On My Way To Becoming Completely Inflappable

So there’s not a whole lot to report back from Phuket, because not much happened – and that’s why it was so perfect. We stayed with friends of Jenny’s sister, and they completely welcomed us. It was so relaxing to be in a home again and everyone in the family was great. Lia and Ot make their own jewelry and have a shop in Kata, just off the beach. They have the most adorable children (the youngest is three and I almost stole him) and I spent a lot of my time playing with them. So the highlights were the beach (of course), not sleeping in a hostel, and spending time with kids who I didn’t have to teach English. Taking the time off was one of my better decisions.

Now that I’m back at school, with no more vacations to look forward to, I’m especially glad I took those days off. Because beyond having a fantastic time and really enjoying the awesomeness that is Phuket, I really needed a rest. Not from teaching - although it was nice to get a break from my (mostly) well-meaning but exhausting students – but from constantly wondering “What the hell is going on?” and then getting frustrated when no one can explain or, worse, tries to explain and gives me wrong information. Because I’m quickly learning that a lot of the time the Thai teachers don’t know what’s going on either. The difference is that they don’t expect to.

So my next goal for cultural assimilation isn’t to learn how things work (that’s pretty much my default setting, not a goal with an achievable end) but to accept that my school is never going to run things in a way that makes sense to me - a Western way. And taking that vacation was a big step, because I still have all the same frustrations and questions this week that I did last week, but now I’ve had some time away from it.

Sure, I still got frustrated this week when on my way to an M6 class that I haven’t seen in a month (thanks to the luck of Thai scheduling) the students told me that the last two periods of the day had been cancelled so the school could practice for Sports Day (three days of cheering, drumming, and dancing for no identifiable reason). No, I don’t really understand why the school decided it was absolutely vital to run a check on the electricity for two hours in the middle of the day today rather than after school, leaving me in a fanless, air-conditionless room with the door shut because I’m giving listening tests and the students have to be able to hear me. I’m still frustrated and confused, but I’m no longer surprised and that actually helps a lot more than I would have thought.

So now as I write this, dripping with sweat after teaching in my airless hotbox of a classroom, rubbing bloodshot eyes and coughing and wheezing like an asthmatic because they’re burning the rice fields outside the school (for boring farming reasons that I’m not interested in) and smoke is blowing into the office, I know that probably any moment one of the students (or maybe even a teacher) will stare at me, shake their head, and say “Teacher, you do not look good”, even though it is totally their country’s fault. And because I’ll see it coming, I probably won’t even be upset, which will put me one baby step closer to understanding the Thai way of life. No one knows how to roll with it better than the Thais.