Just five short months ago, Brad and I took off on an adventure of a life time. We arrived in Thailand lost (mostly because we didn't have phones to use google maps) and confused. But with being thrown into teaching just a day after we arrived, we quickly got adjusted.
At school you can just give a lot of high fives, and everyone will think you know what you're doing! But on a serious note, I am going to miss these kiddos.
Anyways, back to my recap of our semester.
We started off not knowing a word of Thai, which made basically everything harder. Since we are in such a small town where there are no tourists, most of the people do not speak English. So even though we were here to teach English, we made it a priority to immerse ourselves in their culture and we tried to learn to communicate.
The first thing we learned was how to greet people. It took a while to learn who you simply say the word hello to, who you bow to, and depending on who the person is, where you place your hands to bow to them. The next thing we learned was some food words, so we could eat. All of the good, cheap food is sold from people cooking from a little cart that they set up on the street corner. They can cook basically anything you want, you just have to be able to order it in a way they understand.
So at the beginning of the semester, we did a lot of pointing at ingredients, but I am now proud to say that we can successfully order fried rice with pork, suki, papaya salad, or a few other things. Below you can see a picture of one of the dishes we typically eat.
As the days went on, Brad and I got in a routine of going to school and teaching all day. Then after school, if it was not raining, we would go walk around the lake for some exercise. We would watch the sunset over the lake, and then come back and grab dinner from one of the carts. The simplicity of life was enjoyable, but now we're ready for more of an adventure (although I am going to miss these sunsets).
We're ready to explore the depths of the ocean to the summits of the himalayan mountains, so part two of our Asian adventure starts tomorrow! To kick it off, Brad and I will be heading to southern Thailand, to meet up with a good friend of mine. We will spend some time with Avery relaxing on beautiful beaches and scuba diving before she takes off for America and Brad and I head to .... (you'll have to stay tuned to find out!)
Make sure to keep reading to find out where we are in the world and to hear about the adventures we're having!
xoxo
