Top Ten School Highlights

1.Each day starts with a 30 minute assembly. The national anthem is sung, students say morning prayers and listen to any variety of announcements and or speeches. This is followed by 20 minutes of free reading. It's a nice slow start for us and gives us a chance to do any last minute prep.
2.Female P.E. teachers are butch here too. I thought that was kind of funny.
3.Teachers swat naughty students with bamboo sticks. Even better though, is that you will find students bringing replacements to the school for their teachers when one wears out.
The naughtiest thing we've seen at school is smoking in the bathrooms. Punishable we assume, by a swat.
4.We've seen teachers trimming student's hair and fingernails. Hygiene and appearance are important and monitored closely.
5.A student pointed at Tim's wrinkled shirt one day and snickered. The student playfully pointed out that I did a poor job ironing Tim's shirt, well the assumption anyway was that I had done it. The truth is, that morning Tim proudly held up his shirt and declared his mastery of ironing.
6.Dogs live on school grounds, some healthier than others. Unlike the students, dog hygiene and appearance are not important and are not monitored at all.
7.No one bats an eye when a grungy dog licks itself for the full 30 minute morning assembly.
Maturity check.....I have to fight off laughter. The students may be more mature than me.
8.Students clean the classrooms, school grounds, and our lunch dishes daily.
9.Tim and I will have to periodically speak at morning assembly. So far, we have only embarrassed ourselves once. I should mention that we've only gone twice.

Drum roll please...
10.Our all time favorite, we saw Ajarn Go (female P.E. teacher) rip a chin hair from a student's face. Tim looked over at me and asked if he had any strays he should take care of for fear he could be next. You can see a picture of her in the “Sports Day,” entry with Tim's footsal team.

Sports Day

Dook: He may be only three apples high, but he can hold is own on the basketball court.


The famous Thai pose. The kids giggle like crazy when we imitate it, but they giggle when we say hello too. Anyway, keep your eyes open for it.

Colorful Sports Day decor.




Last week we enjoyed three days of what our Thai teachers and students refer to as “Sports Day.” For three days the entire student body takes turns competing, performing and cheering for one another in a variety of sports.


Students posing and wearing hats for shade. Temperatures soared for these three days likely in the mid to upper 90ies.


The land of smiles.

Students played basketball, football (soccer), handball, takraw, volleyball and put on some stellar dance aerobics performances.


Takraw: A game that's origin is in Thailand. It's a physically demanding game best described as a cross between hacky-sack and volleyball but played with the skill of a gymnast. Players literally flip upside down to spike the ball over the net with their foot. It's a lot of fun to watch and difficult to play.


Tim trying his hand at Takraw, or his feet rather.

I was struck most by the way students behaved themselves. For three days they nearly had free reign to do whatever they wanted. If students were not playing a game or cheering for one they were sitting in groups laughing, reading comic books, sleeping or snacking.


Kids enjoying their free time.




Many drum sets where scattered around campus. Students used the drums to celebrate any scoring by their team. The best part was watching the students dance around to the tribal beat. We have of course added these moves to our dance repertoire.


These students requested that I take their picture. Who could refuse?


The opening ceremonies included a teacher line-up, some photographs and the director
of the school kicking a soccer ball into a net. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the minor explosion of confetti and fireworks (Wyoming grade).


Students dressed in their Sports Day uniforms.


Students opened Sports Day with a choreographed sword fight.


No doubt we are in Thailand, land of the "gatoys" (ladyboys).


Each time a team scored in this basketball game, the drummers beat out a rhythm for this group of students who would run out and dance around for about five seconds before running back to their seats on the sidelines. The more I laughed, the sillier they got.


I couldn't get over how 2200 students could go three days without incident. Come to think of it, I haven't seen one fight since I've been here. This of course makes me reminisce to my years at King MS where fights and fires were common fare. I am thankful to be half a world away from those days.


