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Qrono Weekly Tunes . Wednesday, A|)ju IS 2001 - 9 J Thai Times #7 School Days By: Koren and Aubrey Kassirer The two East Coast Canadian musicians we met in our Chiang Mai cooking class were very excited when we invited them to join us in our village home. We were excited to share with them our life and in turn get a better better insight into our current living situation. One example was the family family of mongoose in our roof. We didn't sleep much the night we realized they were more certainly rats. But by the time Sara and Terry arrived we had grown pretty accustomed to their presence. Our friends didn't seem bothered by them either. They were able to stay two days and three nights before rushing off to the Malaysian border so as not to overstay their visa. Their short visit began with the interesting experience of riding triple on a motor-scooter (along with all of their belongings in one large pack). Koren got a lift with one of our students, thus saving us from trying to imitate imitate the local practice of fitting fitting an entire family on one motor-scooter. One of the first orders of business when we returned home was to dispose of all but a dozen of the 116 roses we received unexpectedly on Valentine's Day. They arrived one-by-one at our classroom door, throughout the afternoon. afternoon. Roses, along with pota toes (for Lay's), rice, com, and paprika, are grown locally. locally. Our beautiful overflowing bouquets had not fared well in our sweltering abode while we were away. Terry and Sara Were able to see (and help us with) a wide range of lessons. We certainly did a lot of singing and movement in each class. We taught a few great art classes, making large masks with multiple layers of brightly coloured paper with the oldest grades. We helped the middle grade students prepare puppet shows for the puppets they made in the previous previous lesson, and then watched them perform on our puppet stage. With the oldest students, we also enacted a restaurant scene; we were the servers and the students were customers customers ordering from our handwritten menus. Some classes went more smoothly than others, but this helped our guest teachers witness witness the whole spectrum of lessons. Local teen boys play pickup pickup soccer on the field directly in front of our house every night about an hour before dark. They start when the ball arrives and stop when no one can see it anymore. Aubrey played on a few occasions when free time allowed, but the impromptu folk singing while our guests were visit ing made football pale in comparison. In the evenings, we prepared delicious meals, sang, played cards and talked until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. Another highlight was eating eating fresh tamarind, saving the seeds and then drilling holes in them (with our neighbour 's drill press) to string them on a bracelet for each of us - a small souvenir of a lovely couple of days together. After a sad farewell to our houseguests, we embarked on the first day of our '"last" lessons lessons with each class. By now we recognized the faces looking looking out at us from the classrooms classrooms or in the village streets, -and we felt the sadness sadness that comes with leaving and closing a chapter of your life. That day was our most satisfying satisfying teaching day since we had arrived. Everything flowed together together perfectly; we had a great time introducing some new drama exercises and songs, and we really felt like we had made a positive impact on our students. The day ended with a great Thai meal we prepared for our university-student friends (we watched them cook and helped them eat a Thai feast last week), followed followed by a lively game of a favourite Thai card game we were quickly taught. We woke up the next morning still riding the high from the previous day's successes, successes, only to be disappointed disappointed right from when we arrived at school. Unfortunately, one English teacher had not understood our homework instructions and the morning students were not at all prepared for our lessons. We trudged through two extremely painful lessons without translation translation support for most of the morning, and then delayed the final class until our last day of teaching. I guess you could say our bubble had been burst. Luckily, the afternoon was slotted for music with the younger children and as . usual, it went off without a hitch. This was especially great because our "supervisor" "supervisor" Ampom was around to observe our classes that afternoon. afternoon. As we approach our very last lessons and our last two days in our community, we hope that we have been able to contribute something worthwhile during our time here. We will leave the teachers teachers with our lesson plans, feedback from our time here, and an English song booklet and tape of the songs we used in our lessons. Although our students may never speak fluent English, we feel this exposure to art, music, drama, and native English speakers will be an experience that will always remain with them. If only one student, after their experience with us, has more determination to study English, and this in turn makes them more marketable in the workplace and helps them to better their position in life, then we have achieved something very important. Either way, we have learned a lot about Thailand and its culture, and the people in our community have learned a lot about us. Cultural exchange, in our opinion, is always something worthwhile. Newcastle Golf Course Opening for 2001 Thursday, April 19th Soft spikes SEASON PASSES PAY AS YOU PLAY RATES Weekend 18 Holes-$29 9 Holes - $21 Midweek 18 Holes - $26 9 Holes - $18 Twilight 4:30 p.m. - 9 Hole Rates Dress Code $r Weekend Tee Times ik , <@®S3l 987-4851 Envelopes Paperback Books Glass Bottles Junk Mail Mixed Household Papers Telephone Books Magazines & Catalogues Newspapers Boxboard Plastic Containers with a "1* Metal Food & Beverage Cans Aluminum Pie Plates & Travs Cardboard Maximize your Blue Box