We've had an exhausting but rewarding day today. It was our first day at Wijit School - a government school in a Muslim neighbourhood. We were met in our lobby by Somsak (the teacher who had come to church on Sunday), and we walked with him about 1km to the school through an extremely poor neighbourhood, made up of tiny ramshackle dwellings built over fairly pungent, stagnant water. It was pretty confronting.
The school seemed significantly poorer than Chamchan School, which we visited yesterday - there seemed to be only a fairly small concrete quadrangle for the kids to play in, and it was not terribly clean. We were given breakfast when we arrived - which we hadn't been expecting, so most of us had already eaten! But we still managed to make a pretty good effort with the Pad See Yu (flat rice noodles) that was served up.
We had the high school students in the morning - about 250 of them. We began all together in the hall, where Somsak led the kids in a song to the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In", which convinced us all that we were very welcome there! The lyrics went like this (and the kids sang with gusto!):_
Oh English camp
Oh English camp
Oh English camp make us happy
We all enjoy to be together
Oh English camp make us happy!
We then taught them Colin Buchanan's "10, 9, 8, God is Great!", which they really got into. They seemed highly amused by Matt and Steve's dancing style!
After this, we all split up and each took one group to our assigned teaching "stations" to drill the kids on different topics, like colours, numbers, clothing, transport, animals, etc. I scored big - I got a room to myself, with air conditioning! I felt very sorry for the guys, who were out in the warm, muggy quadrangle competing with each other's noise. By lunch time we were throat-sore and tired, and were pleased to retreat to the air-conditioned teacher's dining room for a delicious lunch. Steve and I then nipped off to a nearby supermarket for Red Bull and throat lozenges to help us through the afternoon.
We basically did the same routine in the afternoon, but this time with primary aged kids. It was a bit of a struggle - it's incredibly exhausting coping with the unfamiliar climate, language, setting, culture, and constantly projecting your voice to engage with hundreds of school kids with apparently boundless energy! But we made it. The day ended with us all trooping back into the hall, where we were thanked and presented with beautiful presents. It's amazing to see how much they appreciate what we were doing today. The Director (Principal) of the school made a speech to open the English Day Camp at the beginning of the day, in which she spoke about Thai people needing to learn English because it's now the language of the world.
We were a bit frustrated at not being able to share more of the gospel, but as several of the IT missionaries and Thai Christians have told us, evangelism requires long-term relationship here - trust must be built before people will listen to the good news. Bessie told us that it's fine to teach Christian songs - but don't write the lyrics on the board because the Buddhist monks might come by and see it and get angry. And the fact that we were in a Muslim neighbourhood (literally in the shadow of a large mosque) made it more sensitive as well. But we were assured that our presence here does help with the ministry of the long-term missionaries, by helping them make new contacts and enabling them to offer something that is really valued (i.e. practicing English with native English speakers) to the schools and local people in general.
Matt, Ollie, Annette and Amy are at the church teaching ESL classes tonight. There will probably be some of the same people there who have turned up for the past 2 nights.
Tomorrow, we'll be back at Wijit School for a Children's Day celebration. This is a big event in Thailand - it's actually on Saturday, but the schools celebrate it on Friday. I haven't yet been able to figure out the history or significance of it, but it seems that all over the country, all sorts of treats and fun things are organised for kids. So we'll be manning an English stand at the Wijit school Children's Day, asking the kids questions in English and giving them a lolly or a clip-on koala if they get it right.
No comments:
Post a Comment