Finding work

As Christy goes off on holiday, Krungthai goes to Holland and my new Irish friends go off to the islands, I spend an evening on my own trying to piece together the news images of protests. There are people wearing yellow (the Peoples’ Alliance for Democracy) and another party, who wear red (the National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship) and both parties look like they’re just picnicing rather than a protestesting. Even with a web search of the English papers, I have no real idea what is going on. Then, the Peoples’ Alliance for Democracy (who I understand are calling for the Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat to resign. They occupy the airport and those people in yellow who looked like they were having a huge picnic are blocking the roads with luggage trolleys, they’re wearing bandanas across their faces and they’re wielding pieces of bamboo. Now the internet cafes are so packed with (angry) tourists, I have to queue for a computer. They’re skype calling their airlines, un-booking their hotels and their onward travel plans, and I just keep on job searching and I really get into sending the applications. Everywhere, all people are talking about is their personal trauma of trying to get out of Bangkok. All the guesthouses are full and no-one dares attempt a move to a nicer guesthouse or a cheaper guesthouse for fear the room they have will be snapped up and the one they want will be gone by the time they get to it. I too am looking for a cheaper place. I lost my purse which I then found but only after I’d cancelled my cards. So I’m reading my book in my guesthouse restaurant one evening - trying to ignore the moaning of the stranded, when Fleur from New Zealand, at the table next to me asks if I too am stranded. I say I’m looking for a job - quite urgently now as I lost my purse, found it but not till I’d cancelled the cards etc. Within a minute I’m invited to share her hotel room. Big room in the gorgeous Nevali hotel. It has a bath, a DVD player, a fridge, a rooftop pool and free buffet breakfast. I accept. In the mornings we have our breakfast together and then I go off to apply for some jobs while Fleur hangs out by the pool. In the afternoon, we meet for lunch, do some sightseeing (temples, the riverboat, China town) and in evenings we watch DVDs bought off the Kao San road. This routine continues until Fathers’ Day: the King’s birthday and an official public holiday in Thailand. I take the excuse not to apply for any more jobs but to celebrate along with the rest of Thailand, this special day. We head to the Palace where the streets are paved with people who have positioned themselves on the floor for a good view of what turns out to be a spectacular procession involving the army, police, nurses, school children, brass bands. At the end, the National Anthem is played over loud speakers and everyone stands. The pride in people’s stance and their faces is like nothing I have seen before. At the end of the Anthem, people rattle their small flags in the air and a drunk old man comes to speak aggressively about something to Fleur and I. Immediately a Thai woman steps in waving her flag at him, not saying a word. Another woman does the same not far behind the first woman and the guy backs off.

Finally, the People’s Alliance for Democracy ends its occupation of the airport as a Court order bans Somchai Wongsawat from politics for five years (something about vote-buying). Slowly people begin to fly off. My replacement cash cards arrive and I have a job interview at a school in Southern Bangkok! The evening before the interview I pre - book a taxi but as this doesn’t show in the morning, I get a Tuk Tuk driver to agree to take me (for a fiver). On the way, he tells me it’s too expensive for a Tuk Tuk back. He says he saw some Song toews just before which go back to the pier. If I get off when I see Yannawa Wat and take a left after the bridge, I can take a boat back to Bang Lam Poo.

I arrive at school just before lunch and there’s a rehearsal for a Christmas show in the Foyer. Although I know the children are talking in English, I do not know what they are saying. With their Thai accent they seem to have a whole language of their own which I cannot yet decipher. They bow, exit stage left and I am called for interview for which I immediately develop a tickly cough and so can only answer with short sentences in between coughs. This, my interviewer explains is due to the change in the season. I suspect I have blown my chances with the coughing but have such a good feeling about the school, I plan to work harder at applying for jobs. (I lost momentum again after the Father’s day break.) I follow those directions back to Bang Lam Poo and it’s such a lovely journey back on the river boat, I can really picture a year here.

At 5pm I open my emails and I have been offered the job. As its midnight back in the UK and everyone I know here has left or is out of town, the only people I can find to tell my good news to are the Tuk Tuk driver who took me for interview and my ironing lady. Yes, I have an ironing lady (Well, a lady who ironed my interview clothes). They are both delighted for me.

The evening before my first day at school, I pre book a Tuk Tuk for 5.30 in the morning. This is another driver who is also very pleased for me. (I know him well and he has taken me on numerous short journeys around Bangkok.) He advises me to take care of my money – keep it separated, invest in a money belt. If I have any problems, let him know or call my Embassy. Find out the number for my Embassy in Bangkok.

