My yearin Thailand

My year in Thailand James Lawrence (02-09) looks back at a year of volunteering

It is hard to explain just how much I have learnt from being a volunteer teacher in Detudom, Thailand for the past year. Looking at the words I wrote down when I first arrived as a volunteer with Project Trust, my opinions have changed. Now that I have wrapped my head around the language and what to expect from the culture I feel I have a better view of Thailand.

James with some of his students

Motorbiking through Vietnam

During the year at DTEC, the college where I taught, I formed many friendships with students and staff. We were welcomed with open arms at the start of the year and absolutely everyone have helped us in anyway they can. At the start of the year I had very little way of showing my gratitude to the people when they helped us. Now, though, I can speak a nice amount of Thai and I feel more comfortable and free in Thailand than I ever have in England. This is due to Thai culture, law, and the kindness of most, if not all the people.

English in the college was minimal. Even students who knew some English would not speak because they felt they didn’t need to, or, in most cases, were shy. So we came up with an idea to get the students to speak English with us outside the classroom. We introduced a school currency, and called it the DTEC Dollar. I designed it and then we started printing. To stop any duplicates we signed the back of each dollar. Every time a student spoke English to us outside the classroom we would give them a DTEC Dollar. Then at the end of term we all chipped in and bought lots of presents to hold an auction with the DTEC Dollars the student had earned.

An achievement I am particularly proud of was getting the students involved in English by introducing an English phrase into the Thursday morning assembly. We also encouraged students to ask basic questions and offer simple answers to everyday questions in English. Now our students could earn a dollar by asking us these questions, but in English.

At the start of the year my teaching was heavily vocabulary and games based, which didn’t really give the students something they could use when speaking to foreigners. I assumed that everyone knew how to introduce themselves and hold their own in basic English; I was very wrong. So in the second term I introduced the circle of greetings to every class I taught which also let me teach them how to do a proper hand shake. I built gradually on this as the term went on, slowly introducing other questions I had taught and eventually a dialogue. With my most advanced class my greatest achievement was teaching them the western method of telling time; this may not sound like much but it is because this is so different to their system. Then to back it all up we had the DTEC Dollar scheme which encouraged all the students to practise their English.

My gap year would finish with a three month holiday with the other Project Trust volunteers. We decided to bike through Vietnam on Minsk motorbikes, so when the time came we bought stupid-looking leather jackets and shades (we had to do it right!), and set off on a 24 hour bus journey through Laos to Hanoi. Our trip through Vietnam and Laos made us realize just how lucky we were to be living in Thailand. People in Thailand were just so much friendlier than anyone we met in the surrounding countries. We felt that if you wanted people to be friendly to you in Vietnam or Laos they had to have something in return. The bike journey itself was intense, exciting, and the most tiring five days of my life – we didn’t fully appreciate just how amazing the journey was until we had actually completed it! “My year in Thailand was better than anything I could ever have hoped for. It helped me overcome self-doubt and grow in confidence. Before I volunteered, I was quite passive and would let a lot of opportunities slide. This year has been the complete opposite, because I was lucky enough to spend my year with people who have similar ambitions and the same new-found, ‘why not?’ attitude.”

I was also able to travel to Nong Kai, near the Laotian border, to volunteer at the Sarnelli House orphanage. The orphanage was founded by one of the most generous people I have ever met, Father O’Shay. He runs the Sarnelli foundation with donations and his own money to care for orphans who are HIV positive. Not only would he pay for their antiretroviral drugs, their food, and a place to stay, but he also let parents live off land he owns surrounding the orphanage. Working there for just five days was such an eye-opener, hearing truly horrendous stories of what people went through before they made it to Sarnelli. It was a very heart wrenching, but rewarding, experience.

During the year there were huge riots, but we never really came face-toface with it. The reports from abroad seemed to be misleading, at times describing the entire country in a panic and chaos when the area where we lived was absolutely fine. The only time I felt uncomfortable in was on my way back from the islands, passing through Bangkok the day after the worst riots they had seen in ten years. The streets were eerily quiet, there were no food stalls open, no mopeds or cars on the roads, only taxis. The riots in the capital worsened once we were back in our project. This was a horrible time because we were getting emails from Project Trust, warning of the possibility of being sent home. None of us wanted to leave.

My year in Thailand was better than anything I could ever have hoped for. It helped me overcome self-doubt and grow in confidence. Before I volunteered, I was quite passive and would let a lot of opportunities slide. This year has been the complete opposite, because I was lucky enough to spend my year with people who have similar ambitions and the same new-found, “why not?” attitude. I have experienced a vastly different culture from the perspective of a local to the point where I feel patriotic to a country which is not my own. I have no way of summing up my year; there is just too much that has happened! All I can say is thank you to the Old Novocastrians Association for giving me a grant which went towards making my year in Thailand one of the most significant of my life!