what a sad goodbye

i sit on the evening before my last official day of working for this school year. i've been doing my re-teaching. it's not that fun. i'm re-teaching some grade 3 and grade 5 boys that failed science and math. it's all over tomorrow! no more thai boys calling "mee beh, mee behhh" (miss beth, miss betttthhhh!) down the hall... no more giggling with the boys about this or that... no more ugly green uniform!!!

this past weekend i was invited along on a class trip that involved seven boys from my class and their families. it was my favorite experience in thailand so far. it was wonderful to get to know the parents better and spend time playing with the boys i love so much. they are so special!! so creative and smart. i spent some time chatting with my "protege" nuttawut on a boat ride back from the floating market. he was telling me all kinds of things and we decided to guess how much longer the boat trip would take. he guessed forty minutes and changed it to twenty, then finally stuck with "26 more minutes, miss beth. do you have a clock?" so we checked out the time, it was 9:05 pm. "p.m. miss beth. p.m. stands for post meridienem. a.m. stands for anti meridinium." in shock, i asked him to repeat this three more times. he was saying "meridian" wrong but WHOA... i didn't learn that until... well for sure not when i was in first grade. i asked him who taught him that and he mumbled something. i asked if it was his father and he kept saying "no." later i asked his father and he said "haha. he must have learned it from the computer games i buy him." while it is a very impressive story... it isn't abnormal. nuttawut is in love with everything english and comes up with obscure words to ask me about, which always catches me off guard. he has such a serious look on his face when he's curious and it makes me giggle with delight. i have stories like this for each boy. they are so special!! i will really miss them! the parents each asked me why i'm not staying at assumption. how COULD i?! if i can't have my boys again... not gunna do it. sadly, we had to split the classes evenly, so they will be sad to be separated. they're like brothers. awww, i'm so sad that i won't see them anymore!

the weekend was a blast! a family picked me up early saturday morning and we went to a province just west of bangkok, about an hours drive. we checked in (beautiful resort on a river) and waited for everyone to arrive. the boys were so excited to see each other and played like a school of fish, traveling together throughout the resort. it didn't matter what they were doing, just that they were together. they smiled the entire time. siblings were tagging along. it was beautiful, the purity of children that age.

after everyone arrived, we piled into cars and went to a restaurant where our first boat tour would begin. we ate a wonderful thai lunch there and the kids played some more. after about an hour, we went to some docks and got our life jackets, then got into some very shallow boats, semi long tail style. i was in a boat with two families, to give you an idea. we traveled through a "city" of clam farms in the river, then some canals, passing eager monkeys, crabs and these frog/fish creatures that had fish back ends and frog front ends (very bizarre and new), they breathe above water. not too long after passing the monkeys we reached a mangrove where we could get out of the boat and walk through a very muddy bank. there were crabs crawling all around, over our feet, in and out of holes in the mud. it was GREAT! a little freaky, but whatever. the boys were squealing like little girls and most had to be carried to a log above the mud. haha. it was wonderful. some guides gave us some plants to stick in the mud and "plant" with our feet. awesome!

it was humorous to hear the ice cream man's music coming up the canal. . . we had a chuckle. sure enough, he showed up with ice cream in his boat. someone treated the guides to a treat. then we all got back into the boats, after cleaning off the mud, and were given some bananas to feed the monkeys on the way out of the canal we were in. i could tell, on the way in, that the monkeys recognized these tourist boats... the bananas were not a surprise. the monkeys are good catchers and some even got a little feisty.

once back in the river, we traveled the "streets" of the clam farms and went to the mangrove where the princess had planted some ... plants. then turned around and could play in this muddy area of the riverbank with a sled. so i pushed around some of the kids. it's hard work! but, definitely worth it to play in the mud. it was FABulous!

after that we went to a house above the water... where the farmers watch their clam plots at night. we hung out there and had some water, the boys played and played. then we went back to the resort to clean up.

that evening we took another boat to the floating night market in a city about 40 minutes ride from where we were. the floating market was wonderful. i hung out with the boys and their families and tried many new foods. (you see, i tend not to eat thai food because they consider vegetarian as people who still eat chicken and pork, so you're never certain that you're getting non-meat food. but with the parent's help, i was safe.) on the boat ride home, in the dark, we were "firefly sightseeing." it was a new thing for everyone but me. they stayed in certain trees along the riverbanks. it was so cool to share that discovery with these wonderful people. then the conversation (convo in "australianese") with nuttawut happened. it was all too delightful.

the next morning we gathered for an "american" breakfast (Not american) and then saw some sights (temples) around the area of the resort. the first temple was important for several reasons. first, there was a statue and some history about king thaksin. he was the king that fought back some land from the burmese. at this temple there was a building that was hidden in some tree growth. it was 400 years old and held a large golden buddha. the families paid their respects here. another major attraction at this temple was about 100 life sized figures of men posed in the major muay thai boxing poses. some had weapons and some didn't. these figures depicted the way that king thaksin's army fought back the land from burma. very bizarre at first, but very cool, of course.

the last temple we saw had a famous/important monk that had a shrine. in the glass case was a life sized wax figure of him sitting in a chair. behind the wax figure was another glass case with the lying-down semi mummified corpse of said monk. a father told me that he is important to buddhists because he's somewhat a miracle. he had not been embalmed, merely placed in the glass case and looked nearly the same as he did when he first died. he hadn't decayed at all. we had a group photo taken in front of this miraculous man. how fitting.

that about ended the sight-seeing. we went back to the resort and then met for lunch on the way back to bangkok. while at lunch a water monitor came out of a nearby stream. it was quite an attraction. the whole weekend was all too perfect. a great way to say goodbye to the boys. though not all the boys were there, it feels complete, happy, and good. there will be a place in my heart for each of the boys forever. i wish you could meet them. you would love them just as much. everyone who's met them sees what i see. they're GREAT! *tear* goodbye boys! i'll miss you!!!!

needless to say, i have loads of photos of this weekend, so log in to flickr and check them out.

this adventure is coming to a close soon. i have six more weeks that i'll spend traveling around thailand and possibly other countries. i'm going to cambodia this weekend with some german friends. so, it's not quite over yet. stay tuned.

miss you all, but see you soon!!! more blogs to come....