Broadcasted on Channel 11 Thai News

(Cont. from previous blog- Mol-lee...Tomorrow...)

I stayed late that night preparing for the next day’s adventure. I sorted flashcards, gathered A-4 paper, found old lessons, and scrambled ideas until my body shuttered with anxious dread. Teaching on stage didn’t bother me as much as not knowing what to expect and not being prepared did…

I arrived at work early. Turning on the water heater for some much needed caffeine, I went to my desk to make sure that I had everything and to go over my lessons one more time. At about 8:15 (good thing I was early…pssh) I watched as Principal Lin, looking more like Princess Fiona from the Disney movie, Shrek, (in Org form) than usual dressed in a blue, sparkly, blazer-shirt and skirt with her hair all done in curls. Oy, dancing around the principal, herded the kids to a small, white min-van.
“Are they really going to stuff awl 26 students in that van?” My co-worker Carol asked aloud as we stood watching from the safety of the shaded door, “And you too?” she turned to me bemused with the whole ordeal.
“Do you think? Will they fit? She said two vans…” I retaliated peering over the brim of my light brown, instant coffee.
“They sure have done it before, awlright. Wouldn’t surprise me.” She said as she turned toward her desk.
“Are you okay?” My co-worker Paul sympathetically oozed as he came in. “You are going to do fine.”
“Yeah,” Carol chimed in, “and just think, we can all have a nice laugh when it’s over with. No problem a’tawl.”
“Wow, good one. Have fun with that.” Kate, the only one my age grimaced to me, “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Principal Lin called through the crack in the door. Damn, I thought maybe she would forget me, maybe get too wrapped up and they would all take off. Guess not. I swallowed the last swig of candy-flavored coffee, sighed and plowed out the door into the sunshine.
“Teacha Mol-lee!” the kids cried as I approached the hustle and bustle of loading them on the bus. And Carol was right, there was only one. But where was Em? Em better freakin’ be going…
“Khun Mol-lee” I overheard as Principal Lin talked with Dr. She motioned for me to move into the passenger seat. I was watching as the children stuffed themselves into the van: some standing, some sitting, some crammed into corners on the floor. It was amazing how all the little bodies fit in. Even Oy fit, lop-sided, in the back. As directed I sat shotgun to the good Dr., Grandfather to two of my children, but more importantly Head of The Ministry of Education. As we were getting ready to leave, Cartoon, a smiley little girl in my class, was lifted up and plopped in my lap. The door was shut and she sat giggling, wedged into the front seat with me. Great.

The drive was long and blaring kid shows played on the flip-down DVD player as we whipped into Phuket Town. My stomach churned and my mind raced with what to expect. I replayed the planned lesson in my head and talked with Cartoon as we passed things she recognized. “Flower,” she said pointing her little finger at passing roadside orchids.
“Very good, Cartoon. Flower. Purple flower.” I encouraged.
“Sun.” She said squinting up at the sky and shielding her eyes.
“Yes. Hot sun.” I replied fanning my face as the rest of the children squealed and yelped in the back.

After about twenty minutes of driving back the way I drove in to work that morning, past the center of Phuket Town and through the misplaced rotary, we came upon a road lined with men in black uniforms. The uniforms identified themselves by their tell-tale white gun sashes and badges as being officers, hundreds of them it seemed. Among the police were security guards, several farang (foreigners), some Thai’s obviously working at the event smocked and carrying pots, and some well dressed Thai’s donned in His Majesty The King’s representative yellow polo shirt topped with a classic black blazer. Apparently these were not your ordinary Thai’s.

My nails dug into the handle of the door and white knuckled, my mouth dropped as I tried to access the situation. Holy shit. What is this? Police? Seriously? Maybe it’ll be too busy an event and I will be forgotten, dismissed to a back corner. Oh God, it is here, we’re stopping.

We stopped across the street from a large, rectangular, dark, marble sign draped in rich, blue silk. Only the first six letters peaked out from the secretive fabric: AUSTRI. And I knew then that it hadn’t been Principal Lin’s flawed English that had thrown me off. It actually was the Austria Center, whatever that was. As my mind put the puzzle together another piece jammed itself jagged edged into my mind: she had said “grand opening”. Silk fabric, balloons, police, silk fabric covering the sign, security, tons of security, farang…oh shit.

