As Harry Ryan reaches the halfway point in his service year, he looks back at the first six months fondly…
Looking back and realising that I have almost completed 6 of my 12 months in Thailand is very hard to believe. As many boys have said previously time is moves incredibly fast over here. I am extremely pleased that I embarked on this incredible journey for 12 months, as I would be thoroughly disappointed if my time in Thailand was to come to an end now.
I consider myself extremely lucky to be one of the three Riverview boys that have committed a year of service in Thailand, and to have the help from boys over here now, and previous service year boys, which has been incredibly beneficial.
There are currently 13 of us here in Thailand at the moment located in villages called Huay Tong, Bangkad, and Mae Pon. We regularly get together in Huay Tong and occasionally in Chiang Mai city to meet up and exchange stories and ideas on our service in our schools and communities, and to help each other learn the Thai language.
As cliché as it sounds, every day in Thailand presents something different however one thing that never changes is a constant generosity and good nature the people we work with. The teachers, and even students, at the school are more than willing to give up their time to help you either learn the language, or get to know the rich culture of Thailand.
One of the countless stories that show their endless generosity happened to me during the first month. The boys at Huay Tong were looking for one of the many waterfalls that surround us when my motorbike broke down.
After encouraging the boys to leave me behind to look for a mechanic I found myself at the bottom of hill and, after attempting to push to bike up the hill, a local boy, who knew very little English and I knew very little Thai at the time, arrived on the scene. Half an hour later he managed to somehow fix the bike and, before he sent me on my way, he told me that he went to school at Huay Tong and knew that we were the new boys working for the project, and was incredibly happy that he could help. This is but one of a many stories I could tell of problems we have had and the local people cheerfully helping us.
To finish this very brief reflection, I can’t begin to tell you how great it is to finish a day with a kindy student cheerfully yelling out “good morning teacher” at 3:30 pm while riding your bike home from school.
