Wai Kru...

Today was Wai Kru. Its the day that students pay respect to teachers. Wai is the Thai hands in front of your face bow thing and Kru means teacher. So in the afternoon all of grades 1 to 9 gathered in the church. The event started with the King's anthem followed by some kinda loud chant that the kids said and then they sang some sort of song by repeating what one of the grade seven students sang into a microphone. Of course everything was in Thai so I didn't really know what was going on. The teachers would go up according to their grade level and a couple representatives from each class would wai (there are different levels of waiing, in this situation they sat on their knees, placed their hands palm to palm in frong of their face and bowed their heads so that they were half way to the floor. Kinda weird. It doesn't mean a whole lot to the older grades, and the 2 students who waied me were laughing the whole time. But it was still an interesting ceremony to be part of. We didn't get to keep the flowers we got, but 3 students gave me flower wreaths once I was back in my classroom. So now the rotten smell in my classroom is temporarily replaced by the fragrance of flowers. After school we had to be in our classroom from 4-7 for open house. I had 5 students come with a parent. Spent rest of night working. Please pray that my sore throat gets better soon as its hard to teach with a sore throat.