The People

One of the layers that became visible after the first few days in Ban Natoe were the relationships that were being formed between our students and the Thai students, despite the language barrier. It was clear after the first two days on the project that our students did not bring the necessary and basic skills to complete a safe standing structure from start to finish; I had to teach two of our boys how to hold a hammer. The Thai students however were quite skilled when it came to making everything out of only organic materials found nearby. Did you know that Bamboo can be used for EVERYTHING? The pairing of a Thai student and one of our students proved to be efficient on both ends. As friendly as the Thai people are, they are quite shy. It took several attempts at communication from our end to make the Thai students comfortable in making the effort to communicate, whether it was through body language, tone, or just trying to say things slowly (in Thai and English). Eventually it happened. All became extremely tight even though it was clear that there were only a few words that both sides understood; gang ma = good. As in the end I felt that it was the relationships that this experience was most fulfilling and worthwhile, I feel it necessary to post the "interviews" that our students had with the Thai students and teachers. We had one woman who could speak fluent english who was able to translate for us over the week. She took the time to sit and translate the questions our students created. The following are posts of our entire team's interviews.