Life, death and rain

Prologue: "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Callum, Happy Birthday to you" - To my darling nephew Callum I hope you had a great first birthday.

Post: It was Full Moon last Friday, the party Koh Phan Ngan is famed for, so the farangs have been arriving in their droves. All between 18 and 25 and looking for a good time. Most of the teachers gave the 3 day Blue Moon party a miss as POD advised against it...apparently a boat sank and some farang died a few years back...and the weather was poor last week.

Earlier in the week it was Subai's birthday. She is one of the Thai girls coordinating the POD volunteers. She has really looked after us so we all clubbed together to buy her some flowers and cake. On the night of her birthday we went to a Thai BBQ restaurant. Quiet unlike anything I had been to before. You queue up for your uncooked noodle and raw meat and fish and cook it all at your table. Holes in the table are filled with hot coals and a circular cooking plate is placed over it. There is a rim on the plate to pour hot water into...the place to cook your noodles etc. Everybody then proceeds to put raw meat and fish on the plates to cook. Its great fun but you are using chopsticks and spoons, so raw and cooked mix...your chops touch cooked meat, but you pretend it didn't happen...in fact we need to ignore all our cooking hygiene knowledge. It was hard work but great fun! A lot of the time you had no idea what something was before you put it in your mouth..."Is this chicken?"- "It looks like Tofu."- "Actually, it tastes fishy."

We all agreed that the best course of action, after such a scandalous lapse of hygiene, was to disinfect our stomach's with alcohol. Some drank beer....I choose whiskey, as I didn't want to take any chances.

Back at school, the title of teacher is becoming less fraudulent. The frustration of the past few weeks, trying to get the kids to listen and learn has dissipated. On Tuesday I was teaching the kids about food. Soon after the start of class the heavens opened and it rained rivers. Obviously the kids open to any distraction jumped to look. I went for a look myself. I yelled “close the windows, Baton down the hatches!”. The kids jumped into action, laughing and running. We all stood hand in hand and shouted.... "Rain, rain, go away, please come back another day. Rain, rain, go away, please come back another day" ...for about 10 minutes before we tired. The rest of the lesson was about the weather...the Sun, the rain, the stars...but it wasn't them and me anymore...we did it together, finally. I got drenched on the way home, caring not a jot; I had sunshine and smiles in my heart that day; In fact I was even hoping for rain the following day.

On the Wednesday I went in for lunch and the principal's wife was lunching as well...she works as a hairdressing teacher and had a trainee with her practicing on the kids. Her English is good and it took her about 30 seconds to tell me I needed a haircut! She was right of course. She said the trainee needed some practice... how about a free haircut. Right-o so, Khawp khun khrap (thanks). I went in the following day to her hair salon and the trainee and an older Lady ("Best haircut Lady in Thailand") both cut my hair passing the scissors between them. We had a good laugh, which is just as well because it took them over an hour to cut it.

This Friday was Full Moon, as I mentioned. We headed to Had Rin, into a Danish bar with a buffet and live music first. The band was tremendous...they took requests so we got a rendition of "Whiskey in the Jar" and "With or Without you", Guns and Roses, Led Zep, ACDC, Queen etc...We was buzzing when we went to the beach for Full Moon proper...it was like, well, New Year's Eve; on speed! Too many people trying to enjoy themselves, people passed out, people trying to get you to buy drugs, get you picture taken with a monkey/geko. We found a spot on the beach and had a bit of a laugh but I won't be heading back there next month.

Went to Koh Samui on Sunday…played golf. Lost 7 balls in 9 holes…a personal best. Toured around then. Beautiful views and great restaurants.

So this week I'm leaving my accommodation and moving into the Monte Vista retreat for a 7 day self development/healing course. So see ye all in a week.

But before I go, I need to mention that one of my college friends lost his brother, to illness, a few days ago. Death is part of all of our lives; grief the hardest emotion to deal with. I hope my friend is doing ok.

M.

"Keep off the grass." - Peter Ustinov's epitaph for his gravestone