My New Job

The last 48 hours have been a nice preview into my job and what exactly it will all entail. My office is downstairs which I'm really enjoying so far, making me constantly in the loop and accessible to new friends and co-workers. I have my own desk I sit at, and the room is shared with 3 other desks: Tina, who has more jobs than possible making her superwoman, Arati who is our secondary superwoman dealing with all accounting, and Graham who deals with our sponsors and many other networking connections. There sits the fourth desk, mine, who is in charge of volunteer coordinating, coconut club and filling in for sick teachers. I hear I might be picking up a class or two but maybe my job in the office will be too much for having a permanent class (we will see).

I visited Kalama school where I met the children for the first time and sat in on my first coconut club. The children are the greatest it's instant love! The school is a Kings school which means it is funded by the King providing the children a free education, schoolbooks, classroom supplies, lunches etc. (There are approximately 45 schools within the Kings program in Thailand). Kalama teaches around 600 children. approximately 120 of those 600 are orphaned and live on the school grounds permanently, like a boarding school. These are the children that the Foundation focuses their energy on. The school has given our foundation 4 classrooms where we employ 4 English teachers through our foundation to teach these 120 resident children English. After school the resident children hang around the grounds bored before the school provides dinner, which was how Coconut Club was founded.

Coconut Club, is a newer development of the Phuket Has Been Good To Us Foundation, which is a program for the kids to help foster English Learning while also providing fun after school activities. Yesterday the activity was Skateboarding (which is very popular here) and the kids who stay in the classroom played twister, where we focused on learning colors and body parts. Many volunteers who help with the foundation participate in Coconut Club, either running an activity or helping assist an activity. The foundation sees volunteers for 3-6 months, 9 months, 3 weeks or sometimes even passing through for the day. One of my tasks as a coordinator for this fabulous bunch, is to ensure that their time spent with us is beneficial to the children and the foundation.

Oh by the way, Burmese food is incredible, I've never had the real deal until last night. I think it might be the best food ever!

Okay more later, I must go now to see the man who has everything.... (thats what they say)