy wine, grapes, juice, cookies and other wine/grape type
products. They also had a grape...field you could walk through. That was very
beautiful and made for some very nice pictures. I also bought my first bottle
of Thai wine – I have yet to open it.
Madame Chong, Laura, Phi Aey, Me
From there, we drove back to the school. We also stopped for
lunch at some point – nothing exciting. At that point, I was exhausted: I slept
most of the bus ride. We got home around 2:30pm, I think. I then went back to
my apartment to relax. Even though I was super tired, I had a great time over
the weekend. I really enjoyed spending time with the Thai teachers, even though
we couldn’t understand each other for the most part. I remember trying to have
a conversation (after lots of whiskey and beer), and it involved English words,
Thai words, and lots of miming. Story of my life in Thailand. But good times
were definitely had! We have English camp coming up in February, and I hope we
are able to have just as much fun!
Ps I played Telephone with my grade 3s for the first time the other week. And this post is about teachers. Hence the title.../I just wanted to use that quote
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