The last few days have been awesome. Since moving out of my apartment in Bangkok, I’ve been staying in Rayong, 3 hours east of Bangkok, visiting a friend, stuffing my face with seafood and drinking way to much beer.

My friend Pe, who was the first member of staff I ever hired in Thailand 3 or so years ago, quit graphic design to return back to his passion: teaching. He works at a huge school, with around 1,000 students, ranging from 4 years old to 15 and has been asking if I would come and teach English to his students. Now that I don’t have any commitments, I decided to come and help out for a few days.

We had the weekend free and we’ve mainly been hitting the clubs, eating with other teachers whom work at the school, and we attempted a round of Golf. I say attempted, because I couldn’t see the ball due to my poor eye sight, so I had no choice but to quit, however I’ll give Golf another try when I’ve got some contact lenses.

This morning I was picked up and driven to the school. Upon entering it was clear that everyone couldn’t work out what I was doing there: basically, I stuck out like a sore thumb as the school is located in a rural area with no others foreigners around.

I was introduced to all the teachers, and had a chat with the head of the school, who were very friendly and welcoming, before a teacher gave me a tour of the school.

Upon entering the individual class rooms, I was greeted by all the students and the supporting teacher with open arms. It was very emotional for me, I could feel water building up in my eyes as I stared down at the students in this very inadequate learning environment. It was a strange feeling.

Anyway, I was hear to help, and with all the beaming smiles coming at me in every direction, I quickly pulled my emotions aside and started introducing myself. We exchanged a few words, although not to many as there wasn’t anyone that could speak English… most could barely count to ten. When I reached the 3rd classroom, I started to explain a few basic English sentences such as “what is your name”, “my name is”, “how old are you” and so on. These students were 8 years old, and all of them were really engaged and eager to learn – it was great!

By this time I had been in the class room for an hour or two and the school day was drawing to a close. I was sitting among the students answering their questions (in Thai) and reviewing there drawings they were working on earlier on in the day. There was one girl in particular that had a real artistic talent, I hope she follows through with this but the reality is, he parents probably won’t have the money to send her to further education.

When the bell rang to signal it’s time to go home, they all sat down with the Wai gesture, saying some Buddhist words that they had memorized. It was great to watch.

After school had come to a close, I made my way over to another building on the school grounds to watch my friend teach Tae Kwon Do:

All in all, it’s been a great few days. I’ll take my camera into class tomorrow so I can post some images of the school.