Life as a Local in Syros, Greece

We arrived safely in Chiang Mai and settled into a hostel. We snapped a few last photos in Nong Chang and realized we never said much about the actual teaching  and home stay experience. 

The english school we were volunteering at is called Brainstorm and is a private business of our hosts Fai and Pong. Fai is 33 year old high school chemistry teacher and her husband Pong is a semi retired 42 year old who previously ‘made his money’ as a sales and crop specialist in Bangkok. Big shout out to Merrylou and Jianni for referring us to them!

They run there English school out of their home, utilizing the bottom 2 floors as classrooms. I meant to get pictures all 2 weeks and never did. They currently have about 40 students enrolled (ages 3-17) and they come 2-3 times a week. At first I thought it was kind of interesting to run a business off of volunteers but after our experience there, we definitely felt it was a fair trade off to the volunteers and a service to the students. 

Their volunteer opportunity is one of the most popular in Thailand on http://www.workaway.info and Fai says she is often turning away volunteers because they are full. 

One of their main objectives is to make learning fun so that the kids want to be there. This was probably the biggest challenge for Jason and I- digging up our creativity and getting on the level of the kids. The first weekend of 6 classes was definitely stressful but from there it only got better as we got more comfortable and more creative.We’ll be humming kids songs for the next month I’m sure.

One of Pong’s best friends is a principal of a nearby public school and on our last day he invited us to come visit with his students for a couple of hours. It was an energy exhausting 2 hours to say the least 🙂 Jason’s comment when we left was ‘now I know what it feels like to be a celebrity’ and mine was now I know what it feels like to be an animal at the zoo. The kids were beyond excited to see white people and wanted to make the most of this time- playing soccer, taking photos with us, playing games and just sitting around us poking and prodding haha.

So here’s a few photos from our last day- lessons at the school, American lunch as a last day treat and the afternoon at the public school.

(Jason here) I hurt a couple of toes on my right foot trying to play soccer with the kids.  They could only be impressed by my enthusiasm, because my soccer skills are pitiful.  Hopefully the swelling in my foot doesn’t last too long. 

Helping cook our last dinner at the house.