This past weekend was by far the most fun weekend we’ve had in Hangchat! It was the annual English Camp that is held for M4 (10th grade) students, a weekend-long program that is held at nearly all Thai schools. You may recall that we assisted at an English Camp in Chiang Rai back in December . . .please refer to the “Chulabots” entry. Let’s just say that our camp had the same main goal of giving the students an opportunity to study English for an entire weekend, but it was done with true Hangchat flair and style. 
For starters, the name of this year’s camp was “English R Us.” How was the camp given such a grammatically incorrect name? One afternoon, as the English teachers were gathered around a table planning the camp, Kru Sutham began asking for ideas for the name. “Super English,” “Awesome English Camp,” several ideas were thrown out there. Leave it to me, with my hilariously not funny jokes and puns to throw something completely bizarre on the table. “English R Us!” I shouted, of course laughing at my own joke. Sutham, with his vast knowledge of western culture immediately grasped my joke and humored me with a chuckle. “What?! What?!” Pan exclaimed. Sutham explained to her that it’s a large toy store in America. “Ohhhh! Ok! ‘English R Us!’ It’s good I think!” Despite my efforts to explain that it was a stupid joke, and it only barely makes sense, Pan’s mind was made up. Less than a week later, to my great dismay, she appeared at my desk with a sketch of the camp t-shirts, ‘English R Us’ scrawled across the back. Sigh. When the T-shirts were actually finished, the ‘R’ is not only backwards, but also upside-down. That's so Hangchat. 
As Erin has previously stated, Sutham is easing into retirement at Hangchat. He wanted to bring some fresh blood to English Camp this year so he called upon Mr. John, a freelance English teacher in Lampang (from Michigan) to plan nearly every aspect of the camp and help run it. In addition to Mr. John (and his young teenage son) Sutham also got his hands on a couple of high school exchange students from Brazil and Canada, respectively. Not exactly ‘native speakers,’ but still farang! Finally, Sutham called upon a youth group that is run out of Rajabhat University, in Lampang, to organize ice breakers and games for the down time between activities . . . basically to act as babysitters while the teachers showered and took breathers. This youth group ended up killing a lot more of the time than we initially anticipated, and sort of turned the camp into a Thai dance camp rather than an English camp, (the games and songs were all in Thai). Lack of educational value aside, the students loved the silly games and dances. The Rajabhat students brought a ton of energy to the camp and were certainly one of the highlights for the students! Enjoy the examples of some of the silly dances that took place! Each enjoyed very loud drumming and singing and shouting into microphones. The students were required to do ridiculous dances that involved, yup you guessed it, lots of hip thrusting, (a sort of theme here in Thailand).During the day, Erin and I each manned ‘educational’ stations. Mine was boring so I had to spice it up. John informed me that I was to taking care of the word recognition station, in which I would call a word and a student would circle it. Boring. So I turned it into a racing game. I would make each student walk back about 10 yards from the white board, call a word out, then make the students race to be the first to touch the word on the board. It turned into some pretty intense hand to hand combat, so of course the students loved it. Success. Erin played Pictionary and taught parts of the body.
Let me take a moment to paint a picture of M4. These 96 students are, by far, some of our favorites in the school, (Yea, that’s right. Teachers do have favorites.) 4/1 is made up of students who were in Pan’s Christmas play. We were able to spend a lot of time with them during rehearsals, and Erin teaches them every week. The class consists of a whole slew of the sweetest girls you can imagine, who love learning English, and love talking to us. There are also a few adorable boys including Jame, (who I still think has star quality) and Big and Bell, the twins, both of whom Pan refers to as “Bigbell.” You may remember a video of me dancing with these 3 on Christmas. Donut is also in 4/1. I like his nickname.4/2 is my class, but Erin became close to a number of them when they became her basketball teammates, (before the hoop broke). Ter is possibly the best English speaker in the school. His friend J is just adorable, sweet, and helpful. And then, there’s Home. Ahhhh, Home. Slightly overweight, walks with a ridiculous strut, always getting picked on by his buddies . . he’s the epitome of “the fat friend.” Home does not like English, nor is he any good at it. I will often ask him to repeat a phrase. “Come here please, teacher.” “Eh Uh Ehhhhh Aee OHHHH.” Not even close, Home, not even close. In frustration, he will often speak to me in Thai, rapid fire, and I just look at him and laugh. And then there is Somsak/Frasai/Sai/Lay/Helen, perhaps the most complex out of all the M 4’s. He is a lady boy, not quite as beautiful as Ram, our M5 lady boy, although perhaps with a bit more charisma. He (she) is very sweet, tries hard at English, and struts around campus with a pink Hello Kitty backpack. I love him (her).
