คำอำลา

The final goodbye

The term ended in the blink of an eye, one minute I was dusting off my school shirt for a new year and the next my kids were walking the halls as Kindergarten graduates.  What happened, did I just wake from a coma?? 

I had been preparing myself for this moment for a while.  Although I still have no idea what the next chapter is going to be I felt ready to leave Nakhon Sawan and return home to see my family and friends back in Cork, a place that now only exists in my memory and on Skype.  But, no matter how much organisation I did, nothing could prepare me for the final goodbye, and I didn’t have any expectation of the amount of emotion I felt for these little people, who aren’t my family, who won’t remember me, but still played such a huge part of my life over the past eighteen months. 

The final month of school was packed solid with events.  The school celebrated it’s tenth anniversary and invited some local monks to bless the students and staff.  I accompanied my students on their school daytrips where we boarded the party bus pumping out dance tunes, I’m not sure if it was the accelorator or the dancing students that pushed the bus down the highway.  My students chattered in English as we marvelled at exotic birds at Chainat Bird Park and the massive tigers at Bung Chawak Zoo.  We pretended to be robots and sang our favourite songs over ice cream breaks.  We celebrated Yuwapat Day, an annual jubilee when the school exhibits crafts and performances created by the students over the school year, a bittersweet reminder of all we’d been through together. 

Finally the school term closed with the graduation ceremony for the K3 students, who are off to ‘big school’  in May.  This was also my own final day at Yuwapat.  I remembered the emotional send off the previous year, and dreaded the emotion I was feeling personally.  I got myself ready on the final morning of school, and took very great care in getting my ‘teacher face’ in place.  Regardless of my own departure and my own emotion, I was there to support my little ones, who were starting to feel the enormity of their very first crossroads.  We had been prepping for weeks on the big changes ahead, and how exciting they’d be, and how it was ok to be sad aswell.  We had it down, my babies would be ok.  Then I saw the tears, the floods of tears, here we go...!  I hugged them and gave them the usual pep talk, reminding them of all the great things about big school that we’d talked about before sending them off to their mammies in time for me to realign my ‘teacher face’ and head out to the crowd again.  They eventually filtered off, heading home, and away from me.  I returned to my classrooms to take down my teaching aids, and cleaned out my desk.  Once the kids were gone it felt like I was getting ready for a new beginning again.  Until the principal popped his head into the office...

I was one of three members of the foreign language staff to leave, aswell as two members of the Thai staff.  The Principal requested our attendance outside for a moment, to say goodbye.  The staff formed a circle around us and one by one gave us a hug.  The tears came like waterfalls.  The Thais do like emotional moments, whereas I, being a grand sturdy Irish girl, prefer to bury it down deep, away from public view, and maybe cry into a tub of ice cream later.  Needless to say I’ve piled on the pounds and Thai women are tiny, go figure.  It turned out to be a really lovely one to one goodbye with each the staff I’ve worked with over the eighteen months I spent at Yuwapat.  I got my chance to thank those who helped me when I was fresh out of my TEFL course without an ounce of teaching experience, those who translated parents’ comments on the report cards I sent home, and those who were as patient as saints when I screwed up my class schedule and didn’t turn up for class (this happened right up to the end, thank you Tc Kung for your endless patience!)  I got to thank the lady who cleaned up all my crap after I’d had crazy craft lessons where my monsters flung glue and paper all over the place, and the ladies who fed me every day.  I was so sad to say goodbye and I feared that my next school may not offer the same familial environment.  I’ve had a lot of frustrating moments trying to understand the Thai way, or as I heard it once, “the Thai way or the highway, baby”, but what I already remember most prominently about my experience at Yuwapat is the laughter in the hallways, the kind smiles from colleagues, and the constant offer of questionable snack foods, ie cockroaches were on offer one day but I kindly declined for I have a tub of ice cream in the freezer that I must cry into.

I recently read an online article written by an Australian guy who had spent six months in Thailand.  On his departure he writes about the things he will miss most about the country.  I read this list with a lump in my throat as it was very close to my own.  I’ll miss the jumpy little geckos who kindly eat the mosquitoes who unkindly eat me, the refreshing and cheap smoothies that come with a free Thai lesson courtesy of ‘Smoothie Guy’, the paradise islands a bus ride away, the beautiful hot hot sun, the ease with which I can get shit done minus red tape or queues, and the greetings of “where you go?” followed by unrequested directions without ulterior motives.  I could go on.

Goodnight Thailand, you are a dream that I had the privilege to make my reality.

 http://whatsdavedoing.com/11-things-miss-most-thailand/

https://www.facebook.com/yuwapatkindergarten

Photos: Sinéad Millea.