Our first few days......

Hey!
We finally arrived in Krabi on Monday evening, we met our director (Dear) at the airport who took us on a shuttle bus to our host family's house. We are living on a small island, so we had to get on a long tail boat across the river..with all of our bags!! Once we reached the other side, we had to get a motorbike (which they call taxi's) to our house. Our family are lovely! there is Mum and Dad, a little girl called soryda..she's soo cute! and another girl but we still arent sure of her name. Once we had been introduced, we had something to eat and went straight to bed because we hadnt actually slept properly for 2 days!. The house is completely different from anything we have seen in England, only the main part of the house is built from bricks, the rest is mainly wood. However, our room is imacculate and we have out own bathroom with a shower and toilet (no flush!) so we have to flush it with water from a bucket! lol... there isnt a sink either but we are slowly getting used to it!

On our first day, we met back up with Dear who took us into Krabi town, she helped us get thai cards for our phones becuase it is soo much cheaper, that way. The currency out here is Baht, the sim card was 50 baht, which in English money would only be 1 pound!! We then went into a little coffee shop and Dear went through everything with us, from what we had to wear at placement, information for when we are living with our family and any other general information.
She also gave us little cards with different places that we might need to ask for in Thai.. eg..She would write hospital at the top and underneath..write it in Thai so we could just show the card to someone Thai and they would understand! (if that makes sense) We were also given a projects abroad T-shirt :)

Once we had been through everything, we got on another shuttle bus, which took us into A0-Nang, which is about a 40 minute drive, Dear got dropped off on the way as she had to meet other volunteers later in the day. We were dropped off at the beach, which is AMAZING! The sea is soo clear and we can see all the different islands in the distance, which we are hoping to visit at the weekends :) We decided to have some lunch and spend the rest of the day on the beach, which was really nice..it was soo hot! However, it got to about 3 o'clock and we could see a huge black clould coming in our direction...therefore we decided to get off the beach!! It got really windy and all the little shops were being closed down before everything for swept away. We managed to get on a shuttle bus literally about 2 mins before it chucked it down with rain! I have never seen so much rain in my life!! Once we arrived back in Krabi, we got another bus back to the Thara beach port where we got a longtail boat across to the island we were staying. That evening we had a nice meal with out family and little Soryda was showing us what she had learnt at school.

Today.. Wednesday, we went to the school for the first time, we had to leave out house at half 7 and Dear was waiting with us on the other side of the port ready to take us in a small mini bus.
When we first arrived, all the children noticed us as soon as we got out of the bus and their litte faces were soo cute!
We are going to be working in the nursery with the 3-4 year olds! There are about 40 of them and only 2 teachers, the class is divided into 2..one group wear purple t-shirts and the others wear orange (these are the slightly younger ones). As soon as we had been introduced, we were asked to sing a song with them. At first we had no idea that we were going to be asked to do this, but we just did it. The first song we thought of was head shoulders, knees and toes and they we all really good and copied everything we did. Then the teacher gave us a CD with songs on that we had to use to warm the children up for some morning exercise! The teachers, just let us do whatever we wanted, they just stood behind and watched.
Once we had finished, we were asked to teach them thier ABC's and 123's, so we gathered them infront of the whiteboard and tried our best! The 2 classes were then divided into 2 groups, Amie went with the orange group and i stayed with the purple. My group were practicing writing English letters in a handwriting book, so i helped some of them who found it tricky, I also said the letters out loud to them, because although the Thai teachers can write the letters, they cant pronounce them.
Then it was time for lunch, nobody is allowed to wear shoes indoors, so the first thing was to put thier trainers on at the door, then they went to wash their hands ready to sit at the table. The orange group have their luch first as they are slightly longer, Amie and I both helped give the children their plates and cups and were then allowed to eat ours at another table.
Straight from lunch the childern are free to play in the field for about 20mins and then they have to come inside for an afternoon nap! it was soo cute, the each had thier own little blanket and billow and led on the floor. The teacher played some music for them to listen to, to calm them down. Whilst the children are sleeping, we were told to use the time to plan and prepare lessons.

We absolutly loved it at the school and cant wait to go back, we were just a little bit suprised at how much the teachers exept of us..we get the impression that we will be teaching for the whole time and they will be watching! We will get used to it and i really can't wait to go back tomorrow :D
Anyway.... sorry for the essay! This has been the first opportunity for us to use the internet so we thought we would let you know what we've been up to since we got here!
Love Charlotte and Amie :) xxxxxxxx