My door swung open as Dr.-stone faced- suggested with his hands that I step out. I set Cartoon gently on the ground and took a deep breath: Here we go. There was nothing I could do. I’m here, they expect me to go on, and there is obviously something big happening. The best I could do was go through it, give it the old college try, wow the crowd and be done with it. Three hours, okay. Dr. pulled back the side door and before it had glided to a stop my kids were spilling out onto the sidewalk. The Dr. started to lead my kids around the back of the van and into the street, and on-coming traffic, while signaling to the officers. Cars slammed on their breaks as the sound of whistles assaulted the air. With students grasping my hands, fingers, skirt, bag and any other extremity they could, I crossed, or more likely shuffled, across the street and onto the walkway of this white-washed center.

It erupted out of the still raw earth. It’s marble and concrete walls cut away at sharp angles and revealed open-air seating and connected buildings rounded as if they were towers. With no one to follow, my students began wandering aimlessly around. I called to them to gather and wrestled them into a small group by the wall and out of peoples’ way…for the most part. After awkwardly standing with a group of 26 wiggling children for several year-long minutes we were met by Em.
“Mol-lee. We go in here. You teach,” she coyly smiled to me and added in a sing-sing tease, “Ah you ready?”
“Em, what is this? I teach here? Where?” But before she could answer Dr. commanded something in Thai to her and we began to follow him through large glass doors and into a building. It was as sterile as a hospital. The floor was immaculately polished and a white, spiral staircase climbed up the center of the room encased in glass, everything smelled free of dust. We removed our shoes by the door and lined them up toe-to-wall before entering any farther. A desk, much like a hotel reception desk, was along the left hand wall and several grey suited Thai’s nodded and smiled at us as we loudly clamored in. We trudged to a large, pastel padded, lima bean shaped pit with a column up the middle as a seating area to climb into. The second my kids saw it, it was a free for all. You might as well have just released them into the play palace at MacDonald’s for all they cared. All they knew was that here was a padded pit, poles to climb, and ledges to jump off of in a new place. And that was exactly what they did. Screaming, they body slammed one another off the mats while hooting like monkeys in triumph and running off to find another victim. Others were screaming as their friends, pretending to be monsters, growling at their kicking feet. They spilled out of the lima bean and onto the polished floor turning the corner into what must have been, The Library. Crisp white shelves held lined books in rainbow colored order and same size categories with fancy book ends. Freshly bought puppets were displayed on shelves, their store bought smiles still gleaming.

“Bang! Satang! Ton! Over here. We are not in the books. Put the books away!” I ordered the wild wolf-children as I helplessly looked at the zoo that had been unleashed. My Thai teachers were nowhere to be found and here I am with Dr. Ministry of Education, a rambunctious group of six year olds, and random wanderers speculating at my uncontrollable class. With the realization of Oy and Em missing, I became a little overwhelmed but assumed that they would be back any minute. They couldn’t have possibly left me for long…here…where no one speaks English and the kids are in a new spot paying no intention to my Charlie Brown English wafting ineffectively through their ears. With Dr. Standing at the end of the room, I tried to herd my children into the bean pit. If I could at least contain them in one area I would be okay, right? As the howls echoed through the building my children managed to hurtle over or around me and into the books. Several began to climb the honeycomb structure that stretched from ceiling to floor with new books clamped between their rotten stubs of teeth. Others chased each other and jumped X-Game style into the pit. It had felt like ages, the perspiration beading on my back and under my hairline. They were only getting louder and more destructive. I imagined the books being tossed on the floor, red mixing with (gasp) blue books, the stuffing of a chicken puppet spilling from its insides, my children drooling from the honeycomb rafters above onto their victim below.

