My dreams are coming true!!

Before

After

Well we finally made it here to Phichit Thailand!  Between 22 hours in the air, running from terminal to terminal to avoid missing connecting flights, being crammed in between two Asians for 10 hours at a time, squatters, not being able to find water, leaving a carry on at home, having a suitcase 21 lbs. overweight, stepping off the plane into a hot muggy bathroom, riding in a freezing cold bus for 4 hours in the middle of the night, making friends with wild dogs, lizards on the ceiling, cockroaches in beds, French fries and mystery sausage for breakfast. I AM FINALLY HERE.

The only word to describe my experience so far is Adventure.

We made it to our hotel in Phichit around 4:30 in the morning; we woke up a little after nine to our native coordinator knocking on our door.  We hurried and got ready and went down to the school to start shadowing the English teachers that are there still here from last semester. 

We stopped at the outdoor cafe and had breakfast first. please just look at how beautiful this place is!!! 

River outside our hotel

This girls bathroom sign?! Prime.

Riding from the Hotel to the school.. in the back of a truck. so glad this is legal here

Me and Paige

The school is better than I could have ever imagined. SO NICE. We learned it was built two years ago, and was built and constructed around the ILP program to best fit the English teacher’s needs. I don’t even know if there are words to describe how great it is.  But I’ll try.

The school was modeled to have the mystical school of Hogwarts. It pulls off that feel pretty well in my opinion. This place has straight up marble floors, stained glass windows, 4 foot torches lining the grounds, freshly trimmed hedges, a greenhouse, and a huge water fountain, with Thai military guards at the gates. It is beautiful.

 Our personal guards. Legit.

 The kids wear cute little uniforms are the cutest things you will ever see in your entire life.

I was assigned to be one of the three kindergarten teachers, in shadowing the three teachers that are there now, I immediately found my class that I fell in love with while observing.  It is a class of 5 students, that they call the “babies.” They are called the babies because they are the newest and the youngest students to the ILP program.  They are literally 2 and 3 years old. You have to do most of the talking for them because they are so new to talking in general basically.  I knew when we were in our meeting discussing which teachers would be assigned which homerooms; something told me those babies were mine.  I am so new to teaching, and I am somewhat shy when it comes to being in front of groups of people, even if they are 2 years old and in diapers.  I know this will be the biggest learning experience for me. I couldn’t be more excited!! I’m sure I could’ve chose an easier class, my class does have a rep for being the hardest, but I couldn’t deny the connection I felt with those litta babies!!!

After being at the school for a couple of hours, and frying our brains with rules and instructions.  We went back to our hotel room until dinner to relax and catch a nap. 

We had dinner with the English teachers there now in their dorm room that will soon be ours.  We will be living on campus of the school, we have keys to the school and are in charge of locking it up every night, there are students who board at the school during the week and go home at night that we are in charge of watching at night as well.  We have about a 15 second walk to school, our own bathrooms and showers, and bikes we can ride in to town with. 

Thailand is the most beautiful place I have ever been.  It is so green. I can’t believe how green it is! I can’t wait to post pictures. It will blow your mind.  My heart felt like it was exploding all day! April, it felt like how it was at the Tim McGraw concert!! All day! I was squealing and clasping my hands over my heart! All I could say was “ooooohhhh my gosh!!! My HEART!!!!”  “Are you guys seeing this?!!!?! OH MY HECK! OH MY HECK!!!” “STOP IT” “IS THIS REAL?!?!” “YOU GUYS WE ARE IN THAILAND!!” “THIS IS ACTULALLY REAL!”

We were all freaking out. The part of the day that did my heart in for excitement was after dinner last night the head teacher that is here right now, Kiera took me and 3 other girls in to town with her on our bikes to show us fun places to go, their favorite food stands, and where to turn our money in, the ins and outs basically.

We were minutes from leaving and it started POURING out of nowhere.  With no warning. Apparently that’s how tropical rainstorms are. None of us had ponchos, so we were just riding in the rain; I had a girl named Abbey on the back of my bike riding with me. We were riding down these streets in the pouring rain; we were soaked to the bone within seconds.  Kiera took us to the Crocodile Park and we saw probably over 2 dozen Crocodiles in this huge pit.  The park was beautiful, with a paved path and trees everywhere with winding vines everywhere, Kiera said that’s where her and her girls go running sometimes, its right on a lake so I can only imagine those sunsets over that place.

We continued riding in to town, splashing water everywhere, the streets were nothing but puddles, all the locals were waving at us and saying “foreign” in Thai along with “imperial” everyone knows that the American girls are the foreign teachers at the imperial school.  They were waving and smiling at us like celebrities. They were all laughing at me and Abbey because we were in our own little world, smiling, screaming and laughing about being on one bike together, riding through the most insane rainstorm, in the middle of Thailand.

 All I could think of was how happy I was to not be stuck in Utah anymore. I have felt so dead inside living the same life day after day. It was the biggest breath of fresh air. 

In that moment, riding on that bike, I felt the burning in my chest of absolute happiness.  I felt a part of my heart wake back up.  A part of my heart I thought I had lost forever. The trials and fears that I have faced in the last year are ones that I have felt forcing me to be a stronger and better person.  But I have also felt a very specific deadness inside more real than ever. 

That bike ride, and the absolute happiness I felt was the hope that I needed.  I know that I was sent to be here in Thailand for a reason.  I’m beginning to think this is exactly the adventure I needed to put all of the pieces of the broken me back together.