Kindergarten recently had Teacher Appreciation Day. This is an absolutely beautiful ceremony, where the kids bring incredibly intricate flower arrangements to give to their teachers. Students start taking part in this ceremony in kindergarten and do it through college. Teachers sit on a stage. The students come up, wai to a Buddha statue, in some cases crawl across the stage on their knees (this is not the case in kindergarten, they simply walk across), line up in front of the teachers, hand over their flowers and then wai with heads all the way to the floor. I'm sure by the time college rolls the excitement for this day wanes a bit, but in kindergarten the kids get really excited. They come to school with fancy hair and are extra energetic. They don't always understand that you aren't going to give the flowers back, but for the most part they are pretty excited to be taking part. It's really beautiful and something I wish the USA did more of. For a country that is supposedly still "developing" I often feel we could stand to learn a lot from Thailand.
We also celebrated the 4th of July Thai style. We spent the weekend in Khanom with some teachers from both Nakhon Si Thammarat and Surathani. We had a great time, stayed on a lovely beach and learned we are just getting too old for the weekend long party. We require sleep and that makes us a little lame. But we had a great time.
This week at work, I do not have class. K2 has two children sick with Hand Foot and Mouth Disease, so we closed kindergarten for the week. My Thai teachers and I spent all day yesterday cleaning and then my director brought in a bunch of university students to help. When class resumes next week, Satit will have the cleanest kindergarten classrooms in Thailand.
Primary isn't so lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it.) Neils does have class. and things continue to be up and down. The last two weeks were better but this week has started off rough again. I'm not exactly sure what we can do to improve his situation, but we continue to look for ways.
And in news that has nothing to do with anything else...there are little things about this life that often catch my attention and cause long periods of thought. Lately, I've been thinking about how where you are born affects the kind of life you are able to have in such a significant way. It's all just dumb luck really, but because I was born in America and because my parents taught me the native language, I am able to travel the globe living and working. Not everyone would want this life, but what's even more interesting to me is that not everyone would even have the opportunity, even if they did want it.
Now, it may not be all that terribly important that people might not have the opportunity to travel, but your ability to be a nomad is not the only thing where you are born determines. Sometimes it determines whether you will be hungry or always have enough to eat. It could determine whether you will grow up in a war zone or if you will ever get to meet your parents. In other cases it determines whether you live or die, or if you do live how long you will live. This really doesn't have anything to do with Thailand necessarily, and I'm not really going any where with this. It's just what's been on my mind lately. It's kind of amazing how important the business of being born is and how it's really not fair that there are such huge discrepancies based solely on geography. I'm thankful that I was born in America and that I had two parents who worked to give me everything all children should have and then some.
We miss you all and hope you are well!
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