The strangest day....I think ever!!

Friday was a seriously weird day! The weirdest experience I think I have ever been in. We went to a volunteer meeting/conference in a hotel in Bangkok. Before going, I wasn’t particularly excited because I was missing cleaning day at work, which, although might not sound like much fun, is actually great fun, hanging out with the staff. But I was looking forward to a day of air con and free lunch.

So we had to get the bus at 7.20, so we were all up early. As soon as we arrived at the hotel and signed it at the registry bit for the conference, we realised it was not going to be in English as we had hoped. We were pretty much the only foreigners there. So that wasn’t a good start to realise it was all in Thai. But we had headsets, for translation, but of course mine didn’t work for the first talk. It was awful! Our whole row got the hysterics. Me because I was pretending I understood the Thai (because my headphones were broken) and the others because the Thai translator was so awful it wasn’t making sense.

After a break, an American guy took over most of the translating. But we weren’t the least bit interested in what was being said. It was all about immigration, money and all that. And we were only getting about 40% of what was actually being said anyway. The American translator did make it a bit entertaining at times by saying things like ...’I have no idea what he just said’  ‘....now we’re clapping our hands again’ and ‘....silence is easy enough to translate’. There was obviously a mistranslation at one point too from the Thai translator who said ‘assassinations’ which was certainly wrong! Especially here where the King is so revered!! So I spent a good hour and a half of the morning session writing a letter to Sazza, so that kept me well entertained.

Alex, Kara and I with our headphones!

Our phenomenal poster!

Lunch was pretty good though, very spicy green curry and some other pretty good food.

But the afternoon was even odder! (If that was possible!) We all had to split into groups and make a list of problems we have as volunteers and then make a poster to explain it and say what we would do about these problems. So we did that, with one guy in our group just telling us the weird stuff we had to do, without him actually helping us at all! He kept telling us to stick on random pictures of paddy fields on and explain how that was going to help our problem, which ironically was misunderstanding. We were all very definately misunderstanding everything! So we thought that was it finished after the poster.

Most of our group...Philipeno man, Alex and me! Clearly loving life!

But NO!!

We had to present them to the rest of the room. It was a massive room with over 100 Thais. I was so not up for it. We had the smallest group (5people). Everyone else seemed to have loads. So I was made to do the presentation. So off we went up to the front and I was handed the microphone. I was laughing at first because it was such a surreal situation to be in. So I presented our poster and the woman in charge translated it all. Then in classic Thai culture we had loads of photos taken of our group and the poster. At least there were 2 others from CCD in my group. We then listened to all the other groups present. Though I actually wrote my journal. And finally we were allowed to leave just before 5! So it was a very long and very weird day! It was certainly an experience.

Another group doing their presentation. The philipeno man has all the pictures of our presentations but he hasn't yet been able to find me on fb. He's found Kara and Alex (who haven't accepted) and has some pretty hilarious photos of our presentation and poster making!

So I think this gives you an idea of the size of the room and maybe gives you a bit of an idea of how strange Friday was for us! In these situations you just have to make the most of having friends around to laugh about it with and just get on with whatever strange task you are asked to do, even if it is presenting something you don't understand to 100 Thais!