First Immigration Raid!

The day was winding down... only 30 minutes until the end of school!!! I was sitting at my desk helping some of my struggling students with their writing... I bribe them with stickers :)

Anyway, I saw one of the other Farang teachers zoom past my window. I saw her look in, but she was in a hurry. No sooner had I looked down at the student's papers did she come hurling into my room.

"Run. Immigration is here. "

I just looked blankly at her... "But...." My focus was half on her and half on keeping the children working on their studies. It's hard to get their mind to focus after nap time... I didn't want to spend another 15 minutes trying to get their attention!!!

"Never mind that. Leave it. Just leave. Now"

She turned to leave and knocked into the Thai office manager who was fastly approaching my room... *Smash* right into her cheek... it was definitely going to bruise. The farang teacher vanished.

The Thai office manager kept trying to get me to leave. I was a little bewildered considering I thought I was legal. I scrambled to grab the students papers and put away all the stuff on my desk.

"Just leave it. Go. Now"

I wasn't objecting now. I followed the Thai office manager out. I was halfway to Brian's building when Ooie stopped us. She said I didn't need to worry. I was okay.

Fabulous, I thought. I headed back to my room and re-started the tutoring process.

All I heard for the next 15 minutes was, "Teacher, Teacher why you leave?"

How do you explain illegal immigration to children?

Not five minutes later did another Thai woman come in my class. She asked if I was busy between 3-4pm after school. I knew where this was leading... I did have May's son to tutor at that time. She said, "Oh just one... I will give you NINE." Awesome.

Out of all the farang teachers it was just me, Brian, and Simon (Holland). All the other teachers do not qualify for Work Permits because they do not hold an actual Bachelors Degree. So technically, they are illegal workers. They do their Visa runs every 3-6 months, but that only qualifies them to live in Thailand, not work. We would have to cover all the extra classes from the other teachers who had to flee. The only bright side is getting paid more money. However, I'm not sure that fact wins we over.

I found Pat, May's son, and told him I couldn't tutor him today. I was busy. Surprisingly, he didn't run! He actually listened and shook his head okay having understood every word I said. He is a smart boy... just has some behavioral issues at first. The Chinese teacher was right though, just give Pat some time and he will warm up to you.

Simon gave me some worksheets to do for the 1 hour tutoring session. HA... that didn't really work out so well....

All the children ranged in age from 2-7 years old. It was chaotic. Thank God Brian decided to help me. They asked Brian to tutor from 2-3pm. He said, "No." Smart man that Brian.... granted his real class doesn't finish till 2:30 p.m. anyway.

Once that was done, We were all but too happy to leave the school. On our way home we saw a police man on every street corner. Luckily, we didn't get pulled over because we didn't have 200 Baht bribe money in our wallets.

Apparently raids happen every so often. I am not looking forward to it if it means tutoring that many children again. Ugh!

All I can say is the teachers better show up tomorrow. I don't want to have to teach three K2 classes for the entire day and tutor after school. Shoot me now if that happens!