Close Encounters of the Third Kind

And that’s it! I’m now done at St. John’s Tha Bom. Crumbs.

The last week and a half were devoid of any lessons, all cancelled for exams or leaving events for the third years, for the other years and for me, Adam, Bambi and Sister Vin. A lack of lessons meant that the days dragged and the school’s internet connection was abused.

Friday 24th February (just to give you a date reference to follow for the next few thousands words) was the last day for the third years. The whole day was devoted to them and to leaving ceremonies. The morning saw them receive certificates confirming that they had been to St. John’s and had managed not to fall asleep in too many lessons (boys) or actually worked hard and done very well (girls). The ceremony had been practiced in full the previous day, compete with applause, so it went without hitch on the Friday.

The afternoon was a replay of the “Ceremony of the Strings” that the supernuns experienced on their visit; unknown to me until about three minutes before, I was to be part of this. Bambi (Phillippina volunteer going back home), Sister Vin (off to Tanzania), Adam and me were all plonked down in front of the students. The strings were attached to an intricate banana leaf and candle origami-type…um…candle, which was sat in the middle. We were each asked to impart some words of wisdom to the students. I tried to keep it short and went along with something like “Stick with English, it’s worth it. My English got me here; yours can take you anywhere” and further cod-philosophy. Seemed to go down as well as it could without anyone understanding a word really. We were given a small gift and then Sister Sol came along, offered a prayer to the towering banana leaf/candle/string/wood health-and-safety nightmare and lit the candle at the top.

The teachers then queued, many on their knees, to tie bits of string around our wrists and offer us their blessings. Following on came the students. Then the ceremony opened up to include the third years, with the other students tying string around their wrists. It was all very nice. Probably best I can say really. I’m not one for big pompous goodbyes and don’t get overly emotional at them. The formality stifles the emotions; I was to get more emotional at the smaller, more personal events (more of which later). Furthermore, this wasn’t really goodbye yet, I was still going to be around the following week and I’m going to be back in April and May. Anyway, we were told that we couldn’t take the strings off for three days, or we’d break the blessings, or summat.

The afternoon petered out a little, and then the third years were again reconvened for final final goodbye in which all the teachers sat in a semi-circle and imparted further words of wisdom to the third years (the rest of the students had been let out already). They were restless and keen to go, 10 weeks off school and all that tends not make for long attention spans at 3.30pm on a Friday. Then they were gone.

Friday evening saw all the teachers and staff attend the wedding celebrations of one of the teachers. We hopped in Kae’s pick up and zoomed off to a village. The wedding was to be a street party. They had blocked the road off and erected a stage and put loads of tables out. And karaoke. I have an aversion to karaoke. I’m acutely aware of my inability to hold a tune. I never set foot towards it, no matter how ratted I am. Luckily, for me, there is another farang present who is a little less reticent. Adam had cracked a tune (Creep – Radiohead) out at a school event a few weeks back and many of the teachers – well, Shelle - were keen for him to reprise his performance. We ate first and drank. The beers came. Then the whiskeys. Adam’s self confidence was bolstered and he succumbed to Shelle’s request for that wonderful wedding ditty ‘Creep’ by Radiohead. I encouraged him along with a hearty “GET OFF!” before he’d even drawn breath.

He did OK. He got supplied some lao khao by the locals and duly drank it. A short while later, and getting increasingly well oiled, he had a stab at an Aerosmith tune. He stabbed it fairly well. More lao khao. Then a bit more. Then a lull in proceedings as the bride and groom came on stage with a small entourage. The entourage proceeded to speak individually about the bride and groom, the usual wedding speech stuff as far as I could understand.

Then the karaoke was switched back on. What’s this? Someone’s climbing the steps. He doesn’t look local. Oh, it’s Adam. He’s swaying a touch look. He’s got a glass in his hand. Oh, and someone’s just handed him another. The bride and groom were still on stage at this point. Even through my own slightly beer-induced fug I spotted the excellent potential of a great deal of schadenfreude to be enjoyed imminently. I sat back.