I wake up at 4.30 and at 5am he’s already waiting outside my guesthouse. From Seven – Eleven, I get a can of coffee and a croissant for a breakfast to have in the back of the Tuk Tuk. As we rattle along, the driver gives me more advice. I’m not to take a Tuk tuk or taxi home. I’m to take the Song teow to the pier and the boat back to Bang Lam Poo. It will cost me 20 baht instead of 200. Tomorrow, I’m to take the bus or the boat to School. I can’t keep paying for Tuk Tuks – I’m not a tourist any more. I argue the case for one more day whilst I get used to it all.

I arrive at school early enough for teachers’ free toast and coffee and then I am introduced to my co – (Thai) teacher, Miss Supranee, the classroom assistant, Miss Jantiwa and the teacher who is going to teach with me for the first week, Mr Allan (from the Philippines). Between 7a.m. and 7.30a.m, I meet the 36 beautiful six year olds I am to teach English vocabulary, conversation and maths to. (I told them at interview I wouldn’t feel confident teaching Maths but they laughed and said it was really easy.)

I’m told to take my shoes off in the classroom and the morning starts with the children lying on the floor on their fronts for Thai workbook work. At 8 a.m. we parade to the roof top for assembly. We stand for the national anthem, two students raise the flag, we pray in English and then in Thai (it’s a Catholic school). The Children raise their right hand pledging to respect and obey their teachers, concentrate, be polite etc. The teachers pledge to be honest to ourselves and others, to be resourceful. Then we break into songs with actions which the children love and before we know it we’re parading back to the classroom.

The first lesson is Thai which I watch from my desk at the side of the classroom whilst I’m preparing my ‘getting to know you’ materials. (We’re making name badges with pictures of the things we like and telling each other about ourselves.) Next lesson is Yoga for which I’m not needed for so Allan and I co – plan the week. Then it is lunch time. English teachers help with lunch. I have a bowl of noodles, a bowl of soup with vegetables in it and a tray of fish balls and all the children asking for more at pretty much the same time. After fifteen minutes I’m sent for my lunch while the children have a run around and bizzarely clean their teeth.

After lunch it’s my English lesson. Lots of children like ice-cream, one boy likes Pattaya and the rest, like me, like cheese. We play some conversation games with a ball (they like this) and I throw out some questions and get some good answers back. (I don't have to start working with the themes for a couple of weeks). Then, its nap time for which the students roll out little mattresses with pillows attached and find a space to sleep in (they bring their mattress in on a Monday and take them home Friday for a wash). They sleep and I sit at my desk (in the dark) on one side of the room and Miss Supranee sits at her desk on the other side of the room. Oh for a nap. This time is a killer. Next lesson is a Library session which again I am not teaching. We watch an English cartoon altogether, talk about the story and then they all find a book and find somewhere to have a read. Next lesson we’re rehearsing the Christmas show and again I hear that other language which I now think comes from reading from a script. Last lesson we work through the students' English workbooks and Allan teaches this acting like a comedian to keep their attention and I animate my side as best I can. The bell goes at three and some children go home, but most go to an after school option class (an extra lesson in Thai, English, Phonics or Taikwondo). During this hour, I dream up more lesson ideas and do some prep for tomorrow’s lessons. At 4 p.m. I queue up with the other teachers to scan my finger as part of the clock out. Although I have done very little this day, after 4 months of not working, I am exhausted. I take the Song teow and the boat home and on the way get a phone call from my Irish friends who are back in town. Have I time for dinner and a drink? I manage two hours with the boys who are celebrating my new job more than I am. By 8pm I am fast asleep.

The next day, neither the Tuk tuk who took me for the interview nor my Tuk Tuk from yesterday are about. I try negotiating with another driver. He says it’s too expensive. I say, I can pay. I am happy to pay. He looks away uncomfortably, then after a long pause, agrees to take me. This day is very similar to yesterday only the students are a little rowdier. I can’t remember their names and they can’t remember mine. After work, I meet the Irish again and make it to 9p.m and they are still celebrating my new job.

