Friday's view

Hello folks!

Firstly... Don't forget to visit our online photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/pakpingjainz

How... how do I describe today? At the moment I have Frann and Angela sitting here... and I was (for me a rarity..) lost for words... literally at the end of the day as my voice had gone...from too much singing in hot humid conditions Frann just said.. YES... yippee.. but of course it has returned now.( hehehehehe). I know.. I'll ask them what they want to say here... Angela: "um" Fran: "um".. and she says I can't spell.. deja vue.. but I can... hehehehe.

As you could no doubt see.. we are all totally exhausted.. Frann said something else but.... Now Steph and her little friend Blu are here as well... they also are lost for words.. the fact that Blu is nine and doesn't speak English is why he can't say something in this blog.. !

So..... as usual I'll tell you about it... outside there is the sound of water bombs being thrown by the kids... it is very hot and humid tonight and its adding to the tiredness factor...

I'll now get on to the events of today... ahem...

The school we went to was in the countryside near Chang Rai. The school is a secondary school called Padadwittayakom and well over 1000 students attend. We went there with a brief to entertain and teach at the same time. This situation was quite unique as the school had made a good donation to the PPJ project to have us attend. They named it "Foreign Language Day" and treated us like celebs! From the moment we arrived to the moment we left absolutely tired out we were short of nothing... cold drinks food, food and at lunch MORE food. Lunch was simply stunning. We were treated to everything from Pork knuckle in Thai sauce, Baked fish, Fried fish chunks in a marinade, Thai veges, Sweet dumplings and much more. The standard of food on this trip has been amazing and today the food was straight out of an expensive upmarket Thai restaurant anywhere in the world.... in fact better!

For the purposes of teaching, we divided down into five groups : Music, Sport, Kiwi culture, Word games and Jump-Jam featuring the Four Heidie's (Tes, Steph Angela and Lisa). We took four lessons each of around 45 minutes duration.

The music group which was made up of myself, Andy, Nikki and Summer had a ball! We took a basic song "Lazy Boy" and rewrote the lyrics according to what the students liked played or loved. For example "I like Ice cream"! We also sang the NZ national anthem. We also played rhythm games which included tapping hips knees clapping and so forth.

Stan was part of the word game group. His particular specially was "Clusters".. where he called out numbers where the students had to form groups of those numbers and if they were not in a group they were out. The students squealed and clustered together... they loved the game and learnt from it!

Gill was part of the sport group. Their favourite sport was Rugby... supposedly touch although the finer points were lost in translation. Other sports played were basketball, soccer, and dodgeball. Their soccer skills were quite silky according to Gill... I think that means they were good!

Lesley led the Kiwi culture group featuring Poi's. The students learned the art of the Poi as well as what centre left and right were. On all accounts a lot of fun was had by all!

The Jump-jam class was a hit especially amongst the boys! I guess they had never seen four blonde girls with hair platted like Dutch maidens dancing to songs like YMCA!

After the four classes the whole school assembled in the hall area and we put on a show. Summer sang "The Irish Blessing", Nikki played the flute, and yours truly sang "We Shall Overcome". I loved the ambiance of the area which was concrete and very basic but nonetheless a great facility so far from the city of Phayao. The whole group sang "God of Nations" and a couple of other favourites. We were then treated to a selection of Thai songs sung by the entire school. It was magical.

But.. wait there's more. We were called up in front of the school and each received a piece of amazing artwork from children. They were made especially for us by the art class. My own particular gift is a cow made from wire and paper mache. It is hand painted and has an spectacular set of dentures. Others received similar items as well as keyrings, and writing books decorated by the students.

Then the photography began... and went on... and on... and on... and on... and on! It seemed that every device that could take any form of photo came out... we had already been filmed, photographed, and made to feel special but this was amazing... every girl wanted their photos with the guys and every boy wanted the four Heidie's! Email addresses were exchanged by the hundred and many many new friendships made. Even as we were climbing into the Van's to come back to PPJ there were camera's going off, signatures sought and movie camera's going. Handshake after handshake after handshake was exchanged.. even as were driving off...

So... why? Why were we... a simple group of average Kiwi guys and girls treated like major celebrities? ? Why were we the stars? Why were we paid to come (A donation was made to the PPJ project), given star billing and why did we become a feature on every camera, cellphone and video cam in the area?

Indeed to me it seemed similar to the days when my band had become moderately successful and we were sought after by our audiences. But... in this case.. we weren't rock stars.. we had only just played with the students and taught basic English.. we weren't celebs or special... to our way of thinking.

However... if you can picture the situation for one moment. This school had been aware of our visit and planned for months. No other outside group ever goes to that school. We were so different from what they were used to it raised us to the point of... in their eyes... stars. We did do something special.. for ourselves as well as for the school. All those months of anticipation and building up meant that our arrival was a special day indeed.

I do have difficulty in understanding how a bunch of ordinary Kiwi people can be raised to this point of stardom. However.. perhaps we shouldn't ask why. Perhaps we should just be exceptionally grateful that we were treated like magic.. and the result was that both communities gained an amazing experience from the day.

For me, when I first made the decision to come with the group to PPJ I wondered how it would be. I wondered if our PPJ visit would just be a group of "rich" foreigner's coming over to a poor land to show off. I have found this to not be true and my fears have been proven wrong. As a group we work very hard to do our very best for whoever we are asked to be with and lend our hands to whatever needs to be done. From recovering the truck seats to singing in front of over a thousand teen boys and girls... from meeting a beautiful family during our visit to assist the Forest people to our late night talks about solving the world's problems this group is an exceptionally caring, talented, and friendly bunch of people. We do not flaunt our "rich" lifestyle, and we don't need anyone to tell us not to.. simply because if we did, the pure and magical bond between two totally diverse societies would be lost.

Perhaps also we feel good about being treated as stars... is this a bad thing? No... but it should never be the aim. The goal of what we do by nature makes us unique in this northern Thai society. We are taller, bigger and have looks such as blonde hair, blue eyesm as well as different facial features. To them we represent a society that most will only dream about or experience through movies, the Internet or television. If this makes us special and therefore excites them... then we are merely examples of another world and it is not ourselves personally that are the "celebs", it is our culture on show that they crave. In this I believe we can be proud, without being conceited. Those photos they took and are probably downloading right now are there because of the society they live in and the passion that people here have for learning.

What a wonderful thing... to learn... to teach... and to have fun and gain experiences of our lifetimes whilst doing both. I absolutely commend this experience to all who read these words. If you have ever wondered about coming on such a trip, don't spend your life wondering... do it! If you have ever wondered whether supporting the Pakpingjai project is a thing we should be doing as a church I challenge you to come as well... I promise you that your outlook will be changed and that you too will experience the magic and the mysteries of being a representative of our amazing Kiwi culture. Yes... we are very lucky to live in Paradise... but... paradise can only be recognised when you see it through a clear lens. I will sleep well tonight knowing that the group gave its all today and that lives were changed as a result.

In closing our prayers go to Roy Jarrett, Colin Pidgeon and their families. They are both ill and in need of God's love more than ever. May God bless these people and all who care for them. Tonight the group prayed for them and they are in our thoughts as indeed all of our community is.

Tomorrow I will be adding many photos... remember to visit the blog and the online album http://picasaweb.google.com/pakpingjainz again for images of the past few days... they will stun you!

Take care and God bless

From Pakpingjai in northern Thailand...
Peter Chatteris