Thursday, March 10, 2011

Painting a School on Koh Yao Noi

"Getting a group of 25 people operating on "Thai Time" to leave at 7:00 in the morning is not an easy feat, but somehow we achieved it and after a short market stop were off on our journey to the picturesque Koh Yao Noi. A longtail ride across flat water and past magnificent karsts certainly set us up for an amazing weekend, and the island is unbelievably stunning- all marshes and country roads. Relaxing start, huh?

We thought so too... until we saw the school that we had less than a day and a half to paint, inside and out. We set to work, albeit with initially more time spent painting each other than the walls and soon we were making cracking progress. By the end of the day we had entirely painted the school...many hand make light (well, hard) work!

The school treated us amazingly...unlimited supplies of incredible Thai food, a trip to the beach for a swim to cool off and a walk up to a viewpoint where the view can only be described as majestic. However, by bed time we were completely exhausted and anticipating a good night's sleep...until we discovered that we were sleeping in tents on the concrete floor! Easy to imagine how that went down; think its possibly the only night I've been desperate for it to be time to get up!

But the next morning we finished up our work with the typical GVI spirits, despite the fact that we had to clean off the windows we had accidentally painted over! By mid-morning the school was painted, complete with a mural to leave our GVI stamp. Incessant hard work, fabulous food, tons of fun and our work at Koh Yao Noi was done."


Blog written by TEFL volunteer Charlie

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