Students peeking their noses through the back gate waiting for the shop owners from across the street. Money is passed through the gate in exchange for goodies.


Students dolled up.



Despite the oppressive heat students wear jackets, gloves, hats and or wrap their heads to protect their skin from the sun. Light skin is a sign of wealth and a symbol beauty here so people go to great lengths, including the use of whitening cream, to keep their skin from getting dark.


Students cheering in the stands.


Sports Day cheerleader.

Tim was of course asked to ref the basketball games since he can be found on the courts playing with the students after school about 3 or 4 days a week.





There was an attempt to recruit me to ref as well but I assured them I would be a better judge for the dance aerobics. My well known attendance at the local park for outdoor dance aerobics has earned me expert status at Srithani and I was awarded a seat in the panel of judges. Up until the actual event, I had been told, “Lisa, you will be judge for dance aerobics.” I was relieved when I learned I wasn't the going to be the only one. You may get a laugh out of knowing that after the students performed, the dance aerobics instructors, and yours truly, were called out to show our moves, so I got up and jazzercised in front of a cheering mass of students.




Although it may look like I am being out-danced here, trust that I was merely studying the competition and planning my dance attack.

My first showing at the NonSung outdoor dance aerobics was something of a spectacle as is most anything Tim and I do for the first, second or even the third time here. I was welcomed in English over the mic and asked a few questions (what is my name, where am I from, why am I in NonSung) and I would periodically catch the instructor counting in English for my benefit. The second time I went a woman approached with a friendly smile, welcomed me warmly asked my name and then proceeded to tell me that the members were afraid of me. I wasn't sure I understood, so I said they are afraid? “Afraid of what?”
“You,” she laughed. Never really thought of myself as scary before. But now the folks at dance aerobics smile and wave and are not so surprised to see me anymore.

Dance aerobics by the way is made up of mostly women of all frames and ages who can keep up in varying degrees with the spunky Thai instructor named Pei Yaho, who moves like she's in fast forward to the blaring cluby dance music. The stretch and cool-down session is lead by a man who has periodically come over for a one on one tutorial during aerobics when “Yahozersizer” starts doing crazy, unpredictable moves and I am obviously floundering. The truth is that the moves are not entirely unpredictable and I'm beginning to catch on. Ha ha. But if not I just bounce about and try to move in the right direction. I've tried to get Tim to join me just once so we could all have a good laugh. So far he's hasn't taken the bait. He does however have the very important mission of an undercover photo shoot so you all back home can get a feel of the hilarity.


Ajarn Gowitz, the head of the English Department supervising as the students begin to clean up.


After three full days of action packed fun the students took down all of the decorations and cleaned up the school campus. This is another thing I enjoy about being here. The students set up, break down and clean up without any flack.


Not only was there sports day at school, but NonSung (and the rest of Thailand) was celebrating a 5 day Chinese Festival during which people play sports in the quartered-off streets. We were welcomed very enthusiastically over the mic by one of the sports announcers upon arrival. We smiled and waved at the ogling crowds and tried not to over-react to the thousands of bugs swarming under the flood lights.
Tim had been invited by Dough, one of the PE teachers to play in a Footsal tournament. Footsal is like soccer but with a smaller fields, goals and teams.


Tim nervously awaiting his first footsal tournament game


The Team! Yes, I know, the photo quality stinks.


Note Ajarn Go in Red. You'll read more about her in the future.

The first night Tim's team lost zero to five. The game was over in about two minutes since the other team made five unanswered goals. A very fast and somewhat disappointing end to the first game.

Footsal tournament night 2:

Tim on the bench.
Tim's team lost again. Also sad, but a good time was had by all.

Footsal tournament night 3:
Tim scored his team's first goal of the entire tournament! The crowds went wild.


The game ended in a shoot out and Tim again was the only guy on the team to make a goal. In the end the other team won, 3 -2. But Tim is often approached by people who will let him know they saw him in the tournament and as Dough said, “you have good time, no?”


