The Students at Nang Rong, Thailand…An amazing story, by Skip Dufour.

 November-December  2009

(Editors note: Skip received his TEFL Certificate in Oct, 2009 from Text and Talk Academy in Khon Kaen, Thailand. We, at Text and Talk, are very proud of his hard work and dedication.)

In early November, My Thai wife, Sue told me that there was a school competition coming up and the principal asked her to enter the students in the drama contest.  The kids will need to perform a 10 minute skit in English, even though they speak almost no English.  Sue was panicked because they had never performed a play in competition.  Her school did not have a drama program, and in a period of 10 days, she would need to write a play, find the kids, and train them.  

Over the next few days, she asked her co-teachers to come up with some ideas for a play, but nothing materialized and time was running short.  She called me from school on a Monday morning and asked if I would write a story about “The lion and the mouse” from Aesop’s fables.  She had researched skits on the internet and had come up with this idea.  When she told me that she needed it quickly, I said that I would try my best.  

I gave the skit to Sue on Tuesday morning and she proceeded to try to find the kids.  She teaches 12th grade so did not know any kids in the 7th, 8th or 9th grade.   Through trial and error she selected 5 students and I visited the school on Friday to begin our first play practice.   

Six months ago, I was living in the U.S. working as a handyman doing plumbing and home repairs and now I am writing plays for children.  I could not have imagined how my life would change in this short time.  Now I am living in a small community called Nang Rong.  This town is located in the North East region of Thailand which is the poorest region of the country.  If a family has money, they try to send their kids to private schools, leaving the poorest kids behind.  The students at Sue’s school are the ones that have been left behind.  They come from small villages and their families are subsistence farmers.  Most of the kids have never had any real opportunities and have not traveled far from their small village.   

There are 5 actors in the play and they are all from broken families.  I don’t have all the details but some of the kids are living with their grandparents because their parents have gone to Bangkok to find work.  One student lives with his older sister because his father is a border police and cannot make it home often.  One actor lives with his younger brother and they work in a gift shop to make money to live.  I am not sure where the parents are.  They have come together though our play and have become like a little family.  They look to Sue as a mother figure and see me as the eccentric uncle.  

When I arrived at the school, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into.  I know almost no Thai and they know almost no English.  Since I wrote the story, I knew in my head how the play should look but how would I translate my vision to 5 Thai kids that I could not communicate with.  I used a lot of hand gestures and motion. The kids giggled a lot when I would try to express facial emotions or body movements.  Thai people are generally shy and reserved and are not overtly expressive of their emotions.  I even resorted to physically moving the kids like little puppets to get them to show the right movements.  It was humorous but took a lot of patience.

We only had four days to prepare the kids for the local contest.    After working with them in a class room for a few days we moved  down to the school stage which was located under an open air pavilion.  When I looked at the small stage I was concerned because there were a few boards missing where the kids could fall into and nails sticking up in other places.  They had 2 small rolls of indoor/outdoor carpeting that they rolled over the holes.  We practiced the play over and over.  Each time Sue and I would add more movements to make the play look believable.

On the day of the contest I was very excited.  When I saw the other teams, my excitement turned to concern.  It was obvious that the other schools had more money.  They had rented beautiful costumes and had elaborate scenery.  We had no costumes and our only prop was a plastic box that acted as the cage for the lion.  I saw the look in my student’s eyes.  They were demoralized. Just before we put on the play I had the students get in a circle to help them focus.  They spontaneously started to recite the play in the circle with each actor saying their part.  

It was now time for them to begin their play.  I was amazed when they performed it almost perfectly.  I was satisfied that they had done their best and now it was up to the judges.   

