Lunch at Salween Restaurant and Bar - I discovered a local authentic dish called Khao soi. It is a Burmese-influenced dish served widely in northern Laos and northern Thailand. The name means "cut rice". Being a soup-like dish made with deep-fried crisp egg noodles, pickled cabbage, shallots, onions, lime, ground chillies fried in oil and meat in a curry-like sauce containing coconut milk. The curry is somewhat similar to that of yellow or massaman curry but of a thinner consistency. It was the best Thai dish I've ever eaten. I chilled out with my book and watermelon shake before meeting up Hans to walk to school.
I had my cosy class of four today. We looked at sentences using IN and ON. We did some exercises from the book and to my surprise, the monks knew exactly when it was appropriate to use IN and ON in the right context. It made it easier for me not having to spend the whole class to explain the differences. Moving along, we looked at auxiliary verbs - 'is, am, have'. I wrote sentences on the board where the monks had to fill in the blanks. It was a very smooth running class. I was very impressed with their level of English. We also touched on some pronunciation.
After the two hour class, Chatchawan asked if I wanted to teach an extra class - I said yes. As I wasn't prepared for the class, I played hangman with the younger monks. I explained the rules, went through the alphabet with them to ensure that they knew the letters and we started the game. I didn't tell the kids what categories the words were as I wanted to challenge them a little, without any difficulties - they were on a run with guessing all the words I had challenged them with. I decided to ask the monks to come up one by one and test their peers with a word they've chosen. The game went well for the hour - all the monks participated and towards the end of the class, they challenged each other with three letter words. It came to surprise when one of the cheeky monks had chose the word 'sex'. I didn't know what to say and immediately wiped the word off the board. It was a little awkward for me. Classes always end with one monk saying 'stand up please' together as a class saying 'thank you teacher'.
It's Hans' last night in Mae Hong Son. Jes and Lamai had organised a farewell dinner and a welcome dinner for Dawid (pronounced David) and I. Dawid had just arrived today and will be staying in Mae Hong Son for a month. Dawid is from Poland but has been studying in Scotland for the last three years. It was nice to know that I will have a fellow volunteer around for the next three weeks. However, within hours of arriving in Mae Hong Son he had already planned for a trekking adventure for the weekend, so I will not be seeing him until he returns. I wanted to join him but I had already made plans with Jes and Lamai for Saturday. Dinner was at the Fern Restaurant, Jes had arranged for a banquet style dinner. We had fried chicken wrapped in pandan leaves, seafood tom yum soup, sweet and sour fish, spring rolls, tom kha gai and mince pork and salad. It was a feast.
Dinner was divine. Every dish was super delicious. We also had beer and whisky for the mini celebration. It was a lovely gesture for Les and Lamai to pay for the dinner. It was a nice atmosphere dining with great people with a continuous flow of conversations. We also met Pam and her husband. Pam is a Thai-English teacher who teaches at the same school as Charley and Gina.
Hans and Jes both made a speech. We all wished Hans a safe journey. He will be greatly missed by all.
Good night world.
XOXO
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