Sports Day!

The foreign teachers with the department head and our school director (principal).

 Every school in Thailand has a sports day. We're not entirely sure of the exact meaning or purpose but this is what we think it is: A day to celebrate culture, to compete in final rounds of sporting events, and hold awards for events. Sadly our sports day could not be held at our school because of the construction, so all 3600 students and 100+ teachers (even some of cleaning and kitchen staff!) road in vans, songthaews and buses to a stadium the school used for the day. Again, sadly it had rained quite a bit the past few days and the track and field were wet and muddy - but the show must go on!

Students are all assigned a color group. Within that color group they all are assigned jobs - cheer team, cheer dance team, parade and others. Students are either dressed up in their color shirts or decked out with makeup, hairpieces and super costumes either cultural or for the cheer dance competition. It was so surprising to see students like this! It was difficult to recognize some of our students. Many of the lady-boys went all out on this day also! You can image my surprise to see them in the women's bathroom.

Preparing for the Parade

The event started with lots of speeches, none of which we understood. Then it was parade time! Students walked with their color teams celebrating some theme. Most were ASEAN themed, but we also saw hippies, indians, army, no to drugs, and jungle just to name a few.

The Parade

 After the parade all the M2s along with the respective cheer dance team danced to Gangnam Style - haha!

All the M2s and Cheer Teams danced to Gangnam Style!

Then the award winning Wat Khema band had a little show of their own.

To signal it was time for the games begin a torch was ran around the track and then lite as flags raised - reminded me a lot of the Olympics! Many track events took place, some other silly team games. The cheer dance competition was next, this was quite the sight! The team colored younger students did clap cheers while the older students in little outfits, tons of makeup and hair danced quite provocatively to the cheer and music. We left before the end but as we did they were setting up for tug-of-war then a game of football (soccer).

Crazy Game

After spending all day outside in the sun on the hard bleachers, it was time to go home. We first got on a songthaew, then a ferry boat, then a bus  - all for under $1 USD!

Riding home hanging off the back of a songthaew