Last days in Nong Khai

The past couple of weeks have passed much as the others here, it is a small town with little in the way of entertainment or places of interest.
Luckily, there has been many new volunteers, we were up to 20 this week which is an all time high. They are from all over the world, mainly USA and England, but include Australia, Holland, Sweeden and Germany. All seem very nice people and of course, are giving their time free of charge to help make a difference to children who, would otherwise not get the chance to read, write or speak English.
This week, I took a couple of classes,  previously I had  been listening to the children read on a one to one basis, this time I was 'Teacher Lisa' and taught the lessons.
The children pronounce  the word Teacher as 'Teachaar'  and that has been my title since arriving here.

I knew the children in this class and their level as I had been reading with them for 3 weeks. Their regular 'Teacher Mark' had gone away for a long weekend so I took 2, hour long classes.
We practiced some phonics (sounds) and then played a game with flashcards that I had written out to include the sounds in 5 letter words.
I split them into 2 teams

The first person to raise their hand and answer correctly got to draw a picture on the board for their team

The team with the most pictures at the end were declared the winners, they all got into it and enjoyed it.

Some of the children are so pretty, most all of them are well behaved. The ones who play up and lack attention are the boys!

A fellow volunteer, Lily from the States was taking the photos for me.

Last Friday was Childrens day and we were invited to the Village school that we volunteer at 3 times a week. All the girls were in their pretty dresses and wore make up and entered a competition where they did a dance, different ones for the different age groups.

This little boy was determined to be in the fron t row with the girls, check out the pink tee-shirt and the whats written on it! next stop, Brighton.......

  Some of the older boys look on

On Saturday morning, a reception room at the local hospital was the setting for a fun morning for some HIV orphans. Isara foundation was invited and 4 of us went along to help out (mainly blow up balloons) and then twist them into funny shapes

we were given some refreshments complete with  loo roll as our serviettes, not uncommon here but always makes me laugh.

We were told that most of these kiddies had been born to Mothers with aids, many of the (Mothers) have died, many of the children were given away as their families didn't want them, it was sad, they were all lovely and such fun. they all put on a dance act, the 2 boys pictured, did some great break dancing that they said they had copied from you tube, boys will always be boys.  They all recieved gifts, sweets and food and had a nice time, it was a very humbling experience.

Here are a random selection of photos 'life in Nong Khai'

 The sunset

Large fish on the barbeque, cooked by a large lady

Barbequed chicken

Barbequed chicken feet!!!

 Lady boy at the local 7 eleven

 Tomorrow night I take the 12 hour overnight train to Bangkok where I will stay for 2 nights before making my way to Chiang Mai, ready for the TEFl course that starts the following Monday.

I hope that doing the volunteer work here will have prepared me a little, at least so that I may more confident in a classroom situation when being watched by my peers and Tutor.

It has been an interesting experience this past 5 weeks, and amazing to see one mans dream working as a reality.