Our orientation essentially began at a dimly lit, noodle street food stall on a random road in bustling Bangkok. Kendall, the executive director and former Global Fellow for Global Playground, and Hannah, the new Teaching Fellow for the Philippines, were likely badly jetlagged, but trying their best to make good first impressions. I, on the other hand, was fully awake, but letting nerves get the best of me as what always seemed like a distant dream became a present reality. Training was officially underway, meaning teaching was around the corner.
Over the next 12 days, we sampled three countries together. Our conversations were sometimes confessions of fear and sometimes sessions of overly ambitious brainstorming. Each question I asked Kendall about my host site begged for more clarity, but every answer made the picture in my mind more muddled. There were a lot of things only time at my new schools would tell, which both intimidated and excited me.
Training truly started at Lake View Hotel – though a more accurate name would be “Dried-Up Pond Hotel” – in Pak Chong, Thailand. This gave us the chance to learn teaching methodology and health and safety procedures while sipping on coconuts, as well as explore nearby Khao Yai National Park and Ayutthaya. (There’s definitely no faster way to bond than to pick leeches off each other and cringe at backpackers’ temple etiquette together!)
After a few days in the Land of Smiles, we traveled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which is where I will spend the majority of my year as a fellow. Driving roughly an hour outside of the city, we all got to visit the small town I will soon live in and the middle school I will soon teach in. I must admit, the experience was incredibly overwhelming, with so many new things to digest at once, but in the end, the visit left me even more energized and motivated to begin this next year of personal and professional growth.
Uprooting once more, we headed to central Vietnam, our last stop of orientation. We wrapped up our fellowship preparation in the mountainous town of Khe Sanh, starting each day with pho and ending each night with last-minute queries about what our new lives would be like. Only a few days ago, our training wheels were taken off, and Kendall headed home to the States. Here in Khe Sanh, Hannah and I will teach for one month as we wait for our long-term school placements to start, get a feel for our new roles, and of course get to know some of the Vietnamese students we will be connecting to other students later on.
While we cannot say we are completely worry-free about the next 12 or so months, we are as ready as we can be – which in essence means we’re simply ready to roll with the punches.
Special thanks to Kendall Lorenzen, Diann Gully, and Jenn Drummond for coming all the way out to Asia for us and passing on as much knowledge as they possibly could in the short time we were together. We hope we’ll make you proud!