Things are going well at school. The kids are very excited every time we assist in the class. Most of them have probably never seen an American since sadao isn’t really a “destination” like Bangkok.

Beam has given us a few of her classes to teach. They need to learn a lot of English vocabulary in order to communicate. Obviously they are very literate in Thai, and have mastered the common greeting terms. Once they get past that stage they flounder and really don’t know what to say next. English immersion would be the best way to accomplish what Beam wants, but that won’t happen, at least at this stage of her program. They are looking for 2 American teachers to teach math and science, but with only three classes (instead of our standard 5) per week it is difficult.

On Saturday morning we went to Sadao’s morning market. It is similar to our “farmers markets” with much more variety. Thailand certainly is a “feast for the senses” with the sights, smells and tastes of many, many foods. Along with the many, many vegetables and fruits are a variety of fish, from tiny anchovies up to the larger ones. Couple that with numerous dried and salted fish, shrimp, and squid, prepared curries, hot Thai Chile peppers and the aroma is unlike anything in the states.

One thing very different is their preparation of fish. They are somewhat cleaned and just cut up into chunks, bones and all. This offers them calcium in their soup, but makes it look somewhat unappetizing and hard to eat. The small fish are salted, dried, and some larger ones dried in thin cross sections and eaten bones and all! (a bit too fishy for my taste).

On Monday we took a trip to Phuket, an island northwest of us called “the jewel of the Andaman Sea. And it really was. We took one of the school vans again and there were 7 of us. A teacher from the school drove again. The saying goes, “it’s not the destination, but the journey” and this journey was memorable. You have to be very aggressive and at times it was scary. Everyone passes on yellow lines, with oncoming traffic moving over to let you get by. Much of the road is two lane only and often we got stuck behind slow moving trucks, but not for long! There are no passenger seat belts either so that adds to the concern.

I will post more on our Phuket trip later.