Just over a month at Northern School for the Blind, and I’m [not] ready to leave. A K-12 school of 210, all but 10 students board here.
Below are not necessarily highlights, because there are too many, but some idea of life at NSBCM, as I’ve known it.
Week 1: Teaching NOUNS to Class 1 Wouldn’t I love to say I’ve gained control over the ensuing days; see Week 4, for the video-truth
Week 4: Thorough review of new nouns – body parts, this time – again, videos don’t lie. “Head and Shoulders” and etc.
Yes, the students with whom I’ve worked, especially the littles, are an ABSOLUTE HOOT.
In between, there were field trips, the most notable being the one to what I thought was an enourmous rice field (photos, Facebook). We spent a long morning and part of an afternoon there, working on that rice. The following week I learned it was not RICE, but MUSHROOMS that had been packed in the straw we heaved into the long, rectangular mold and carefully pushed and pummeled until we could then lift out thebundles and set them in neat stacks. BTW, that experience was so typical of my weeks here, I can’t begin to tell you.
Still, I’ve learned a lot.
The first week I watched lessons about coconuts: how they are opened, where that incredible liquid actually spurts from, and where the meat is, in relation to the skin. Last week, one lesson I took part in was Sticky Rice on a Stick, which some inventive MN Thai has probably already introduced to the MN State Fair, but until this visit, I hadn’t seen.
-
- …first, mixed with egg white, then squished onto a stick and dipped in a sweet sauce
-
- …then grilled.
This past weekend, I went deeper into the Old City – near where Elizabeth and I stayed for awhile – for a haircut. This is the mother of the woman who cut my hair. And the haircut set me back… you don’t want to know, not if you’ve recently had a haircut in the U.S.
She watches over her daughter’s work. Her daughter is perhaps 2 years my junior.
MUCH, MUCH MORE TO SAY, as they say, but I’m headed out to dinner with the person who has overseen me/answered every question I had and several I didn’t, given me driving tours of the area — and last week was in Bangkok receiving an award from the government. In Thailand, that means, of course, from royalty.
The weather forecast for the eastern U.S. at this moment – see it in top right of this weather forecast screenshot – has been mentioned here with what I can only call disbelief!
mebtravelling 