“Okay, Banmaireab! KG2! Over here!” I clapped to them in my most authoritative tone. Miraculously most of them came over. The others I called by name and got them to join. Now, that I had them all together, what was I going to do? How was I going to contain them? I didn’t want to start teaching. I didn’t have any of my materials. Where were Oy and Em? I searched my surroundings for an idea…oh course, “Yok,” one of my best behaved and smart students, “could you please go and pick out one book to read with the class.” She got up and as others went to follow I clucked at them to sit back down, “Is your name Yok? Yok is picking out the book thank you very much. Please sit and wait.” With the good Dr. looming behind us I tried to look in control of my class.

Yok handed me the spongy book, “Thank you, Yok. Okay. Ooooooh, nice book. Is this a little book or a big book?” I asked knowing that I had to buy time and this four page thin baby book wasn’t about to cash in.
“Little!” a chorus of shouts came.
“Good. What color is the book?”
“Pink!” they replied.
“Good,” I nodded in approval to them, “What is on the book? What is the picture of?” as I continued with random questions people began to trickle in: a couple from outside, some business men from upstairs, a family with a little boy. I could see the Dr. on the ledge of the bean watching me, his face carved in the same stern look. Was I doing well? Is he happy? How can you read this guy? As I thought of these things I realized that my students were being incredibly attentive and articulate. I thought, screw it, I’m going to teach my kids. I’m just going to do my best and do what I know the kids like to do and can do well.

After three books Teelak approached me, “Teacha Mol-lee, bathroom.”
“You have to use the bathroom? Can you wait?” He nodded to me as he clutched the plaid shorts around his groin. Oh, God. How am I going to take them all to the bathroom? Where is the bathroom? Where the hell are Em and Oy?
“Teacha’ Mol-lee,” Noon, a little dark eyed girl in my class came to me, “bathroom, please.” She said, one leg twined around the other. As I looked around the room I noticed most children were clutching their plaid uniforms and squirming with discomfort.
“Do you all have to go?” I asked in disbelief. Their little heads nodded in unison. Ooooooookay, “Let’s go. Boys and girls.” They pushed and shoved their way into a straight line, “Let’s go.” After being denied use of the bathroom on the bottom floor I lead my students up the spiral staircase to the second and had each go in and use the facilities. As we finished up we were joined by Em and Oy who had apparently gone to decorate a board to represent the school.

It was 9:30 and as we came back to the lima bean I was ready to teach. Otherwise, I thought to myself, they are just going to run rampant and embarrass me, the school, and everyone involved. Let’s get this show on the road. With some reprimands and rearranging of seating they finally settled in. Sitting in a tiny, red, plastic chair on top of the four foot wide stage I began my lesson. We went through the usual days of the week and today, the date, and the weather by playing my normal jesting misspelled word game: “What day is it today?”
“Friday.”
Okay, Friday. Very good.” White board marker touches the board and I slowly form the letter ‘M’ until they correct me and chant out the correct days’ spelling. A small crowd was gathering as we continued with our morning routine and then onto the English lesson with phonetics. We reviewed vocab and danced to a phonetics CD that goes along with my curriculum. They love that stuff… “I see a noodle named Nyle/ He likes to nap for a while/he wears a scarf around his neck/he’s neat and right in style.” (Phonetic sound /n/ Letter Nn represented by your pal and mine, Nyle Noodle. Oh, yeah.) People love to see kids dance and be cute, so I was just feeding it to them. The cute part is easy for my lot; the dancing is a little silly though. But that’s what the people want.

I was cranking through. The white board was covered with letters and vocabulary cards and hands were raised to answer questions. I glanced up towards the crowd for the first time and noticed the Principal, Dr., Some black suit jacketed men from the Oborn Jorn, a few well to do smiling farang, and a bunch of onlookers, maybe forty. I knew I had to beef it up. Make the kids impressive. Use what they know to make the crowd ‘ooh and aw’. We went over vocabulary flashcards, “It’s a butterfly. Letter B. Sound /b/.” the children answered. As we ended the review I began to prep for a game as Oy approached me, “Mol-lee. Blake.”
“What?” I asked sorting flashcards in my dewy palms.
“Blake…you know?”
“Blake? What. What do you mean?” I asked half stumbling over my materials as my rhythm had been broken. She looked around for help.
“The student’s. Blake. Eat.” She mimicked eating.
“Oh. Sorry, sorry, yes. Break.” I apologized. The stress and pressure had dulled my usually sensitive ear from Thai mis-sayings and pronunciation. “Of course. Okay. No problem.”
“You come.” She encouraged as I put my things in a pile and followed the line out.