Adam later recalled that he had been badgered all night to sing ‘Winds of Change’ by Scorpion. Clearly the greatest compliment (and complement) to the smiling, happy couple on stage was a rendition of Winds of Change by a battered farang. Bless him. And bless them, as they stood there mugging a grin through one of the most ear-wrenching performances of ‘singing’ I’d heard in some time. Even I winced with slight embarrassment (albeit through my laughter). The teachers were saying to me “why doesn’t he stop?” which I gladly relayed in shouts of ‘encouragement’.

In all fairness, the crowd loved it. This is what they do all the time. They get drunk, they sing. Nearly every house I have been in since being here has a karaoke machine and microphone. It is nothing unusual. Thai’s LOVE getting up and singing and don’t care two hoots if you’re shit or not.

Adam didn’t quite see it this way the next morning. I have never seen such self-flagellation; he adamant that he would be apologising to the bride as soon as humanly possible; that he had caused some terrible diplomatic chasm to open up between the UK and Thailand; that he was a VERY BAD PERSON (wade through his blog here and here for a taste of it). I tried to placate him with the fact that no-one will have even batted an eyelid; no-one will give a damn. He wouldn’t have it. The rest of the weekend was, in essence, one long period of regret for him. Sure enough, come Monday morning, none of the teachers really mentioned it (I had to egg them along a little even *insert evil laughter*). Sure enough, he apologised.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Saturday was to be a day and night out in Loei. Adam hadn’t had one yet and I wanted one to say goodbye to the place. We booked in the hotel early and joined Shelle for a trip to her Uni. She’s having to study for a English teaching certificate so every Saturday and Sunday she comes through to Loei to got to Uni for 7 hours a day. We popped in to see her classmates and say hello and took part in an exercise where we had to form sentences including stuff like “not only….but also….”. We rattled off the exercise inside 10 minutes and then allowed Shelle to copy it. In the end she didn’t copy it, she simply wrote her name on the top of the paper and passed it off as her own. The cheeky scamp. Then her and Gene had to head back home as their kid, Matthew, had come down with a fever.

Saturday night came and went really. We went for a pizza, and I think being stuffed with that added with the previous nights booze knocked the edge of my enthusiasm for the evening. We had a wander around; took in a couple of bars. We had been warned about one bar – Robot 2029 – which contained ‘coyotes’. ‘Coyotes’ are essentially bargirls who join you for drinks at an inflated price, and that we should rebuff the advances of any lasses in bikinis. We needn’t have worried, as we weren’t at all troubled by them. I thought this to be a touch weird as usually as farang you are pounced upon the moment you walk through the door of such places. Some inquiries back in Chiang Khan the next day provided the answer why. The ceremony of the strings is also used at weddings apparently. It’s the bride and groom that benefit from them. So, essentially, we’d been walking around advertising ourselves as a married couple. Great. Adam – somewhat disconcertingly – was quite happy about this. “That’s why we weren’t bothered by the coyotes!” he said triumphantly. I didn’t quite understand why a single lad in Thailand who has stated his heterosexuality several times would be so very happy to have AVOIDED the attentions of attractive ladies. I didn’t press him on the matter.

Back to the night anyway. Pi Kuan’s son was playing in a band in one of the other bars, and when they left there he asked us along to the next place, where they would be playing again. They sing Thai stuff but I reckon it’s very close to some ska tunes; I considered trying to tell them to look up The Specials but then none of them spoke English. We wandered off to the next bar, it was the place that Golf had taken me to on my first weekend out in Loei way back in November. I was not feeling much for the place this time and decided to go back to the hotel. I slipped out, leaving Adam with some of Shelle’s classmates we had bumped in to.

Sunday came along and I pottered around Loei for a while. I met up with a teacher that I had met at the provincial sports day and she took me for lunch. She is batty. She’s about 50 and after supplying her my number & email at the sports day (she said she knew of some paid work) she rang me about 30 times and emailed in abundance during the following week. Then again the following week. I neglected to answer or reply as, frankly, she was scaring me a touch. But there was this nagging voice in the back of my head.

