Flying The Nest

TEFL in Thailand

Hello again!  Right, firstly let me apologise for abandoning you (again).  You see, it’s been a hectic year for Sinead Nua but I’m hoping things will settle soon.  I have great news, Sinead Nua has gone global!  I have decided to pack it all in and move to Thailand…as you do…  Here’s the sca so far, go and put the kettle on will ya!

Back in 2004 I moved to England to save lots of those lovely valuable pounds.  Well, we all know why THAT didn’t happen!  It begins with ‘R’ and ends with ‘ecession’.  So I settled into a career and made the lovely city of Bristol my home.  Then in late 2012 the realisation hit that it just simply wasn’t home and if I was to feel temporary somewhere, wouldn’t it be more exciting for it to be the other side of the world?!  So I completed a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course online and bagged me a qualification.  The job hunt was a longer process, given that I had the whole globe to consider.  In a bid to reduce the options to something less brain scrambling I focused on Asia, but I still felt like a kid in a gigantic sweet shop with a helluva lot more editing down to do!  I settled on Thailand, for no reason other than trusting the ‘aul gut, I’m starting to become more acquainted with my gut feeling and I think we’re becoming friends. 

After three months of applying for jobs, then scouring Google Maps to find where they are,  I secured a job in a Kindergarten in Nakhon Sawan in Central Thailand and spent my remaining three months enjoying the spookily warm summer and amazing free festivals Bristol had to offer (man, gonna miss those!)  After a couple of weeks back in the Emerald Isle I boarded the first flight of my 12 hour journey feeling slightly wistful at saying goodbye to my family and also numb at the thought of my life taking a turn upside down.  The numbness began when I confirmed my decision two months before and remained with me rendering me emotionally stunted.  On the bright side I had no batshit crazy freak outs.  On a couple of occasions I had a few ‘what the hell am I doing?’ moments but I just crammed those down into the recesses of my brain, where I keep useless stuff like wiring plugs and trigonometry.

I was met at Bangkok by my boss who shared tales of his time in Thailand on the three hour journey to Nakhon Sawan.  Prior to the trip I wondered about the bugs, particularly spiders, in my new tropical home and made the fatal error of Googling the subject, big mistake, huge!  I plucked up the courage to face the music on the journey from Bangkok and asked what critters I was likely to meet and heard all about the venomous centipedes.  Well, let’s just say I’m not afraid of spiders anymore.  My new boss spent the first few days driving me around on his motorbike, showing me the city & getting me set up.  Gawd, I barely slept on my first night for fear of this machine (added to the fear of meeting a killer centipede).  I remember getting a lift on my brother’s first bike back in college, a Honda NS1 - I’m talking about the ‘training bra’ of motorbikes here.  I whinged at him for the entire journey to “slow the feck down” but there was no lower speed attainable without coming to a compete stop.  Needless to say, I wrecked his head and vowed never to ride pillion again.  I don’t know whether to put it down to still being emotionally vacant or jetlag but I got on the bike and accepted my fate, whatever it was.  Turns out it was to visit my new school, meet my colleagues and go find a place to live.  Motorbikes are an extremely popular mode of transport in Nakhon Sawan, sometimes ferrying entire families and their pets about.  I’ve already witnessed a family of three including a small child, about three years old, who was standing in between the adults, a sight that would have a westerner onto the social services before one could say, “motorYIKES!”  So, by the end of the afternoon, I had an apartment waiting to become my home and a SIM card in my phone and I started to feel a little more like a local…except that I only know two phrases in Thai and I still have no idea where I am on the map of Nakhon Sawan but I’ll get there!

The view from my hotel room.  Temples, temples, everywhere!

The evening brought with it a welcoming invite to dinner from my colleagues.  I was grateful of the company, having spent the previous night eating takeaway in my room - not so unpleasant as I was pretty jetlagged but the difficulty was in ordering the food with absolutely no Thai!  I just pointed into the street food vendors carts and hoped for the best.  I ended up with a bag of what looked like yum yums and a portion of stir fried pork and rice, tasty and a steal at 35 baht (70p).  Lucky this time, but what if I’m pointing at a cartload of dog or deep fried grasshopper?!  My new colleagues escorted me to a bar just down the road from my hotel where they ordered, in their broken Thai, some beer and delicious plates of food to share, the grand total being just 200 baht (£4) each…and I was told that this was EXPENSIVE!!  I managed to uncurl from my shyness and had some nice conversations and started to feel excited about a new group of friends to go on adventures with.

The second day I had my things collected to be transported to the spang new ‘Chez Sinead Nua’.  Breakfast at a nearby café consisted of chicken and noodles in a coconut curry.  In Thailand, so I’m told, there’s no such thing as a ‘breakfast’ or a ‘dinner’ food, people generally eat the same type of food for each meal.  With a spicy sweat on, I then ventured to the local shopping centre on the back of the mean machine to buy supplies for the new gaff.  I was fortunate to have the assistance of my boss in choosing bits and pieces I would need for my first few days because I drew a total memory block, I would have been surprised if I even remembered my own name.  With so much newness to take in the practical side of my brain shut down, weren’t nothin’ goin’ in or comin’ out!  I picked up a broom and a mop and some other domestic necessities, which got tucked under my arm for the motorcycle ride back to the new apartment.  Already, after just two days, my fear of motorbikes has dissolved – just as well really, with now only one hand to grip on with!  

Moody sky during rainy season

I spent my afternoon unpacking and making my bedsit-like apartment cosy, hopefully for the last time in a while having spent a fortnight living out of a suitcase.  A colleague who lives next door came knocking to say hello and invite me for a walk.  She’s new too so we bravely took on an unfamiliar part of town together - the street that joins this one, baby steps, eh?!  Everything’s incredibly challenging here, so just walking down a new street is progress in settling in.  It’s fairly intimidating to walk around where the language, the food and the customs are all alien.  Now, don’t get me wrong, the language can be learned, the food is amazing if you don’t have specific dietary requirements (Sinead Nua eats anything and everything) and the people are so friendly I have no worries about settling in.  But it’s early days yet so I’ll go easy on myself for now!  This weekend I will be brave and take on an outing, perhaps to Nakhon Sawan Park where there are a host of activities, including yoga, paddle boats on the lake, ceramic painting, gym equipment – not to mention a leisurely walk around the periphery.  And I can reward my courage with a fruit smoothie from the smoothie guy who I have already discovered.  He serves fresh fruit and fresh coconut water blended with ice, super refreshing in the oven hot temperatures of Nakhon Sawan and it comes with a free Thai lesson…! 

Tomorrow, I transform from a tourist to an observer.  I will be observing classes at the school to get a feel of how things are done, a gentle introduction to teaching for me.  I have absolutely no teaching experience whatsoever…apart from teaching the nephew how to play ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’, can I put that on my CV for now?! 

To be continued….

Images: Sinéad Millea