Welcome to my new classroom. This is a part of Bangkok called Yommarat. The community stretches along the railroad tracks for 3km or more. Like most of the slums and poor communities in this sprawling city, it’s only minutes from major shopping districts and tourist attractions. Occasionally, you do see a drifting foreigner stand at the street and peer curiously into this community. But there’s no welcome sign here. No access by car. And an attentive group of residents I like to refer to as the Neighborhood Watch.

Unlike the first location, here we don’t have the privilege of a neutral location to meet and teach. A quick glance across the tracks from where we’re teaching reminds you of the proximity of people, as you realize you’re looking into someone’s home. I don’t mean to paint a scary picture. If you make it past the Neighborhood Watch, you quickly realize most of the residents are poor, but very hard working. They rise early and return late from the streets and local markets where many sale something. You also notice the neighborhood is full of children. The two biggest groups seem to be the tiny kids wandering about and a loud pack of scrappy, mischievous boys. As in the other community, the kids all attend school, but may not have a chance to study English until they begin secondary school.

We begin our Sanuk My Saturday program teaching here at the end of February. Don’t forget you can donate to this project this month and receive a Big Fish book. I’m already sending books to California and Western Australia, so I’ll be glad to send a copy to anyone else donating $10 or more. Finally, to give you a real sense of the sound and fury of this new community, I have uploaded a rough–mostly unedited clip of me walking around. If you watch you will hear me asking questions about where the kids can play. That gets interrupted (wait until you see why). Next, they take me to see a pretty pitiful play area that the kids can use. The most interesting part, however, is all the people I pass on the way. Take a look below (or go to the video by clicking here):

“Dream Big. Work smart. Start Local.”

-Dwight

[In General] There are a few large slums in Bangkok, but what is more common in this big city is a very mixed housing structure with smaller patches of unconnected slums all over the city. This describes the community we teach in. It’s on the way to plush Bangkok suburbs and hidden behind a large temple, less than a kilometer from the area’s largest shopping mall. Almost every Saturday we meet a group of 25-40 kids. Their ages range, but the majority of them are 4-11 (but as you’ll spot in some of the photos, holding babies may also be on a volunteer’s to-do list).

My outlook on teaching is not too different from my outlook on life. If I was honest we should probably call this time “fun with foreigners” instead of English class. The biggest goal is not English fluency, but building relationships with the kids and having them associate fun with learning. For an hour class, I typically plan to teach about fifteen minutes. The rest of the time? Well, I will let you either come volunteer with us, or examine the incriminating video below. Teaching also varies because Sanuk My Saturday has a unique problem. Quite often, we have too many volunteers! If you can imagine, one Saturday we had 25 kids and TEN teachers. That’ll change your lesson plan a little, right? I want to make sure that volunteers who come get connected and feel that they have a role, so now we’re looking at a few other small slums or homeless communities around Bangkok where we can spread Sanuk My Saturday.

Can you save the world teaching English? I have an answer, but I won’t debate with you. Just know that the plan is to use this program to build bonds in these communities. That access is invaluable because in the future when we have more funding we can expand programming, using Sanuk My Saturday as the launch pad for micro-loans, urban gardens, or whatever we plan to implement.

[Lessons Learned] This program would be impossible without partnership with Thai friends who wanted to do something special in this community. You can’t just show up anywhere and plan to teach English and help people. Now that I want to expand the program, I’m going to have to be careful to make sure I spend a lot of time building the same connections with the community. I have to also tell you about new team member Chris, who joined the program a few months ago by telling me I didn’t have enough help and taking the reigns. Because of her initiative and dedication, she’s now the go to gal for spending your Saturday in Bangkok doing something worthwhile.

[A Special Treat] We have a jambalaya-like mix of good for you here from the last few months. This was put together by another In Search of Sanuk team member, Cody Mckibben. More than being the guy who designed this great looking site, Cody’s also one of those people who will jump up and booty shake or do whatever it takes to put smiles on kid’s faces. You’ll see a little bit of that in this video of our campaign in search of sanuk from Cody’s recent blog, My Secret Recipe for 100% Guaranteed Happiness. Enjoy.

“Dream Big. Work Smart. Start Local.”

-Dwight