Gecko family out, Amanda in!

Klaeng, Rayong here we come!

Friday started with a three and a half hour bus ride back to Bangkok to meet our coordinators and head to our new home sweet homes. We were all filled with excitement and fear as we walked in to the room to meet our coordinators. Our coordinator, Mr. Bom, was sitting at a table with one other coordinator for another school in Klang/Klaeng/there are ten different spellings for cities in Thailand I swear. We anticipated a lengthy introduction and time to say farewell to the new friends we had met, but we sat with Mr. Bom and P'Chol (a coordinator for a different Klang school) for about 3 whole minutes before grabbing our bags and being rushed to the minivan that would take us to our new home. Jill, Hanna (who teaches at P' Chol's school), and I hopped in the minivan and waved bye to Bangkok. Here is a photo of Jill, Hanna, Mr.Bom, and I right before we got on the minibus.

I wish I could tell you that the minibus ride was amazing and we instantly were best friends with Mr. Bom, but if I am being honest we were all exhausted after a day of bus rides, nervous for what was ahead, and a little intimidated by the language barrier. Hanna and Jill fell asleep pretty quickly, but I tried my hardest to stay awake and make conversation with P'Chol and Mr. Bom. The two coordinators were extremely friendly and did their best to answer my 5 billion and 1 questions, but much was lost in translation. I have realized that part of the adventure and beauty about being in a foreign country, particularly working in a foreign country, is bracing the unknown and loving it. Some examples of my questions and the answers:
1. When will we be there? Maybe 3 maybe 4 hours.
2. When do we start school? November 4th or November 1st is important (Ummm?).
3. How old will our students be? 13-18 (Narrows that down)
4.  What holidays do the students have this semester? Maybe 4 holidays, New years has four days, Thai New Years is important, King's Birthday big day in Thailand, Father's day in Thailand is close to the King's birthday, Children's day, Teacher's day. (pretty sure that is more than 4 and do any of these holidays have dates?)
5. Will we be getting lesson plans or a curriculum to go off of? Lessons plans are important for each day. (Ha Ha YUP they are)

I think you get the point that it was all a bit vague and confusing, but I managed to just smile and laugh to myself about it all. I can't pretend that I wasn't overwhelmed and a bundle of butterflies and anticipation, but it really is hard not to laugh. In addition to the question portion of the bus ride, we had a conversation about Buddhism. P' Chol told us that for monks there are 227 rules that they must follow, but for the average worshiper there are 5 rules to follow in life:
1. No Killing
2. No Stealing
3. No Lying
4. No Adultery/Affairs (this may have also been no sex before marriage, but again lost in translation)
5. No Alcohol.

After telling me the 5 rules P' Chol asked if I thought I could live by these 5 rules and after a little chuckle I agreed that I was sure I could. Being as though the first 4 aren't tough, and I hadn't mentioned that Chang beer had become a good friend in Bangkok, I really didn't find this to be that big of a challenge. P' Chol and Mr. Bom laughed hysterically at my yes answer and then P'Chol proceeded to tell me that the No Killing would be hard for me. I pondered this for about a fraction of a second and let them both know that killing would probably be the easiest. I mean I love criminal minds, but I don't think I look like a serial killer, do I? Again my response was followed by lots of laughs before P'Chol finally explained that no killing included spiders, ants, and even mosquitos. MOSQUITOS, really? Why wouldn't you kill them?

 The moral of the story here is that I won't be converting to Buddhism anytime soon because I've been slapping mosquitos and patting myself on the back for every single one I take from the world/ our bathroom. Also, Chang beer is really good! =)

Mr. Bom then decided to tell Jill and I that all of the teachers from our school, including our coordinators who are there to take care of us, would be leaving in the morning for China for a week. Jill and I would be arriving at our new home around midnight and we wouldn't have anyone there for a week. He followed this good news up with, "Where will you girls be traveling those days?". Well, considering I found out 5 seconds ago that I wouldn't be working and I haven't even made it to Klang, I surprisingly hadn't planned to leave yet. Ha Ha. The time off was fine and we were lucky to get time to travel, but it was a shock nonetheless. 

Now imagine a 4 hour bus ride, arriving at midnight, being nervous and tired, and then you will have an idea of the state we were in when we arrived to our new house, which is also our school because we live on campus. We were a bit overwhelmed and felt a little bit like we were being dumped in the dark. We were told to pick between two apartments and one was a relatively cute house like place and the other was a tin can with a toilet that didn't flush and a sewer smell. I didn't take a picture, but I think you can imagine the fear that was written all over our faces. We made it through and eventually started laughing at our new living situations. Jill and I decided to move in to the nicer of the two options and live together. Here are some pictures:

This is the lesser of the two apartments.

 Good luck flushing that toilet and using that blue tub to do it.

 Geckos in the apartment (these were in both apartments)

It wasn't awful, but the smell was rough and we were fine to move in together in the cuter one anyways. Jill and I began moving beds and furniture at about 1am and finished this fun task around 3am. We still have the keys to this apartment and I think the school thinks we are living separate still. Luckily we have the keys so when we get in a marital fight we won't send each other to sleep on the couch (mainly because we don't have one), but we will be able to send each other to the other house/room. 

Here is our room when it was a room for one.

 Then it became a room for two... Don't make fun of the yellow walls and pink silk curtains, this is our home.

After the furniture moving hour of the night, we began the cleaning out someone who used to live here's belongings hour of the evening/morning. Here are some things we found and please don't ask why someone would leave these for the next teachers because we don't know.

 A scream mask... Clearly Jill was a bit scared to find that.

 An extra tooth brush for an electric toothbrush

A baby guitar and worn slippers.

I refrained from photographing the sweat stained t-shirts, the half used deodorant, and the expired cliff bars, but you can bet they were there.

We followed up the removal hour, with the killing spiders/chasing out the geckos hour. Considering how attractive we looked doing it I am sure we will be contacted for a bug repellant commercial very soon.

Now last but not least I will show you the place we actually chose to live in. Here is a little house tour video.

Here are a few more photos of our house and our school that we took in the daylight the next morning.

Our House

Our yard

The dirt road home

The temporary cafeteria that we live behind

The nicest building at our school

Left: The school's spirit house to welcome the spirits and ask for blessings.

Right: The campus Buddha

 The school gate

 

 Two of the many dogs that roam our campus and will most likely be the culprits if we come down with rabbies..

 Our department/ the English department... Maybe...

I save the best for last and this is the dog that sleeps outside our door, howls in the middle of the night (not creepy at all), and may also give us rabbies, but we named him Jingle because he has a bell and he hangs out with us more than anyone else.

(Disclaimer Andie came up with Jingle and I am pretty sure if we pet him he would bite our hands off). 

Home Sweet Home!! 

Soooo, who is ready to come visit? You get to sleep on the nice mat on the floor! =)

I will leave you with one of the many quotes that are all over our school.. This one's for you sister because I know how much you love quotes! =)