I had come to Thailand promising myself to say yes to everything (within reason…). We had bumped in to each other at the teachers sports day too (there are only so many places to hide in a big, empty box), where I let slip I’d be in Loei for a weekend. Sure enough the calls peaked again in the lead up and I thought “sod it, I’m intrigued”. I’d either end up in a shallow grave or have something at least a little worth while to talk about on the blog. We went for lunch at a Vietnemese place where Shelle & Gene had taken us to the previous day; and she ordered the exact same platters. I had to feign revelations at Vietnamese foodstuffs. Her English is sketchy so there was a lot of silence and me trying to work out when best to leave. We went for ice cream. I said I could do with a haircut. “You need haircut? You want haircut? I take you!” came her worryingly enthusiastic response. “Er…yes?”. She took me off and took me to a barbers where I got a cut of sorts. Then we went for a coffee where I told her I had to go back to Chiang Khan at 3pm – a look shot across her face that made it look like the shallow grave option was the winner. “Oh…[long pause]…I though you stay me tonight?”. I swear I could hear sirens going off somewhere. “Er…no…I said we’d meet for lunch”. “OK. Next time?”. Alan Partridge pops in my head (he’s prone to that) “No chance you big mentalist” I nearly said after giving a quick glance to her bag to check for any knife-shaped bulges in it. “Sorry, I have to go back to Chiang Khan”. Our time was ended abruptly as she scootered me round the bus station and then, without much word, left. Close shave there lad, I thought to myself.

I found myself heading back to Chiang Khan with an unexpected, but not wholly unneeded, haircut, another memory and a can of Leo beer. As we were leaving Chiang Khan outskirts one of the St. John’s third years jumped on the bus. It was Luktan (I think), the lass who on my very first day turned round to me and said, with a smashing smile, “Don’t be shy!” when I was stood in front of the whole school about to dance to some tune about Doraemon. It was a piece of advice I held throughout my time there. She didn’t clock me at first but then when the bus thinned out a bit she came over. “Hi Teacher! I sorry you leave! Please come back Tha Bom and visit us. You make laughs!”. If you were on that bus you may have seen a farang lad with a dodgy haircut get something in his eye. A tear it was. She turned back to a friend and chatted a bit more. I heard a couple more “Teacher Dave’s” in their conversation. When she got off she gave a cheery wave, another huge smile and a “Goodbye! Good luck!”. As the bus pulled away I watched her walk along the road and then duck off. I wondered what she’ll get up to in the future.

Sunday evening saw us head to the village of Ban Na Bon and the site of Kae’s new house. Her and her husband Pi Ti are building a new place up on a hillside just outside the village. It is tradition to have monks come to bless the foundations and then have a little party. We got picked up; then we drove to a temple. I looked behind me and three monks were clambering in to the back of the pick up and the head monk – a small elderly chap – sat in the front and placed a little Buddha on the dash board. We got to the site (fantastic views out across the farms below, and to mountains in the distance) and the monks started their chanting. It was quite hypnotic in a way. This went on for 15-20 minutes then they all stood up and started to walk around the foundations hammering things in to them and lowering small candles into the holes. They came back and chanted again and then departed. The whiskey came out and the food too. About 15 of us sat on the hillside, watching the sun go down and a big fire burn on a mountain in the distance. Whiskey was had and food plentiful. It was very pleasant indeed.

Monday and Tuesday floated past. As we were leaving here on Wednesday for good, I hammered the internet, researching places in Cambodia, Vietnam and Cambodia. There was to be a do for the teachers on Wednesday, to say goodbye to me and Adam. Wednesday was also the last day for the rest of the students.

Another leaving ceremony was had in the afternoon; again all the teachers sat in a semi-circle and imparted words of great wisdom. Bambi took it as an opportunity to say goodbye, as did Adam. Again, it being late in the day, I kept it short “Hello! Goodbye!” then passed the mic whilst the kids groaned. And they were then released. I was gearing up for the farewell do when I was told that actually, I’d be back in tomorrow as Adam and I had been volunteered to go around the local primary schools telling them how great St. John’s is and all the Grade 6 kids should go there next school year. I felt a little uneasy being used as a marketing tool. Perhaps not wholly within the ethics of volunteering I think. Particularly as I won’t even be there next year.

