Thailand 2013- Part 1 Volunteering

 

Hey guys! I hope everyone is having an awesome summer so far… hopefully, wherever you are, there is sunshine, bbqs, family and friends. So taking a break from hair updates (although there is one shortly!), I wanted to share with you guys I have been up to so far this summer! This might be a long one (I will try to shorten it lol, but just in case grab some snacks and lets goo)

Ok. So, I love to travel. I love an adventure. And I love new challenges. For a while I have been thinking of doing some charity/volunteer work and I was so blessed to have been able to do that this summer! I spent a month in THAILAND! Yes the land of smiles, teaching English in the villages and travelling around Thailand! Since this is volunteer work, I had to fully fund this trip and thought it cost me a lot, it was worth every single penny I spent and all those extra shifts I took (LOL).

Travel advice

Please don’t be like me and let the excitement of your journey make you forget a few essentials, trust I had to learn the hard way

• If you’re going to a hot and humid country, please remember to buy bug spray! I thought I could survive without it( cause I thought I was superwoman having grown up in Ghana lol) but after two days and with the amount of times I was bitten by God knows what, I’m surprised am still human without any powers!
• Please, PLEASE double check what the charging sockets are like in your chosen country and buy a suitable adapter! In the end I had to hi jack someone’s charger for a week.
• Please learn the basic phrases of the country! It’s just polite and a great conversation starter
• Sunscreen/sun glasses if it’s a hot country
• Make photocopies of your passport around and keep the real thing locked in your suitcase. Take a visa/ MasterCard or any card you can use worldwide AND inform your bank about it. if you’re short of cash and card stops working( oh yes it happened) don’t panic there’s western union
• Make sure you take a device you can connect to the internet to through Wi-Fi (so now you’re thinking phone right? Yh what if it stops working? And yes again, guilty as charged!)

Volunteering- teaching English

For my first two weeks, I was in the south Thailand, in khao lak, from there I travelled to Takupa, a village to teach English in the local schools. I was at the ban yan Yao school. This school was actually affected by the tsunami that happened a few years ago. And from what I was told, the English room was built by a man who lost his wife and child in the tragedy. So with that being said, the English room was dedicated to the teaching and learning of English for the children.  The kids in the school are awesome! Well behaved and eager to learn English! Their English was ok, but they needed more confidence in their pronouncination and more practice. I had so much fun with them. The teachers were nice to us and on the last day they brought us fruits and muffins.

At the end of my time there, I was given a certificate and was invited back any time I want to teach again.

I was with a company called original volunteers. You can check them out on their Facebook page ‘original volunteers’ or their website http://www.originalvolunteers.co.uk/

 

 

I decided to split this post into two, so part two will have my travelling adventure! Stay tuned!