It wasn’t long till we got the results from the judges.  We came in first place.  I was overcome with joy and excited for the kids.  This was the first time that this school had entered this competition and we had come in first place.  It was unbelievable.  Sue was not able to be present at the competition because she was asked to be a judge at a different event.  I found her at lunch and excitedly told her the news.  Her response shocked me.  She said that she was happy that the kids won but really hoped that it would be over.  She expected that the kids would do their best but never expected them to win.  Sue has many responsibilities in the school and is always pressed to solve the next problem.  She was happy but felt the stress of having to prepare the 5 actors for the regional competition, which would happen in only 2 weeks.  She also knew that I started my new teaching job at a different school on December 1st so would not be available as much to help the kids.   

One of the judges advised us to add more dialogue for some of the actors to balance the play.  Hunter 1 and 2 had relatively few lines compared to the lion, mouse and narrator, so I rewrote parts of the story.  Unfortunately, Hunter 1 was not able to learn the new lines so we were forced to replace him at the last minute with a new actor.  I really regretted changing the actor but it was obvious that it needed to be done.  Fortunately the new actor was a quick study so we were back up to speed in no time.  Sue and I pushed the kids to add more and more action and emotion to their lines.  Sue would interpret my words into Thai and explain what each actor was thinking at the time.  She worked very hard as did the students.  I was able to help on a few days, but wish I could be there more.  I focused mostly on pronunciation of words in the dialogue.  We have some sounds in English that are not in the Thai language so I literally need to teach them how to move their tongue and mouth to make the sound.  It is a tedious process.  The kids really did their best.  

We decided that we needed costumes and a real cage for the lion and real scenery.  Fortunately the co-teacher stepped up and helped coordinate this part of the process, leaving Sue and I to focus on training the kids.  The school maintenance man welded together a full size metal cage that was designed to be dismantled for transportation.  Sue went to Korat, about one hour away, to find material for the costumes.  She then contacted a local tailor to make the costumes.  The school art department designed and painted the scenery.  It was quite a process but everything came together.

At 9:00 am on Wednesday morning, the group left in their school van, a very nice Toyota 12 passenger vehicle complete with a DVD player.  The students were very excited and spent the 3 hour trip singing Karaoke songs and chatting to each other.   

When they arrived in Ubon, it was a mad house. It took almost an hour to travel the last 2 miles to reach our destination.  The contest was held at Ubon High School and there were between 1,500 and 2,500 kids plus teachers and chaperones.  Schools had set up displays to exhibit different projects that they had worked on such as recycling, energy conservation, traditional crafts, and foods.  In addition, concession stands were selling everything from grilled chicken to lottery tickets.  It was a carnival atmosphere and very crowded with people.  We needed to go to the registration area and sign in.  We also wanted to see the stage and get an idea of how the logistics would work on the following day for their performance.  

To save money, the Nang Rong School slept at the local army barracks. After looking around the base for nearly an hour, they finally found someone that had coordinated the schools sleeping arrangements. He proceeded to tell them that they were not on the list, adding to the confusion.   The officer finally found a building that had space for our students.  The building had  2 large rooms, one for boys and one for girls.  There were rows of one inch mattresses on the floor with space for fifty kids in each room.  The teachers had their own room but it was not much more private.  The bathroom consisted of 10 open stalls and a central basin of water that was used to draw water from.   To take a shower, Sue had to fill a bucket with water and ladle it on herself to rinse off.  The water looked yellow and milky and smelled like sulfur.  The toilets did not have tanks in the back like the ones in the U.S.  To flush the toilet you took a bucket of water and poured it into the bowl.  When Sue was taking her shower, the water was low in the central basin so the soldiers walked in and pumped new water from a tanker truck outside the building.  Privacy was an issue.  The boys were expected to use the bathroom in a separate building across the road.  There was a problem with the lady boys because they feel and act like girls.  They would sneak in and use the girl’s bathroom but a soldier finally put a stop to it, announcing, “I don’t care what you think you are, today you are boys and will use the boy’s bathroom”.  This was very upsetting to the lady boys who are very uncomfortable being naked around boys.  Sleeping was a major problem with one cell phone going off 107 times throughout the night.   Finally a very cranky Sue answered the student’s phone and scolded the caller using some harsh Thai language.  The phone didn’t go off the rest of the night.  

