Anubanpong School (Storytelling March)

When you spend a year at a school as a volunteer, you not only experience many days full of classes but also the school vacation time. The students go home, the school is empty, the teachers attend seminars or visit their families and you yourself as a volunteer don't have much to do.

Of course, I didn't just sit around the whole vacations, I traveled a lot and got to know new parts of Thailand. For example, I went to Samui Island for 14 days and enjoyed my beach vacation. Aside from all the traveling, a fellow volunteer and I went to another school for a few days whose vacation started a few weeks later than our project.

Anubanpong School is a school located in Pong, near Chun in the north of Thailand. The elementary school and the kindergarten are located on the same grounds, both run by the same principal.

During our time at Anubanpong School, my fellow volunteer and I lived together with the principal. We were wonderfully taken care of, the teachers all seemed to have great interest in us and the students were also happy to have us. Especially the younger children were very fond of us, they often took us by the hand or hugged us.

In class, we were left in charge. We split up and entertained each of our classes with English learning games. The respective teachers were usually in the room with us, but they held back and translated if necessary.

In general, I felt very comfortable at this school. Especially in the evenings it was very family-like, because we always ate together with some teachers or with the family of the director. I always had a lot of fun and felt very welcome and included.

Towards the end of our stay, we were asked if we would like to stay at Anubanpong School until our return to Germany. We were happy about the offer, as it showed that we were very much appreciated here, but we declined.

My fellow volunteer and I agree that we feel well taken care of at our current project and that it would not be fair to the people there to change projects just like that. We are looking forward to the new semester after the vacations and already have a lot of new ideas on how to organize the lessons. We owe this primarily to the experience at Anubanpong School.

Now more than half of my time in Thailand is over and although I am really looking forward to my home country, I will enjoy my last months here and make the most of this time.

Alena

March 2023