Teacher Conference.

On Friday and Saturday, I attended a conference for English teachers again. For this one, I had been warned that many of the teachers had "not majored in English," and only taught English now because there is a need for it at their school. It seems that many teachers teach many things, Social Studies, Writing, Math, Science, even though the students go to different classes to learn all these different subjects (they don't just have the same teacher all day like they would in elementary schools in the U.S.). However, the English level of these teachers was appalling. They kept asking me to slow down, and a couple of the activities I tried to do with them simply didn't work, even when one of the organizers or my "boss" here, the curriculum developer for Projects Abroad, translated. At one point, I was trying to get them to work with a partner, but they were still just talking in groups at their tables, so I went over to a man and said, "Will you talk with just her, please?" And he said "Will you talk with just her, please." No joke.

But they seemed to still like it. Later the Projects Abroad people said they got some calls asking if I would come work in their schools for a semester, doing I don't know what. And they were all very nice to me. Some of them did speak fairly well, and fortunately there were enough of these scattered throughout that the material could be translated.

On Sunday, my pal and housemate Saranda went on a kayaking-elephant trekking adventure. They took us to an amazing natural canyon made from cliffs rising straight out of the sea. We also got to open sea, but it was only a few feet deep. At one point, they stopped so we could swim, but the sand underneath was so oily that it wasn't exactly enjoyable. The water is also excessively warm here, not at all refreshing if it's a hot day.

After we finished our kayaking (it took about 2 hours), they fed us lunch at a restaurant on the pier. The only other people with us was a cute Malaysian couple here on holiday. Apparently, Malaysians eat with their hands.

Then we piled in to a van with three girls from Singapore, an Engineer, a Psychology student, and a special Ed teacher. We thought we were going Elephant Treking, but instead we stopped at what appeared to be a rustic hotel. The guides led us to a natural pool, complete with mangroves, lilies, and a rope swing, and told us to "Swim! Cold spring! Very clean! Good swimming! You swim? Why you not swim?" We stared at them, then at the pool. "Are you sure it's clean?" we all asked. "Yes! Natural, very cold! That's why we bring you here! Hotel uses it! Good swimming!" Okaaayy. I dipped my feet in. It was slightly cool, not exactly what I'd call cold. I mentioned this. "Oh, yes, very cold! Very cold for us! Very clean and cold! You swim!" Good grief. I guess compared to the ocean it was cold. I still didn't like the looks of it, but the guides weren't going to leave until someone swam. So I jumped off the rope swing. It actually was nice, and it did start to feel cold after awhile. But Saranda and I were the only two who tried it. The Malaysians and Singaporeans just dipped their feet in.

To end the day, they took us to an Elephant, uh, farm? Ranch? I don't know what to call it, but they kept elephants and trained them there. Both Saranda and I were nervous about this part; we didn't want to take part in abusing the elephants. But it turned out to be not so bad. They looked like they had more room than they would in a zoo, and they only do one ride a day, if the trainer is to be believed. They seemed to treat them well. We rode around for about 30 min on the property behind the ranch and the guide told us about the elephants in broken English. We apparently got the good elephant, a 41-year-old named Nang (apparently, they live to be close to 100); the Malaysians' elephant kept stoping to eat. When we got back, we feed Nang some cucumbers, which she greedily ate, and then blew her nose on me (yes, elephant snot is slimy; at least it wasn't green). But it was a grand day, and I was glad to have Saranda to share it with me.