Yoga Training Day 12

The highlight of my trip so far

I am a tad bit behind on my blog writing, I hope I can remember everything. It has been a long few days and we have some very long days ahead, the only reason I can actually write this is because I went to study and realised I had left all my books at Tavoos (well I hope they are there anyway haha) It is a bit of a long one :O I wanted to keep it short and snappy but it didn’t happen, not much Yoga talk today.

Day 12 saw us have a bit of a different day, to cut a long story short one of the reasons I chose this specific course is because they are a non profit organisation, they pay for wells to be built with some of our money we pay, and they offer free Yoga classes to the locals, and tourists. They picked two wells to be built from our course as there are so many of us. One is at a Monastery far away from the city and the other in a primary school that is in the sticks. We do our 6.30am daily session, grab some brekkie and then head off as today we get to go to the primary school. I am like a big kid and got so excited seeing all of our Tuk Tuks lined up waiting for us and for so many of us to heading off out on an exciting trip. (It’s the little things that please me lol) We start to head out of the city, we haven’t had much time to explore as our days are jam packed with practicing, studying and eating so it was nice to see different areas. This place fascinates me so much and I never get bored. Along the way we see 8 kids in the back of a pick up, a cat sleeping on a table with two old men outside a coffee shop, children riding mopeds with working materials on, local style markets, locals eating at little tables and chairs; eating food served from a little cart, then we start to head off into the country and it starts to change. I love going out of tourist areas as this is when you really get to see how the people live in the country. Along the way we see houses made of wood, with big tree trunk style legs, children and families just chilling under their houses, sitting in hammocks, we see chickens running around everywhere, children working helping their families, the slimmest cows I have ever seen, so may little children on the way waved to us 🙂 . We then as we get closer to the schools, we see so many children all cycling on the dirt roads in their school uniform, our Tuk Tuks literally weaving around them and so close to them to avoid the big holes and uneven surface, I guess they are used to it, they were all so friendly waving and saying hello. We arrive at the school, now bearing in mind there was about 23 – 25 of us, we see there are two guys already working on the well, what is super awesome is that they pay all the local workers to help build the well and feed them so it really helps contribute to people’s lives. We get off our Tuk Tuks and the children start to peep out of their classrooms. The school was not big at all, it was a long building made up of about 4 classrooms, just walls, no windows, some of the children were cleaning the wooden shutters as we were arriving, then the little ones starting to appear, I think they were about 3-5 years old. They come out to look at us with big smiles and then as we smile back they all run back into their classroom giggling, and they kept doing it, it was the sweetest and funniest thing. We helped out with the well and Mr Lin explained to us how it works, we then head over towards the children, some of our group were very keen to talk to the children but we were unsure if we can just go over so we waited for the go ahead. It was a bit of a weird situation if I am honest, obviously there is a language barrier so that makes it quite difficult. Some go over and talk, some look into the classrooms, there was a little boy on his own so I went to sit with him and tried to teach him a little English, he was super cute and only 3 years old, wearing his big backpack. I then headed back towards the others, now even me myself didn’t know how to approach the children, there are so many of them and how much of what I am saying would they understand, so I thought lets see if we can play a game. I normally love playing and joking around with children and to play games you don’t have to worry too much about the language barrier, so I ask the helper if it is ok and then we set up a game of tag, a few were unsure at first but they soon joined in to the game quick, it was so much fun it is unreal, we managed to get a few more of the team in and all you could hear was giggles and screams of happiness and excitements. I myself could not stop laughing and it made me sooo happy to see them all enjoying themselves. We then mix it up as Ixchen suggested I do some fitness activities, so I set up some little relay races for us all to do, all the kids lined up so well, some were a bit shy bless them, we had 4 teams one was Sam’s,one Lea’s, one Ixchen’s and mine. I just love how these girls got involved they really are such beautiful, funny and lovely girls and I feel blessed to have met them, the rest of the team were enjoying watching. We finished with getting in a big circle and doing some hoki poki run ins which they absolutely loved, at this point I was so tired and sweating had been running around like crazy and it was over 30 degrees. I cannot explain how much fun we had and how warming it was to see children who actually don’t have much at all have so much fun and be so happy and content with their life. I honestly didn’t want to leave and it made me question how I would love to use my Tefl and volunteer in a place like this, it would be extremely rewarding and so much fun. We wrap it up, have some group photos and then all of the children headed off on their bikes. It truly was an amazing experience and it has opened my eyes so much. I really feel that it is so important to travel and get a wider look on how life really is around the world, instead of living in our own little bubble (there is a whole blog there but now is not the time) I had the best day and I am so glad that I made the decision to do this training here. On the Yoga side we had to come back and do our normal afternoon philosophy, our 4pm intense Hatha session and our evening class, as you can imagine I was shattered and so were the others.