French Camp

This has been an interesting week, from swimming in the rain and biking around Korat, to a weekend away at a French camp, as well as having a Rotary meeting with all the Rotary Clubs around Korat I believe it is four or so.  To start my host family is starting to trust me and is letting me have more freedom to venture out after school and explore Korat, which is really nice and I am finally getting my bearings about how the city is laid out, because there is no plan to the city, just on main road and a lot of what seem like back alleys but are actually busy roads.  Also, the big Rotary meeting with all the clubs was really just an excuse for the exchange students to get together and talk while the adults had fun eating and drinking.  Finally the French camp, it was with school and we went up to Pak Chong a mountain about two hours away from Korat. This trip was through the school and it was all three of the exchange students at my school and the French class that went.   While we were there it was like a Leadership camp with activities, except when they said they would start at 8am it was really 8:30 because we were operating on Thai time, which means that everyone is late and does not worry about the time.  The workshops were run by native French speaker who teacher is Bangkok, so it was neat to see how they liked teaching French and what they thought about Thailand. 

A little aside in Thailand they are very accepting of people who are gay, which really nice to see.  However, not only are they accepting of that, but they accept the extreme forms of it too.  The Thai people call them “lady boys”, these people are very feminine boys, who like to dress as girls, as well.  They are some of the nicest people I have met here.  While at French camp they came up to us and wanted to know all about where the three “farangs” (the Thai word for foreigner that you hear everywhere because it also means guava) came from and what it was like back home.  It was really interesting to see this because the other girls at camp were not as welcoming as them.  As well as they are not afraid to dance and do it very well!  So that is just a little snippet about how accepting the Thai culture is not only of the farangs but of people’s personal feelings. 

Finally, a little about school this week, almost all this week the other students have tests in every single class, and in the other ones the teachers do not usually show up so it is pretty much a free day for me to learn and do whatever I would like.  The exciting part about this is that next Tuesday is my last day of school for a month, so I finally get the opportunity to explore Korat and everything it has to offer!!