After learning more about Thailand’s rich history in Sukhothai, we traveled further south to Suphanburi, a city in central Thailand where our students had the unique opportunity to take part in an English Exchange with a local school, Sa Nguan Ying. We are fortunate enough to have a contact at the school, P’Gai, who helped us arrange a day and a half full of interactive activities between our students and the local Thai high-schoolers who are studying English. 

To begin, we visited Buffalo Village, a local park where our students and the Thai students got to know each other through pairing up to do traditional Thai farming activities. We planted rice, plowed fields with buffalo, and all in all got very dirty! Nonetheless, there was endless laughter as we began to connect with our new Thai friends. All of our students were amazed with how much in common they had with the Thai students, despite the fact that our lives are actually very different.

The following day, the Thai students welcomed us into their school, where we first introduced our group at the morning assembly. We were greeted by the cheers and smiles of over 2,000 students and teachers — what a welcome!

 

Throughout the day, all the students — both Thai and American — played games, sang songs, and shared their cultures. Our students had also prepared games to play with the Thai students to help them practice their English.

Then, later in the day, the Thai students took their turn teaching us some Thai and teaching us how to make traditional “krathongs,” Thai lanterns.

By the end of the full day, we had shared so many laughs, pictures, and memories with our new friends! It was hard to believe we had only met a day and a half earlier!