It is coming up tulips

I moved out of the Travel to Teach volunteer house and into a nearby guesthouse today....Hallelujah! It was like living in a teak tree house masquerading as a frat house in the middle of a hot, busy city that hardly slept. My top bunk bed on the top floor was a sweaty, sunny, noisy mess. I could hear everything said or done in the house or in the surrounding neighborhood. And it seemed, once it finally got quiet, our gecko roommate would start in with his loud chirping just to remind us that we had no control over what came in and out of our room in the way of multi-leg creatures. My housemates, ranging from 19-23 coped in the same way I would have at that age, by being as nocturnal as possible. But, at 30 years old (or just 'old' as I overhead one German girl refer to me), I have just enough experience and, thankfully, money to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. Don't get me wrong, my housemates were great and were the reason I stuck it out for one week, but I was out of that house and checked into my guesthouse as early as possible.

What frustrated and disappointed me the most was how Travel to Teach handled my complaint. Several volunteers had actually, the week prior, moved to another location to volunteer because of the living conditions in the Chiang Mai volunteer house. Instead of being forthcoming and admitting that they recognized a problem, they blamed the issue on me and my having too high of expectations. I just happened to talk to one of the volunteers that moved out of the house when she was in-town today. Sandwiched between my two backpacks, I was walking to the guesthouse and she was walking back from the corner store with breakfast. She and at least two others had raised very similar complaints and are so frustrated they have decided to seek volunteering opportunities independent from Travel to Teach.

There were cobwebs everywhere, holes in the walls and floors, an open wire inside of the fridge that shocked a fellow housemate, and ridiculously dirty common spaces like the shower, kitchen, and living room. Not to mention it was too warm at night in the upstairs rooms to sleep and several guests complained of numerous mosquito bites even though they'd continually sprayed themselves with bug repellent and bug eating geckos shared every room.

The volunteering placement itself is incredibly disorganized too. The first week of the English summer camp did not end up happening. I was told by the local coordinator it was because it was exam week at the local schools and we were not allowed to disrupt their schedule. I was then subsequently told by the area coordinator the real reason was that there were too few students enrolled to go ahead with the camp. So, instead, we waited around all day to teach English to novice monks at nearby Wat Pa Pao (pictured) from 6-8 pm. That would have been fine except that there were more volunteers than monks so I spent most of the time sitting in the back of the class scratching the prior nights' mosquito bites. Next week, we teach from 9-noon at an English summer camp that, now that we have been given more details, is not a camp at all. In pairs, volunteers will take turns teaching fifty minute segments to twenty-five students in a school's lunchroom. I was told we'd be teaching them sports and interacting with the children through interactive activities. When I asked why, the coordinator told me it was too hard to keep track of the kids if we let them go outside so, instead, we are quartering them in their lunchroom. It sounds more like summer school detention to me.

I can't get over this resentment I have that we, as volunteers, have not only paid this company to coordinate a placement for us, but we have also taken time out of our lives and paid fairly expensive plane fares to fly half way around the globe to be told that the children (or their parents and schools) are not interested in learning English enough to show up to free lessons in their own neighborhood. I also feel like the company and school hasn't really taken the time to maximize the opportunity for both the volunteers and the children. Needless to say, I have asked for a partial reimbursement.

Today I checked in to the Green Tulip House just around the corner from the volunteer housing. At a price of about $10 per day (including a single room with a/c, wifi access, and breakfast), it is by far the cheapest accommodations I have stayed in thus far, but also pretty much exactly what I needed. It is simple, but immaculately clean. I checked in a little after noon and fell asleep atop the covers on my double bed and woke two hours later to the sound of a neighboring room's door being slammed shut. I look forward to catching up on all of the restful sleep I've missed this past week.