So Wednesday’s farewell do wasn’t to be the final goodbye. That would be reserved for Thursday. Which kind of made me hold back a little on the drink. Karaoke came out, again, as everyone ate and drank. I broke my rule after much ribbing from the teachers and assaulted them with Hey Jude. It was all done and dusted by 6pm; however as everyone departed, the younger female teachers looked a little glum – like they were expecting the party to go on. Kae was fairly keen to take us home. We dropped one teacher off and through stilted conversation managed to work out that Kru Pung, Kru Num and Kru Oy (the glum ones) were actually off out in Loei that evening. I was decided. I got Kae to ring them and they offered to come and pick us up. Adam umm-ed and arr-ed “I think it would be sensible to go home and sleep” he said; “I didn’t come to Thailand to be sensible” was my retort. This swayed him and within the hour we were heading to Loei. The lasses took us to a restaurant for more food. It had a live band on and we got a couple of songs dedicated to us.

It was when I was returning from a trip to the khazee that I noticed one of the waitresses take a long look at me. I didn’t think much of it, other than to conclude that actually she wasn’t a waitress; more accurately she was a waiter-ess, if you catch my drift. S/he flitted around behind our table. Sitting behind us and making sure s/he caught my eye every time I took a look around at other diners or the band or over the shoulder of Num in to the kitchen. S/he fluttered his/her eyelashes at me; preened his/her hair. I was reminded a little bit of a Fraggle. Then s/he pounced – came straight up to the table and asked my name, shook my hand (incredibly soft skin I thought) and laughed and smiled and plonked herself more-or-less on my lap. Well I wasn’t really expecting this. She (I’ll give up with the s/he – it’s both awkward to type and I think you get the bloody idea now) asked for a photo; I obliged without much say in the matter. Then she tottered off to see to her table. Now every time she was passing she was winking and waving. Cripes. We finished up and made our way out. She sprinted the length of the restaurant and embraced me and buried her head in to me. Yikes. “She likes you” said Num. No shit. “I go Robot tomorrow – you come?” she asked. “No can do love”. She then puckered up and planted a kiss on my cheek. Zounds (I’m running out of outdated exclamations now). I extricated myself from her clutches and climbed into Pung’s pick up. “Drive. Drive quickly” is all I said.

We drove on to Robot 2029 again and took up position with a bottle of whiskey. Pung was guzzling it just as much as anyone. The cabaret fired-up: lots of cover versions of pop songs; dancers; comedy and then DJing. Oh, and semi-naked lasses gyrating on poles. And then for the gays, some beefy looking chaps. We called it a night at about 12.30am. Pung, having drunk as much as me and easily being half my size, drove us home with only one wild veer across the carriageway.

Thursday was to be the final final day in St. John’s. I was gearing up for a grand goodbye for the teachers. Telling them how much they’re welcome in England and all that. We waited to go off marketing. Waited. Then waited some more. About lunch time it became clear we wouldn’t be going anywhere. “We go tomorrow” said Gene.

Friday was to be the final final day in St. John’s. I was gearing up for a grand goodbye for the teachers. Telling them how much they’re welcome in England and all that. And then we went! It wasn’t so much a big goodbye. I didn’t really get to say it in the end. Just walked off to the School’s pick up that was to take us to the other schools. Understated but probably for the best.

There were 13 schools on the list to visit. St. John’s catchment area stretches across about 100 miles. This was meant to take one morning. I wasn’t surprised to be dropped off in Chiang Khan at 4pm. It’s heartening, in a way, to see the usual disorganization right up until the very end. I enjoyed the trip though. I actually enjoy getting up in front of people and thinking on my feet. We had no prepared speeches. Gene, Shelle, Adam and me were the marketing team – I suggested we mount a shock and awe campaign and by the end we had the kids rolling in laughter. I went off down the path of bombastic enthusiasm for English – “At St. John’s we LOVE English! We love English because we think you can do ANYTHING YOU EVER WANT with ENGLISH! TRAVEL THE WORLD! Get the BEST JOBS! Follow the FOOTBALL!” and so on. About three schools in Shelle suggested I should stand for President. Many of the schools were out in the sticks (even moreso than Tha Bom), so many cries of “FARANG! FARANG!” could be heard from the kids. We brought a number of schools to a standstill. It was a great end to my official duties with St. John’s. Another bunch of memories for Alzheimer’s to whittle away many years in the future.

That will do for now. It’s my final few days in Chiang Khan. I leave on March 11th for Bangkok and adventures beyond. Between now and then, I’m going to Pi Kuan’s school on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday is Kae’s birthday (and the reason I’m not leaving on the 10th). There’ll probably one more update before I leave. Stay tuned. Or don’t.