Wednesday, 5.30 am, the new driver from yesterday and the guy from the day before are outside my guesthouse and they’re shaking their heads at me. The guy from the day before yesterday says, “We not take you - too expensive. You take the bus - number 35 or take the boat” I tell him I don’t know where to take the bus from. I think the matter is over. I tell him I’m going to get breakfast. I pop into Seven - Eleven and usually they ask me how I am and I say I have a headache or a cold or a cough and they mime their ailments and show me their cracked lips and we smile and say goodbye. But today, no-one says anything. They are transfixed with their mouths open. They are staring at the space above my head, which it turns out there is a small flat screen TV above. They are watching back what appears to be a fight in the shop perhaps from the night before. Back with my Tuk Tuk drivers, one of them is on his mobile and the other one is taking notes for him. They have phoned the boat company and the bus company. There are no boats or buses running from here to south Bangkok at this hour. But if I take the number 1 bus from the Palace, it will take me part of the way and from there I can get a Song toew which ends its journey outside my school. “But I don’t know where abouts at the Palace to get the bus or where I should get off and this is only short term. I’m going to move to Bang Pong Pang very soon and then I’ll save my money.”

“You know the place” says my driver from yesterday. “You remember, we drive past yesterday - lots of Thai people eating breakfast under bridge. Get off under bridge.” No, I don’t know where that is. There were lots of Thai people eating breakfast under lots of bridges, everywhere. “I don’t know where you mean”. (I am beginning to panic that I am going to be very late on only my third day – new job!) Reluctantly, the driver from the day before yesterday gestures for me to get in the back. On the way, he points out where I get bus from, he takes me on the route the number one bus takes, he points out a number one bus in front of us, the bridge where I get off and where the songthaews run from.

I arrive just in time and tell Allan of my Tuk Tuk nightmare but it’s OK because I’m going to move closer to work soon. Allan is looking for someone to take his apartment on so he can move out before his contract ends. So after work, we take a Songtoew to his apartment. It’s very spacious, has nice furniture and is on the ninth floor of a ‘Condo Villa’ (not too high up). It has a mini Tescos and a Seven – Eleven on the corner, 24 hour security, a launderette, massage shop, ironing shop and internet café on the ground floor. On the sixth floor there’s a restaurant and free access to the swimming pool, gym and sauna. I am overwhelmed by the pool. It is 7500baht (150 quid) a month. I want it. I cannot consider house hunting further when I can have this.

Saturday morning, I pack up my pack and empty my locker. I am moving to a Condo in Bang Pong Pang. My Tuk Tuk driver that took me for interview is in the street. I tell him I’m moving, show him the address and ask him if he’ll take me. He says it’s too expensive. At this time of day you can get a taxi for 100 baht. I tell him I can’t get taxi drivers to turn on the meter. So he drives me out to the main road and flags down taxis until one agrees to use the meter.

After only an hour in the apartment, I feel the need to email home, to tell everyone about my new home. I lock the door from inside and instantly remember the keys are inside. After failed attempts to break in, I call the management agency who arrange for a locksmith to break in (to the amusement of the Locksmith and Security and my management agent). I am feeling a bit down having just wasted four quid locking myself out. I decide to go for a swim. I go to reception and say I want to swim to the Security guard behind the desk. She has a badge on her arm which says “Doing Well Security”. She shouts something at me in Thai and I say and mime that I don’t understand. I ask her in Chinese if she speaks Chinese. This seems to make her angry. She points to a sign which says swimming caps must be worn in the pool. I ask if she sells them and she gets even angrier. I ask if I can Sauna instead. Sauna she understands and takes my card and signs me in. I sit in the Sauna for 20 minutes pouring water on the coals which just floods the floor and I conclude that that they must only have cool saunas in Thailand because it’s so hot anyway. On the way out I see the instructions for turning on the Sauna and see that the dial is pointed to ‘OFF’. Pool and Sauna are not so impressive now. I head to Tescos to stock up and also get myself a swimming cap. I try to buy a bottle of wine but alcohol isn’t allowed until after 5pm. It is 4pm.

Swimming cap in my hand I go back to the pool. I sign in and head to the changing rooms - with my shoes on. Security lady follows me in and barks something at me in Thai. I shake my head and raise my eyebrows and she says in English “Shoes off”. I say, “Oh, we can’t wear shoes. Oh, Ok, I’m taking them off now anyway.” But I don’t take them off because I’m struggling with the locker. “Shoes off, shoes off” she shouts. So I whip them off and she yanks open the changing room door and points to a shoe rack outside. Before leaving the changing room she mimes that I need to shower. Apart from Dragon features at the pool, the Security guards at the Condo Villa are great. They tap their feet as they salute “hello” (Sawadee krap). They ask where you’re going, if you’ve eaten yet. They hold open doors for you, flag down your taxi and every morning they do this fancy changing of the guards display where they stamp, salute and face different directions before shouting something (which I imagine is “atten – sion!") - very professional.

After only 8 at days work, I have a 10 day break for Christmas…

written by  Yee Ling Tang on December 22, 2008 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: the break
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