We sat at long tables on hard wooden benches and the students got a little roll filled with shredded pork (I like to call them meat buns), and an orange flavored milk in a bag with straw. As the students sat chowing their meat buns, a commotion began behind them near the silk covered sign. Two hundred or so people were standing around it and as I inched closer out of curiosity I was startled by the thunderous bang of a bass drum. A full marching band in light blue garb piped with red and large white plumes atop stiff white caps began to explosively play to the mingling crowd. The silk was pulled off to reveal the sign and released ribbon flapped back in freedom. Grand opening, indeed.

Some of my students covered their ears while others banged out the song on the table with sticky hands. I stood along the wall behind them smiling proudly and encouraging good behavior. As the band changed tunes, the crowd shifted like the tides and rolled our way. Like a tsunami it rolled towards my kids. The people just kept coming and coming and coming. We were flooded with onlookers. My poor, innocent, unknowing children. Video cameras, ten or so of them, circled my bread-mouthed kids while the head of the Oborn Jorn talked with them while posing for photo-ops, and rich white Austrians pinched their cheeks and tussled their hair. The Principal ordered something in Thai to Oy and the kids were up and lined in no time.

“Mol-lee, you teach. Now!” Oy called to me over the excitement. Let’s rock. I Stood at the head of the line and lead my children inside, weaving around the towering adults. We sat back in the bean pit and tried to continue. It was jam-packed, wall-to-wall people. I could hardly hear myself call to them, let alone expect them to follow directions in English.
“Maybe, you do dance again.” Oy suggested.
“Okay, but there is music on.” I told her as the elevator music whined in my ear by the big screen television I had previously turned off. We’ll try it.
“Oy turned the music on and up as loud as it could go and the students began to move in a sloppy, insecure, slurred dance. This isn’t going to work.
“Oy, forget it. They cannot hear the music.”
“Oh, I doh-no.”
Thinking on my feet, I had them all sit down and split down the middle.
We started playing an impromptu game of flashcard tic-tac-toe where the students one by one had to come up, pick a card, turn it over to reveal the picture, name the object, tell me the letter it began with and the phonetic sound to gain an ‘X’ or an ‘O’. The volume in the room was incredible and people sat on the ledges of the pit to watch and cheer on the children. We sang songs between games: Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle, Twinkle, etc. because I knew the people would eat it up…as they did.

Plucking a flashcard from the white board to redirect my students’ attention, I came face to face with a television camera, the large black circle reflecting a skewed image of myself staring back at me. Surprised by the proximity of the lens, I nervously smiled and tried to remember what I was doing before I was a deer in headlights. News crews snapped shots of my children and people talked to them while I played the game. An older woman with frizzled hair and grey sweater jacket leaned on the ledge of the pit on the stage where I taught and engaged me, mid-lesson, in conversation, “Vear ah you frum?”
“Oh, I am from U.S.A. America.” I answered sweetly. You have to say both U.S.A. and America here because people either know one or the other. If you say America, they may have no idea.
“And da children? How vold?” her dry lips smacked together.
“They are mostly five and six.” I failed to mention the Ministry of Education’s three year old spoiled granddaughter in my class.
“Ah. And how long you stay ear?” she asked, her cheek bones defined ghoulishly by the dark blush.
“I’ve been here for about four months now.”
We continued until she got her fill with information adding, “I am frum Austria.” Yeah, no kidding lady. Are you happy you spent your money on this now that you saw my little kiddos? I continued with my lesson.

