Radio Days

When opportunity knocks, you have to open the door and let him in. One of the first conversations you have here at GVI Thailand is if you get asked to do something by a student or staff member you should generally say ‘Yes!’. Last week I was asked if I could go and help teach some tour guides with TEFL Trainer Rachael, so I said ‘yes’ and we were picked up at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday 1^st December by Pierin, and taken to Khao Phanom.

Khao Phanom suffered a terrible mud slide in March this year which effected many businesses and families in the area. GVI helped digging out some of the buildings, among other things.

On arrival we were met by some of Pierin’s colleagues who initially gave us barbequed sticky rice with coconut, but once they discovered pom chob pet (I like spice), we were given noodles with curry sauce and a boiled egg.

Jon & Rachael with the hospitality students

Teaching the hospitality students was great fun; they were all really keen to learn about the common mistakes Thai people make when taking to farang (foreigners). After the lesson we were treated like rock stars, we must have had our photo taken at least 100 times - little did we know we were about to become stars of a radio show!!!!

Pierin, Rachael and Jon

We said our goodbyes and it was onto Pierin’s office to script our radio appearance. The normal questions to start the show: name, nationality and where we lived. A quick search of google gave me some interesting facts about Halesowen where I lived in the UK, the most important one being that Robert Plant went to my school.

Happy to be at Happy Radio!

Rachael gave a brief explanation about what GVI does in the community in Thailand and I got to field the questions on football. The main piece of the interview centered around our combined love of Thai food.

Radio stars!

Finally, in our 45 minute claim to fame we had to tell them our favourite Thai song. A big thumbs up from the DJ, Chai, when I responded with Job2Do and proceeded to sing the first line of the song – ‘Do do do do ter tam…’ It’s a huge hit here in Southern Thailand and with the GVI team at the moment.

Fame at last! Just waiting for my MTV awards invite for next year!

Jon Majumder

Radio Days