Field trip

I think I am in love but this time it is not with some man. It is with 29 five-year-olds. They are so sweet and some of them are quite charming. Yes it is my kindergarten class. Every day I feel like a celebrity because when I walk into the classroom I have 29 kids screaming: “teacher Ansie! Teacher Ansie! And hugging me and smiling. They are 29 bundles of energy, hard to control at times but so eager to learn and participate. We went on a field trip to the Zoo, Aquarium, Chalong Temple and Butterfly garden – all in one day. Imagine 120 five and six-year-olds. Running around in an aquarium and 10 teachers trying to control them. The poor tourists who decided to go to the aquarium on that day. They were just looking at us with a smile on their face as if to say: “I am so glad that I am not you.” But I am glad that I am me. If you would have told me a year ago that I would be running around in a Zoo in Thailand with a bunch of kids, I would tell you that you are crazy. Now you would probably be the one telling me that I am crazy. Phuket Zoo has interesting shows with monkeys, elephants and crocodiles. The monkeys and elephants were sweet but the show with the crocodiles were very disturbing. I am sure they have to drug the crocs to make them behave like they do. The two Thai guys were dragging them around by the tail and pocking them with sticks. At a stage I wished the croc would turn around and bite the guys heads off. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. On a lighter note. I enjoyed the elephants the most. They are very well trained. Can sit down, dance to music, paint a picture, play with a hoola hoop and kick a basketball into the goal post. All in all the field trip was interesting but heart breaking. To see tigers and crocs caged up and in chains is against their nature. That is when I missed the African safari. Where you can see animals running around in the wild, happy and free. Then you are the one in a cage, in your car staring at the animals. Time runs out so quickly and I cannot believe that I have been teaching for 3 weeks already and am in Thailand almost 3 months now.