Volunteer Stories  |  Jeroen

Finally I finished my highschool. But there was the next big question. What to do now? I definitely didn’t want to go to university immediately. So I started working, and looking around for some place nice to go. From the start I knew I wanted to be a volunteer somewhere. But what, and where. After a while I knew it had to be something in Asia. And then I came to the site of Activity International. Who have contacts with Travel to Teach. They gave me very good information and advice, so I decided to sign up for at least two months.

There I was, finally and alone on the Udon Thani airport in Thailand. Only a Thai guy, waving with a Travel to Teach sign. Here we go!

Now, I’m here for a month and I never thought I would enjoy this so much. I’m teaching 6 hours a week on the Monk University (Wat Srisaket) and the rest of the week I am a teacher assistant on the Tourism College. And I love it. Two very different sorts of environments. The students who’ll jump aside when you’re passing, bow when they pass and jump up again when you’re entering the classroom to scream ‘Good morning teacher! How are you?’ but have a lot of problems with speaking English. And on the other side the monks, you could easily have a good chat with, help them with writing a short story, and almost become friends with.

I was planning to stay for two months, but now I know, after a bit of traveling I’m definitely coming back to live here again, to teach again. Just because you’re really a part of the Thailand you don’t see with just travelling.

When you’re deciding if you want to come here, you have to keep in mind that everything here is planned with the Thai mentality. I really had to learn not to get angry when an appointment didn’t work out. It was cancelled without telling me, postponed or made in ThaiTime (twelve o’clock is at least 12:30). But when you look through these en other things like the cold showers, Thai toilets, rice at every time of the day, and mosquito’s, you get a lot of great things. The best food for 50 cent, the Thai smiles, de faces from students when they’re winning hangman, the massage in the bathroom of a local discotheque, all the people waving at you when you’re biking, the other volunteers, the karaoke in the dorm (I’m very ashamed, but I like it), hanging from a tuktuk because there is not enough space, teaching at a local temple in the evening, the staff members, the waffle lady, the weekend trips to national parks, and lots, really lots more. Above all, a perfect experience.