4/3 is the slow class. 4/3, 5/3, and 6/3 are on the ‘language track’ at school, as opposed to the ‘math and science track.’ You would think this would mean that they are good at English, but really it means that they are bad at school, (although usually the most fun and entertaining in the grade). My 4/3 boys are the biggest, burliest, loudest, and possibly funniest group in the school. I used to get insulted when they would mimic my voice or tease me in some other way, but I have grown to love them and appreciate their humor. It’s not unusual to see one of the boys riding on the back of Bank, (well over 6 feet tall), or see one of the boys with his shirt unbuttoned to his stomach. I often feel like I’m in the army when I’m with them (there is only a small handful of girls in the class, who wisely keep their distance from the loud, smelly boys). As you can imagine, spending a weekend with this eclectic group was a trip!
4/3 is the slow class. 4/3, 5/3, and 6/3 are on the ‘language track’ at school, as opposed to the ‘math and science track.’ You would think this would mean that they are good at English, but really it means that they are bad at school, (although usually the most fun and entertaining in the grade). My 4/3 boys are the biggest, burliest, loudest, and possibly funniest group in the school. I used to get insulted when they would mimic my voice or tease me in some other way, but I have grown to love them and appreciate their humor. It’s not unusual to see one of the boys riding on the back of Bank, (well over 6 feet tall), or see one of the boys with his shirt unbuttoned to his stomach. I often feel like I’m in the army when I’m with them (there is only a small handful of girls in the class, who wisely keep their distance from the loud, smelly boys). As you can imagine, spending a weekend with this eclectic group was a trip! 
The highlight was most certainly Saturday night, after we had all changed into our “comfy clothes,” (which included boxer shorts for some of the boys . . . shocking and wildly inappropriate!) The students had less than an hour to prepare skits in groups. Sutham distributed plot summaries of actual Korean soap operas, which the students had to base their skits on. Sai of course took the female lead of his group’s skit. One skit involved HIV . . .Ter kept that skit PG by having the narrator announce, “Then, they have a sex.” Here is a video of Ter dying of AIDS. As you can imagine, these plays made little to no sense, but were laugh-out-loud funny.After the plays, we had a dance party. Yes, that’s right. Sutham cranked Thai hit after Thai hit out of the speakers, Pan turned out the lights and shone a flashlight everywhere, and Erin and I got crunk with our students. Things got a little weird when the boys were taking their shirts off, and at one point Erin yelled in my ear, “Pan needs to turn the lights on or things might start getting really awkward.” We got some interesting looks from the students when we led them in the Macarena, but I was glad they had a chance to see us as the young hip chicks we are. I’m a cool mom. But trust me, it was all harmless. And today I have sore legs. I just don’t have the stamina I used to.
Post dance party, Erin and I escaped to our jungle house, while the rest of the teachers had to sleep at school. Ha, suckers. We were informed that some of the boys were awake until 4 am!!! And they had to wake up at 6:30. This meant that Sunday was a wash. Oh yes, they had to attend our stations, but this didn’t keep them from sleeping. Even the teachers were exhausted from all the fun, and at one point when I caught Kru Ning resting against a post, she replied “Lazy R Us.” My Sunday station involved creating “Save the World” posters, perfect for sleeping. The studious, diligent students made the posters, while the 4 am partiers slept. I had a blast getting pictures of all of them, as you can imagine. 
Were there any negatives to the weekend? Only three. One: we had to sign every single student’s book after every station. This means that Erin and I signed our names a grand total of 288 times over the course of the weekend. Exhausting. 
Two: demonstrating the orange under the chin game with Erin in front of the students, ridiculous. 
Three: Hearing Pan outside my house at 7am, calling my name, because she’s ready for her shower. 
English R Us proved to be an unforgettable weekend that will make it even harder to say goodbye to these amazing kids. 
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