My champion.

The Office

It will take a leap of imagination on your part to picture the office. There are nine English speaking teachers in the large room with table-sized desks. In the mornings, the windows are opened to permit the cool air in. In the afternoons, ceiling fans are switched on, blowing papers around on desks. The teachers go in and out all school day chatting and laughing. It seems the majority of their time in the office is spent around the food table.

The food table is a cornucopia of dishes amassed from the teachers' daily offerings. Because of its plenty we have yet to bring lunch to work for ourselves. We use our free periods to stuff ourselves with various Thai foods: fermented fish paste (not a personal favorite), red and green curries, papaya salad, fried vegetables and pork, sugary sticky-rice desserts wrapped in banana leaves, tasty mini bananas, baked fish, snails, shrimp, crayfish, oysters, sausage, varieties of vegetables alien to our eyes, bamboo shoots, juicy sliced fruits... the list is still building. Thai edibles (and not-so-edibles) must be one of the most diverse of all cultures. As we've wandered through some markets in Thailand we've seen things such as pigs' faces, live turtles trying to escape baskets, long catfish flopping around in a heap, roasted crickets and grubs, chili powders, curry powders, grasses and herbs of all kinds....




I've come to believe that this action of bringing so much food to share with us is not only an experiment of curiosity and cultural pride by the teachers, but also one of appeasement. The English teachers at our school normally teach between three and five classes of students each day. With Lisa and I here, one of their classes each day is taken by one of us to practice speaking and listening. The result is us teaching five or six classes each day with a random period or two off, during which we are kindly and aggressively invited to eat what has been brought.

Never have I seen a more constantly eating bunch of people, except, of course, my own Criger family on Christmas or Thanksgiving Day when we will stuff ourselves silly from morning to night and rest only at intervals to drape our swelling bodies like Dali's clocks over sofas and chairs. These Thai teachers may not devour quantities like the Criger's, but could rival us in their frequency of food-table-visitation. They spend nearly every free moment either gathered around the food table sampling its delights or being invited by those who are gathered to “gin khao” (eat).

And most of them are shameless about their joking, particularly Ajarn Gowit, known in the office as, “joke man”. He will often introduce us to someone and quickly add, “She's ugly” or “She's fat.” And if he notices we don't remember having met someone, he might assert that it's because, “She's not pretty.” Laughter is as common as eating here. Sometimes we are in the know and other times the teachers are speaking to each other in Thai and laughing it up.

The teachers are all very productive despite accusations by one another of being “lazy.” Students duck into the office in two's or three's and kneel at the teachers' desks to receive an assignment or ask a question. Desks are piled high with stacks of notebooks bound together, these are their grading or marking that must be two to four hundred students each. Our school teaches around 2,200 students in Mathyom 1 through Mathyom 6 (grades 7-12). Between the two of us, Lisa and I teach them all.

Despite the business of our schedule and the heat bearing down nearly all of the time, we are excited to come to work each day. Anyone who has had the good pleasure of working in an environment filled with fun-loving, happy people can attest to the difference it makes in the work day.


Tim, with the morning sun shining on his face, ready to go to school.


The teachers from left to right...Ajarn Daang, Ajarn Gowit (head of the English Dept) Ajarn Pakawan, Ajarn Tak, Ajarn Ajarn Pyrapah, Ajarn Lisa, Ajarn Tim and Ajarn Soam.


papers piled high


room 426: This is our least favorite room. The desks are like cubicles, the students get tucked so far away in there and it is impossible to walk between the aisles. Tim and I are convinced that the naughtiest children must race to class to sit in the seats farthest in. This is safety from the teacher. There they can hide in the impossible-to-get-to cube and read comics all period long. When possible we usually take this class outside where there is no where to run...well actually...


A typical classroom



Every Wednesday the students (and teachers) wear their scout uniforms.