Our last couple weeks have focussed on finishing classes with our students, enjoying ourselves exploring Ton Nga Chang waterfall, and hosting Em's school's English camp at another waterfall.

We both finish teaching class this coming Wednesday and our last camp is this Friday. The program we work for (Smart English Hat Yai) holds English camps for each of the three schools where we have western teachers. Em's camp (last Friday) was the first of the three. Pictures from Jiraporn's camp and school are here.

A couple weeks ago Em began teaching a "Thai animals" section that would be covered again in a couple of her camp activities. The topic looked so fun I piggybacked some of her materials (often the case this term). Teaching a topic that excited me gave me another glimpse at the beauty of educating. I have been more focussed on trying to get the students to learn English in a fun manner and still enjoy this principle challenge. But taking this opportunity to research and teach a topic I'm interested in yielded additional rewards of this work.

At the camp, Em conducted a Scavenger Hunt where teams had to find cut-outs of different animals amongst a forested creek bed. Each animal had a secret code written on it, and the first team to return with all the correct codes won. I held a hornbill relay where students raced to see who could carry the most food to their respective nests. They first had to collect one peanut with long tongs and then run to their nest and drop it in a small hole in future board (similar to the small opening mudded together in a typical hornbill nest). If this activity didn't wear them out, I then conducted a "Mother Monkey, Mean Tiger" activity which replicated a survival of the fittest game in an exerting fashion. The day did have some spoken English, some fun games such as tug of war, balloon relays, and of course some song singing.

Em and I have spent the last couple weekends exploring around Ton Nga Chang Falls. This area boasts seven tiers of falls, and they are all quite impressive. While this area is a popular tourist spot, almost nobody hikes beyond the first couple falls (.5 km from the trailhead) so it is an easy place to get intimate with the jungle.

On our first voyage we spent more time in the middle tiers exploring the rocky creek beds, inspecting a large toad, and swimming in a pool where we found a 6-foot-long dead rat snake. On the second trip we blazed a trail to the last of the waterfall (#7) where we saw a long millipede, admired more types of orchids, enjoyed more swimming, and heard gibbons. Whether it's gibbon calls, cicada chirps, or the gurgle of the stream, the natural noises of nature are a great reprise from the horns of the city.

We are excited to spend time soon with our friend Silky (also known as Dylan). He lands in Hat Yai on Thursday and will sing songs at observe my school's camp on Friday before we head out for some fun beach time and jungle exploration.

Labels: Hat Yai, hiking, teaching, Thailand

It's official! We have our tickets and land at Sea-Tac on October 29th.

There are definitely mixed feelings going home... excitement about seeing family and friends; re-emergence of food and place cravings; sadness about leaving behind new family, friends, and food here; satisfaction at successes and lessons learned; and thoughts of the things we're not getting around to, and want to come back for another time. Making it all happen (skiing in India, living in Thailand) was such a big focus for so long that shifting to longer-term goals back home has been tricky, especially as we try to enjoy our remaining time here.

Thinking about seeing all the familiar faces at home reminded me of an article I read a while ago about facial recognition. The researchers said that we recognize faces by comparing them to an internal template in our mind that's a composite of the faces we're used to seeing. We recognize the face of our grandmother, our favorite barista, or our best friend by noting how that face differs from the template. The idea is that a person's template is likely tied to the ethnic group(s) they are familiar with, and when dealing with another group it's really not that "They all look the same", but that they all differ from the template in similar ways. We noticed when we first got to India, we had trouble recognizing people we'd see periodically. But after several months, remembering new people got easier. The same happened in Thailand. I wonder, now, if we'll go through the same process back in the US? I went to a pub that's one of the main foreigner hangouts in town the other day to trade some books, and had the startling realization that all of them looked the same! To be fair, they're all middle-aged, portly, balding men of (mostly) British decent, but still.

Big, big thanks Tarah, who gave me the lovely birthday gift of carbon-offsets for our flights home. More info on offsetting flights (or almost anything else you can think of) here: www.TerraPass.com