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.
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