Sarasas Witaed Saimai School

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and monks of all ages (hey, we are in Thailand!), I am proud to present to you my workplace: Sarasas Witaed Saimai Bilingual School. Located in Saimai - one of Bangkok's 50 districts - the school teaches over 1,000 students from kindergarten to grade 7, focusing their curriculum primarily in Thai and English. It is one of over 15 Sarasas schools in the Bangkok area and opened it's scholastic doors almost 2 years ago.


Sarasas Witaed Saimai School has over 40 foreign teachers on staff from all around the world - Phillippines, U.S.A., Canada, Belarus, Algiers, Belgium, England, Australia and China, just to name a few. However, I have to think the most interesting teacher I have met so far (no offense to the rest of you) is definitely Brian. Born and raised in Boston, Mass., Brian has worked as a professional astrologer, past life regression therapist (yes, he helped people discover what their past lives were) and practices the East African religion Osha. The man has got stories, needless to say.

However, what makes working here all worth it - as corny as it sounds - are the kiddies! My 1st grade class may be the most rambunctious, most chatty, pretty much most everything, but they are absolutely adorable. Two days ago, we were playing a game where we were moving around the classroom, and Thannawat turned around, stuck his butt out, slapped his butt right in my face, and I could do nothing but laugh out loud. Really hard. Here is Pathorn, Aan, Chotiros and Mr. Thannawat himself (my fave!) being themselves and goofing off.


One of my favorite parts of the school is definitely the fruit stand lady! Her name is Nene (I think that's what I understood it as), and I love her! Without her, I would without a doubt miss my 5-10 recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables! They have a variety of little food stands in the canteen (also known as the cafeteria), but the rest of the stands sell junk food - which is an everyday struggle to refuse. One stand sells these amazing pancakes with chocolate all brushed with butter - yummy delicious but not an everyday treat!

Also, I still can't quite get over the portion sizes of the food they give the students! They give them the teensiest bit of rice with a few pieces of meat and some vegetables - and they call that a meal! No wonder everybody is so skinny here! Maybe the American's can pick up a tip or two about portion control from these people. However, once I saw the amount of junk the kids eat from the food stands, I understood why they give them so little food at lunch!

I think that's it for now (my stomach is calling the fruit stand lady for a snack!), but I have so much more to say about the school, watch for Sarasas Witaed Saimai School, Part 2!