I have a little catching up to do. It's not that I don't want to, but I just don't get around to writing often...
The end of December and beginning of January were filled with more celebrating. In addition to the holidays I'm used to celebrating, there were a lot of weddings, too. Even though few people in Laos are Christian, they are perfectly willing to celebrate Christmas- even if they're not quite sure what it's all about. (I looked up Christmas in a dictionary and found a literal translation of "Foreigner New Year". I think many people are celebrating "Foreigner New Year" on the 25th of December and then "International New Year" only a week later on the first!) Christmas is celebrated here more like how most people celebrate a holiday like Memorial day where people spend time at home with neighbors and family. My host mom kindly threw a Christmas party on my behalf for the neighborhood. I made sure to wear red because that is apparently the color you're supposed to wear. New Year's was a similar but larger affair. Three neighborhood houses had food and music and neighbors just wandered between the three locations. I got to help kill and grill ducks at our house. And it rained! It wasn't much, but with a "winter" dominated by sunny skies and few clouds, it seemed pretty unusual.
School started again right after the break. I was a little surprised at how familiar it felt after a two-month break. We also got a new English teacher. The teacher who previously taught English to the upper primary students (whom I don't usually help teach) and some of the lower secondary classes decided to get married and move away over the break without telling the school. In a scramble to find a new teacher, my schedule changed for about a week as I covered those classes. After a week, a new teacher was found. Very new in fact- he had never taught before and had many questions. This led to a number of tricky situations in the classroom where he wasn't sure what to do and I thought I knew what should be done, but didn't quite know how to explain it to him or the class. (Both his English and my Lao have a little ways to go, and I also didn't want to say things too bluntly.) However, we've now been able to get down a system that works for both of us. I'm thankful that I've been able to give him more suggestions and input than if he wasn't a new teacher.
And now for a look inside the classroom. One of my favorite rooms in M1C. "M1" stands for the first year of Lao secondary school (about 6th grade) and the C means it's the third room of M1. Theroretically, students are placed in the different rooms due to their ability with "A" being the highest and "C" the lowest. I'm still not sure how or why this is done. Maybe the fear is that the better students will get slowed down by the other students. But this system has a number of problems and exceptions. What if you're good at English and but don't have a mathematical mind? How are the students actually chosen for each room- only by tests? If so, I have many doubts about its credibility. Is it really a good idea to put all the "troublemakers" in the same class? Just a few of many questions I have. At any rate, the classes end up being about the same although the B and C classes tend to have more of the "energetic" students.
So theoretically M1C is both the youngest (unless a teacher moves away without telling anyone...) and most challenging class that I teach. They might be the most "immature" or not, but they are also the most interesting. A nice thing about M1C is that it doesn't have as many students as the other M1 classes- I think just over 30 students. Students range from the quartet of girls in the front who always try to give me a snack and are sweet even during a test when they say they don't have anything but are really hiding a paper underneath a leg to the boy towards the back who is more likely to playfully hit someone than write a word down. One girl in the front always has a question about one of the letters in one of the words I've written on the board. A couple boys in the back stir up enough trouble (or their friends do) that I have to come back and visit them. When I do, I'm subject to many questions in a mix of Lao and English: "Are you scared of ghosts?" "Does America have rice fields?" "Because America doesn't have rice fields do they get their rice from Thailand?" "Why are your eyes blue?" (After sputtering a couple words out, I said it was because I like the color blue.) "Why aren't my eyes green?" Almost all of these questions are met with a pair of grins and eager anticipation for an answer. Another boy off to the side knows enough English to be moved up a couple grades. Somehow times almost always passes quickly in this class. What I've said about M1C is more or less the same for the other classes I teach, but maybe not as vivid.
At school, we've recently been having a number of competitions with other schools. Athletically there have been volleyball, football (soccer) and kataw (sepak takraw which I described earlier). Also the girls have participated in "fawn" competitions. "Fawn" is the traditional Lao dancing that occurs at a lot of important events. In fact, our school even held a competition for the district. I arrived at school on Monday to find everyone making decorations out of recycled bags, bottles and wrapping paper. The next day, we had the competition all day with 14 schools (and the national television company). So we have three days of school this week! Nita did quite well, but didn't get first.
