Camping. . .in Thailand???

As many of you know, I am not a big fan of camping and Ryan and I rarely camp at home, I mean NEVER camp. [insert Ryan's comment: actually there was that one time we almost got swept down the river, but that's another story...]. So, how we found ourselves in a two-person tent in Northern Thailand remains a mystery to me!

We were asked by Travel to Teach to assist with an English Camp from Friday to Saturday for high school students in Udon Thani (about 45 minutes away). We were picked up on Friday morning at 7 a.m. and taken to the school (beautiful and big) then up to the mountains to the camp site. We were then told to take the students on a 'hike' (again, we are wondering what are we doing???). Envision Ryan and I, soaked with sweat, sunscreen and mosquito repellent, with 7 other 'native English speakers', 150 kids and about 15 Thai teachers all hiking in the heat of the day when the sun is at it's strongest from noon to 2:00...classic. I'm sure you can all see the crazy looks we were giving each other as we were sweating and huffing and puffing our way through the 'forest'. The first day we were a bit confused as it seemed like they only spoke to the students in Thai...we thought this odd since this was called "English Camp" !! After an adult beverage and some good laughs with our Belgian friends (Lotta and Katrain) we were ready to make this the best we could. Ryan and Katrain were asked to the be MC's for the campfire and welcome the director of the school and the camp. After introductions, each group of schoolchildren performed in English for the entire camp (8 performances in all!). There were a group of students (all young boys) that they call openly 'lady boys', basically they are openly gay and feminine young boys. We were pleasantly surprised at the support and openness that the Thai culture provides them. They taught me some great dance moves to an English hip hop song [insert Ryan's comment: Julie taught them the Britney Spears' "Oops, I did it again" dance]. Ryan taught the students 'the wave' and asked each one of them 'what is your name' to which they respond with a long-hard-to-pronounce Thai name and then they say 'my nickname is. . .'. He had them all laughing all night long. Being the 'married couple' we got our own little tent. .. right next to all the kids and woke up to a whistle blowing for exercises at 5:30 a.m. :)

The second day of camp was really fun and encouraging. They broke the students into 5 groups and then rotated to different stations. I had the 'dressing' station to which I taught the students 'shirt', 'shorts', 'flip flops' etc. I really worked on their pronunciation as the 'sh' and 'fl' sounds aren't in their language and seem to be very challenging. Ryan was in charge of a scavenger hunt which was fun for the first 2 rounds and then he was running in an all out sweat around camp (again in the heat and high sun) the winners all got ice-creams as their reward! The director of the camp cried when we said good bye, she was so thrilled to have us help and she was so warm. We learned alot this weekend and laughed so much, we were glad that we went and felt like we made a difference. [insert Ryan's comment: Julie has maintained her cover as a 'vegetarian' quite well and despite my occasional slip up, people believe she has been one for years].