Hello lovely people :) Thanks again for all your lovely comments and nice messages about my last blog. Some of you even said it was quite a funny read which I was very chuffed with :) just feel under pressure now to be funny in this so apologies if its a big old cringe :s

Sooo anyway... I am once again sitting in a sticky hot internet cafe in Laos and by the time I send this it will probably be about the 60th time I've written it because of the rubbish internet but never mind :) the pic on this blog is my teaching uniform (not just an outfit I've chosen to put on and walk round in!) its very smart and studious and isn't the coolest outfit for a boiling hot country!

Since writing the last blog, I have been here almost a week now and settling in nicely :). Although I am enjoying myself, what I'm doing is most definitely not what I signed up to do. I thought I would be volunteering in a school with little cute Laos children (maybe helping them read, playing games and doing sport with them) but I was very wrong! Instead, I have classes that range from around 6 all the way up to 18 years old and I am teaching them English. I got the hint that it wasn't going to be what I expected when we had 2 days training that covered grammar and vocabulary and stuff I haven't even looked at for years!!! We got TEFL training (Teach English as a Foreign Language) which is quite a good thing to have! And we got terrified being told about all the rules you have to follow when teaching the novice Buddhist monks (as there's a lot of them that go to the schools here)! They have really strict rules about being around women, so you aren't allowed to touch them or directly hand them stuff, or sit on the same bench as them or even have your feet pointing towards them! All the training and rules made me and these 2 German girls (who started with me) really nervous about starting (although I did learn that the English language has 12 tenses, which I never knew!!!). Luckily I had spoken to some of the existing volunteers (there's 9 of them from all over the place - England, Wales, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, America, Denmark and Luxembourg) who told me it wasn't as bad as they made out and that I'll be fine! We'd also been told lots of rules and regulations during the sessions including being told about the midnight curfew! This is a Laos law that says everyone must be back in their houses&guest houses by midnight if they want to avoid getting in trouble with the police! Despite this (and being told that you may get shot by the neighbours if your seen getting in to the guest house after 12) the existing volunteers told me that they often break curfew, coming back later than midnight and jumping over the wall and noone has been shot... Yet (I don't want to speak too soon as I can imagine getting caught on the wall in my clumsy manner and potentially being the first curfew breaking rebel victim)!!!

But back to the teaching... I have a few hours of classes a day, all different abilities and all at different schools! Some I take just with other volunteers and others I support the Laos teachers. Along side those lessons we have lesson planning in the afternoons where we decide what and how we're going to teach the kids. Some of my classes I have really enjoyed and some others not so much! I have one class of kids in the morning who are really cute and enthusiastic and really want to learn! Me and another volunteer took the class and we taught them different colours, how to say their favourite colours and how to talk about what they were wearing! We tested them again today and they remembered :) :) :) so we must be doing something right! As for one of my other classes... I do not like them so much! In one class there's a group of really cool Laos girls who I'm convinced whisper and snigger at me when I read out stuff from the board! I did have to repeat 'My name is tony, I am 53 years old' about 20 times (and really slowly) but I don't think that warranted laughing at me! I may just be being paranoid but can't believe I'm intimidated by a group of 13 year old girls. But... On the plus side some of the students in my classes remember my name which is quite impressive (although a very morphed version of it...). To avoid confusion with spelling, I always write my name on the board as 'Shervorn'. When being named as a baby, I don't think it was considered that I may be travelling to teach a country of students who can't pronounce the sound 'Sh' or their 'V's so most of them say 'Serforn' which I guess is close enough :s.

The group of volunteers that are also here are all really nice. I've been out for dinner with them every night (and eaten my body weight in noodles/rice for every single meal!!!). The food is really good (and so cheap) but seem to be having the same problem here as up Kili... Most other people seem to have lost their appetite because of the heat or whatever but I most definitely have not! We've been to the night market and eaten the street food a few of the nights. People say you need to be really careful with eating it but I and all the others haven't had any problems and its so delicious!

It is such a gorgeous town but has a very odd, quirky culture. It has a very chilled vibe and wherever you go there are people sleeping everywhere! In the shops, restaurants, guesthouses! Even at the night market stalls, women were napping and casually having their toe nails filled as they served people at their stall! Everywhere is so chilled apart from the roads that is. They are absolutely mental! They're aren't many cars but loads of motorbikes and mopeds and I've seen some of the weirdest sights here! The Lao people love their umbrellas (to protect them from both the sun and the rain) and they ride along one handed on their motorbikes holding their umbrella up over them! Maybe burning the scalp is more of an issue for them than breaking it!!! I've also seen full families on motorbikes! I saw a husband, wife and their 3 kids clinging on to them today all piled on to the bike! Very very strange and pretty dangerous! The kids seem to know how to cling on tightly though!

We've had a few of what they call 'Social nights' together as Volunteers, where we all get some drinks in and play different games and stuff which is really nice and a good way to get to know people more!

Unfortunately I am not really tanning and the tan I have has given me really dodgy tan lines as I need to keep my shoulders, chest, stomach and knees covered as a respect thing to the locals! So no bikini sun bathing :( which maybe is a good thing with all the Lao food I am eating!!!!

Overall, I'm enjoying myself and think I'll get more used to the teaching with time :)

Someone on my course told me we don't get our results until around the 28th so will keep you all updated with how I do! I keep checking every day as I just want to know nowww!!!

Still missing you all lots :). There's wifi in the hotel which is also a bit dodgy but feel free to send me an email if you would like and I'll do my best to reply ([email protected]).

Will update again as soon as possible! Hope you are all well xxx