Week 4 - half way there.

So the start of week 4 wasn't great. I spent the first few days pretty homesick and upset - but I was told to expect it when I reached the half way point. I've never had homesickness before so it was a very bizarre feeling. Whenever I've been away from home in the past, I've always just been excited to go home and see my family, but never to the point it would upset me. But I blame this homesickness on tiredness - 2 hours sleep over my weekend in Bangkok was probably not my best idea! Because, as everyone knows, tiredness totally amplifies things - that thing being missing my family, not being able to speak to close friends, or something as simple as the internet not working. Seriously, the internet playing up was the end of the world on that Monday. All I can say is thank God for the lovely Avita Kaur; the poor girl seems to always be around when I have a low point and is an absolute pro at cheering me up. What a star!

But then things properly turned around, starting on Thursday 8th. I was told the day before I would be picked up at 6.30am rather than the usual 7.30am, but told nothing other than that so I just assumed school was open early for the day or something. I was wrong! Rather than being picked up by Purn, the director of the school showed up to whisk me off for the day, along with Lamduan, and the two Chinese TA's. I genuinely had no idea where I was going, and whenever I asked they just said 'school' - even though we were travelling in the opposite direction to Bannoenthong... After a classic 7/11 toastie for breakfast and an hour long journey, we arrived - and we were at a school! A school in Chumphon, on the coast and it was beautiful. Turns out there was some kind of school fate with around 80 schools there, each with their own stall. With around 8 teachers and 8 of the loveliest students from Bannoenthong, we set up our stall and were selling fried banana's for the day. Simple as that! But it was such a great day, and reminded me so much of my primary school summer fate's back home (except it was Pad Thai instead of a BBQ, and traditional Thai dancing instead of a unsuccessful attempt at Maypole dancing). The sun was out for once, and I got burnt to a crisp - standard!

At the school with some fellow teachers .

The thing that stood out about this day was how close I actually got to the students and teachers. It was the first day that I'd had the chance to properly get chatting to them and we had so much fun. Some of the teachers are absolutely hilarious even when I had no idea what they were saying. One of them made me stand in front of the stall and pose whilst saying in a seductive, high pitched voice - 'Welcome to Bannoenthong School, you look like you enjoy fried banana?'. I took two of the students off for lunch who were absolute sweethearts, and told me all about their family and life outside of school. I'm so glad I spent that time with them (even if they won't stop facebook messaging me now).

Bannoenthong's fried banana stall!

Just all in all, a really great day. I ate far too many banana's though.
That evening, Aimee stayed the night. Our mentors had organised a sleepover for us because they knew we were both travelling to Phi Phi together the next day - so nice of them! It was a great evening, as always with Aimee, and was once again great to speak English at full speed. We ate food, we gossiped, and we watched 'The Vow'. How very Western!

Friday was Mother Day celebrations. The following Monday was the Thai Queens birthday which is a national holiday every year, and this year it was celebrated at our school on the Friday before. I showed up at school with Aimee (much to the kids delight - MORE WHITE PEOPLE!), and had a very lazy morning of sitting in the school hall and watching performances from the school band, two students doing traditional Thai Dancing (in the most beautiful costumes I've ever seen), and the Monks talking whilst we pretended to know what they were saying. It was lovely. We also had to give the monks a formal food offering, and line up in front of a picture of the Queen, curtsy and then write in a book 'Long live the King and Queen' with our signature. Not that we knew what we were doing at the time, we just hopped in line and hoped we weren't signing our lives away...

Me, Aimee and some of the teachers at Bannoenthong Mother Day.

Throughout the day, students could pin flowers to their teachers, and I ended up with a whole flower bush on my chest! I had no idea what this represented but accepted them with a smile. After researching what the flower giving represented, I found out that a lot of the children here do not live with their mothers, as they have had to move elsewhere for work. These children give flowers to teachers that they feel have represented a mother figure. It brought a tear to my eye! Was very very sweet, and I've kept every flower. I know I keep saying it, but THAI KIDS ARE SERIOUSLY THE BEST.

Me and my many flowers, with one of the students Umaporn - who gave me a flower and is incredibly good at English. *cough* favourite...

After the Mother's Day celebrations, me and Aimee jetted off to Chumphon to begin our journey to Koh Phi Phi, ready for what would be the best weekend ever...