Accidental Guru

Good afternoon!
         Well I am sad to announce that my stint at the Anuban Tapraya school is nearing it's end. I have enjoyed being a teacher here so much! It has had it's challenges for sure and tested me in all the ways that I knew it would. Some tests I didn't quite expect but have done my best to face them.  This week with Kru Su gone I have been teaching the lower level classes that used to be hers! It is so much more fun! I get to sing the abc's on my ukulele and talk to them with hand puppets, mine is this big stuffed fluffy kitty puppet, named miss kitty. They get to talk back to me with a Garfield puppet, that they love!  It's so much easier than the higher grade levels and the hour goes by so fast!  
     I've taken to arriving at school early I the morning so I can play uke with the kiddos and talk to them a bit. I taught them how to do the hokey pokey. Why did we ever stop doin th hokey pokey? I want someone to remind me to do the hokey pokey more often when I get home! Like patty cake I think it's a game that shouldn't stop being played just because were adults!   What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about? That's my deep wise ponderance for all of you out there!
      After all, I am a guru! You didn't know?  Well, I always said that you don't need to follow a guru that you are the guru! I didn't know how true it was until last week when Kru Thavee told me that the word Kru is actually derived from the Sanskrit word guru! So I am guru miaw! We were having a conversation about how respectful the students are here of the teachers. He said it is because to them they look at teachers as having all the answers. The respect that is displayed by students is awe inspiring, if the student has to approach the teacher, say to have them sign a paper, the student waits on their knees with their head bowed.  Students here are so much better behaved than in the states.  I love the idea that all teachers are gurus, not just spiritual teachers.
         I've been going on bike rides through the countryside. Just chilling I the left side of the road and smiling at everyone who stares as I pass by. I rode a few kilometers to a smaller town near Tapraya, at random I turned down red dusty streets and caught dogs licking the insides of ice cream wrappers, houses on stilts, more chickens and roosters than human beings. I take a back road peddling furiously past electric green rice paddies, past the smelled irrigation channels, until I come to a Thai temple out in the middle of nowhere, the extravagance of it's red and gold spiked roof so appropriately out of place among the brown plowed up fields of powdery earth.   I reached a cross roads to turn around and a man speeds by on his motorbike, he turns around to smile at me and I catch a glimpse of 2 fat piggies as clean and shiny as charlottes Wilbur ready for the state fair. They were crammed inside of a bamboo cage and speeding away in a motorbike, it was a sight that struck me and will stick with me.   Old ladies sit on raised open air platforms, families gather around street vendors roasting skewers of everything imaginable.  I love biking, it's faster than walking but you can still take in your surroundings.
        Another reason I love Thailand: I FOUND MANGOSTEEN!   Walking through the Sunday market my head picked the fruit out of the craze of abundance spread on the market tables!  I filled a bag for about sixty cents! I went home to test them out and are the entire back in one swell foop! So I went back and bought another huge bag! In the states, if I could have found them at all, I would have paid around twenty bucks for them. Here? About two dollars! MANGOSTEEN HEAVEN!  Well worth the thousand dollar plane ticket right? I think so!
      Sorry I haven't written in a while it's been a pretty mellow week just , teaching and hanging with the students, and doing the routine life stuff.... In Thailand!   I did have the Oys swing by the other night and they brought me dinner and took me to Kru berns house to watch her make popcorn. They have this Thai version if kettle corn that is a lot sweeter! It was fun to watch her make the batches with her little popcorn machine.  It was a fun little unexpected venture. Guess where her popcorn comes from? The United States.  I told her I'd be her popcorn broker!
        Just so you know that my trip isn't always rainbows and sunshine, yesterday I felt awful! No real explanation, just Ina terribly crappy mood and went home straight after class and locked myself in my little room an spent all day reading this cheesy Nicholas sparks love story that anothe volunteer left behind. I didn't do anything but read and eat Thai popcorn and sit with my crappy mood knowing that I would feel better  tomorrow.   Kru Oy nimber two came by and. Brought  me a tasty dinner Again and some tasty sweet roti treats. It perked me up a little! I discovered a bunch of enya on this iPod a dear friend gave to me. I haven't ever listened to enya, but as I lay drifting off to sleep it was awesome!  Oh dear it feels strange admitting that. Okay most boring blog to date but I head off to Cambodia next week and want to keep you up to date!