The next morning a tired group wakes up and begins the day.  It is competition day and the group wants to be at the school by 7:00 am to prepare for the play.  There are 61 groups in their age bracket and our group will be 22nd in performing their skit.  The skits are about 10 minutes long so you can figure that there will be only about 5 skits per hour because of the time needed to set up scenery and music on the stage.  The event begins at 9:00 am so our skit should happen around 1:00 pm.   

To fill the time, we bring the kids upstairs to an empty classroom and I work on last minute pronunciation.  Most of the kids still need to work on some of their words.  When we go down stairs it is like a Rush hour on the free way.  There are groups of kids carrying props and scenery lined up at the door that snakes down the concrete sidewalk.  Most of the groups are dressed in beautiful costumes.  There are many plays with a prince a princess and a castle.  It is like they all had the same idea.  Our kids look out of place with their mouse and lion costumes that look like funny pajamas.  All the groups also look bigger than our kids.   

 The kids are very distracted so just before it is our turn to perform our play, I want to help them relax and focus.  I bring them to a quiet place, have them sit in a circle.  I asked them to close their eyes and begin saying the lines of the play while visualizing their actions and movements.  I told them it would be like they were watching a movie.  I could feel them calming down.   

We led them back down stairs and into the line of kids, scenery and props.  It isn’t long before it is our turn.  As the play begins I can tell that the narrator is nervous as she soon forgets a line.  The lion comes in and picks up the pace and the play flows smoothly.  In scene 2, the hunter stumbles on his opening line but recovers.  Their actions and acting are excellent with everyone hitting their marks. It feels like the play is over in seconds and the kids walk off the stage.  I felt a great relief that it was over and no one had made any major mistakes.  I think that we made a respectable showing and are probably in the top 30.  Not bad for our first play.  

Now we can relax.  We take the kids out for ice cream.  Some of these kids have never had an ice cream Sunday.  In my mind, it was important to give the kids a positive experience and have fun.  They don’t get this chance very often.  Sue had to spoil the fun by making the kids eat lunch before having ice cream.  I voiced my objection but the mother in her would prevail.  After lunch and ice cream, it was back to the school to walk around and see the sights.  Then it was back to the army barracks for another sleepless night, filled with talking kids and mosquitoes.   

On Friday, there is one student that is in the English story telling contest.  She will tell the story of little red riding hood.  While this is going on, a teacher takes the 5 actors to the theater to see a movie.  After the story telling and movie are over, we are back in the van, heading home.  We are all exhausted and ready to sleep in our own beds.  When reaching Nang Rong, we stop at a restaurant and treat the kids to a celebration dinner.  It may be our last time to be together as a group and we want to have some closure with the kids.  

The next morning, Sue is on the internet checking the results of the contest.  After a few tries she begins repeating the words “skip”,  ”skip”, “skip”, “skip” and begins to cry.  Then she keeps saying   ”I can’t believe”, ”I can’t believe”.  Now she was weeping uncontrollably and says that we won second place in the contest out of 61 schools and only one percentage point from winning first place.  Now we are both crying and checking the results to make sure it was real.  The first, second, and third place teams will compete in the finals in Bangkok this next April.  There are 4 regions in Thailand and each will send 3 teams to Bangkok for the finals.  So out of 2,300 schools, only 12 are selected and we are one of them.  Now she begins to call the kids and co-teacher to give them the news and begins to cry with each call.  

I am very proud of the kids who did something amazing.  Now they will get the chance continue their journey and have some new experiences.  For most of them, I believe that this is the best thing that has ever happened in their life.  I am also very happy for Sue who is a dedicated teacher and deserves the recognition.  

I hope that you will forward this story to anyone and everyone.  It is my dream that this story could become a movie some day. With 6 degrees of separation, I hope that this story could reach someone like Clint Eastwood or Adam Sandler or someone interested in telling the story of this amazing journey for 5 kids in Thailand. 

My email is:  dufourskip@yahoo.com