The crowd thinned out again and I switched to Mathematics. Hopping down from the wooden stage and onto the now open floor, I put a number line on the ground. Oy and Em taped the numbers, as I reviewed the concept “Count up!” I chanted as I put my right hand into the air, “Count down!” I continued with the opposite arm. My voice echoed through the chamber of the spiral staircase. I could feel movement behind me as I tried to focus on the children lined on the edge of the Easter-egg colored pads. One by one my students came up to demonstrate their mathematical ability while I congratulated them with big, shiny, stickers. This is ridiculous, I thought as my bare feet swept the now warm floor. As we danced on the number line, two dark images hovered to my left.

“Excuse, me. Can I talk with you?” A scrappy, mustachioed man approached me. In his hand he held a microphone as a beautiful Thai woman stood beside him smiling. The camera man rested the heavy instrument on his knee as we chatted. “When did you hear about this opening? We didn’t know you were going to be here.”
I stared at his red shirt- lie. “I heard a lot about it yesterday and more as we got ready to come.” When actually all I wanted to say was that I heard about it yesterday before I was planning on leaving work to go home and actually realized what it was, oh, ten minutes ago. It wasn’t technically a lie. My students rustled in the background. The light from sunlight bounced off the white walls and showered the room in a hot pool of light.
“Have you had a chance to check out the facilities? What do you think?” He asked with his skinny forehead gleaming from the light that fell across from us, his right hand firmly on his hip while the other mopped his brow.

The thought of my children crawling all over the shelves and half-nelsoning each other came to mind. The bathroom trip upstairs came to mind. Walking to snack came to mind. “I’ve become familiar with the library and we read a few of the books. It seems like a wonderful resource and a great facility for the community. It is also architecturally lovely.” I answered. Was this really happening? This was why I was here. Get the kids on camera. Plug the school. We talked a bit more about things I knew nothing about but pretended to have an inkling (which I didn’t). Finally he prepped the beautiful Thai and I was asked the same questions by her, only recorded this time as my children sang the ABC’s (ah, Em and Oy, very smart) in the background. Charmed, the reporter asked me if I could get the students to say ‘I love the new library! Buh-bye’ to the camera as a closer for the segment. But of course, I’d only be fired if I didn’t. After three takes they wrapped up and left the building. The strange room became quiet again.

I turned back to my students, ready to continue with stickers. Em approached me smiling sweetly and holding my arm, “Mol-lee. Finish teaching. Now, we go. Eat lunch.” And it was over like that. I was on camera. The school was mentioned. Mission complete. Lesson over. Who cares if the students learned anything today? Who cares if that set us three days behind in curriculum? Publicity.

We returned to the long tables and wooden benches as they spooned cold rice, chicken, soup, and soy sauce prepared that morning and driven from school into little divided lunch trays for the kids. I watched as they ate and awkwardly smiled at onlookers and hoverers. Thai people came up and asked the children questions, taking their spoons and mixing the food on the plate for them. A hefty farang man, stocky in his walk, approached me. He had a full navy blue suit with collared pinstriped shirt and red tie. He wiped his moist face with a faded white handkerchief as I told him about our school and he told me about business-architecture. He is the boss of the Austrian building group that built the facility, “Thai architecture, we just built it.” He emphasized as he went on about the politics of building in Thailand.

The children finished their lunches and dove into ice-cream pops while we got ready to leave. My stomach rumbled as I stood with my children. I was so exhausted I could fall over. As I stood entertaining my children, trying to keep them behaved, I heard loud gasps, squeals, yelps, and shouts. A woman holding a bunch of thirty or so multi-colored balloons rounded the corner. The rainbow colors glowed in the sunlight and she walked almost slow motion toward the drab and dusty lunchroom. The dirty faces lit up and reached toward the multicolored fantasy with grubby hands. The dry grass blew up a small tuft of weeds as she brought the balloons to me.

“Balloons! Letter B! Sound /b/!” my students cried as the silken white strings were handed over to me. Two white Austrians stood smiling at the side of us: he in dark business suit and parted hair, her, twisting her long-linked gold necklace around her finger that matched her nautical attire suitable for a developing country. He squeezed her around her red striped waist at my students’ delight and they gazed satisfied into each others’ eyes.

Only after you read the TWO parts of the blog
view it yourself @:
http://www.thaisnews.com/news_detail.php?newsid=197996
click on Special report: Austria – Phuket Community Cente opened