Goodbye Muangkhong

Well Muangkhong, it’s been real.  Sometimes fun, sometimes difficult, always interesting.  I said goodbye to my students this week—all 1200 of them.  The other farang teacher and I each gave a speech at morning assembly, saying thank you for the school and the students’ hospitality, and the students seemed genuinely touched—though as usual I’m pretty sure they didn’t understand a lot of what we said.  Despite that, I was surprised at the outpouring of emotion from my students all week.  There were lots of well wishes and gifts, and even some tears.  There was lots of hugging, which seemed strange compared to the usual Thai reserve.  And despite my frequent discomfort with this tiny town and with Thai culture in general, it was difficult to say goodbye to the school and many of my students. 

I tried to ease the parting by playing fun, energetic games in class, and taking class pictures.  I was hoping to keep the students too distracted to notice that it was the last day.  Of course, the pictures backfired a bit, because the students all realized it was their last opportunity to get a picture with me, but I think giving them the chance to get a photo was the right choice.  Each photo was like a goodbye message to someone.  Some students were serious, others silly, all eager to make the memory of my time here more permanent.  For my part, I’m glad to have captured their faces happy and smiling in the wake of games and fun memories.  I promise I will upload many of those photos as soon as I have an internet connection.

It’s now time to say goodbye to Muangkhong completely.  This tiny town has been both a challenge and an unexpected pleasure for me.  I’ll miss the Saturday market with its surprise elephants, and all the kids that wave and say “Hello, Teacher!” everywhere I go.  I will miss going to the produce market in the evenings where the old women laugh as I poke, prod, thump and generally examine their produce.  I will miss seeing the children run barefoot down the street and the cats curled in the shade in the heat of the afternoon, and the frog that lives in my bathroom.  I will NOT miss the rooster that starts crowing at 3 in the morning.  But I am a bit sad that I’ll never hear that rooster again, as I board a train to Bangkok at 10 o’clock tonight.  Then just a few days in Bangkok before I leave Thailand for good. 

So goodbye Muangkhong, I will miss you, and I will miss the pieces of me that were lost or changed here.  This is the real Thailand, the real Isan, and I am privileged to have seen you without the make-up and costumes you don for tourists.