By Olga Hernandez – 1 week volunteer

The day at Kindred Spirit Elephant Sanctuary is busy as in the morning you get up early to go to the forest to observe elephants in such beautiful scenery. During the afternoons the activities can be very diverse going through different kinds of hiking, cooking with your homestay or enjoying a typical geeju ceremony. Although, my favourite one was teaching English to children at school and at the nursery. One of the days during my stay I was offered the opportunity to go and help Kerri at two English lessons at the local school. It was by far a great experience. One of the classes was 7-8 years old and the other 12-13 years old. The class was carried out in such a dynamic way trying to keep their attention throughout.

I will also recommend going to the nursery to anyone who is spending time at KSES. As soon as we walked through the door we encountered a bunch of smiley faces of kids around the age of 3-5 years old. Their level of English was quite impressive for their age. We were able to sing with them some nursery songs. They knew this songs way better than me! We spent the rest of the class teaching them colours and always doing it trough easy and funny games so they don’t get overwhelmed. Having Kerri as their teacher was great as she is also fluent in the local language. This made it easier when children were lost in the conversation or they were loosing interest, as she was able to fully communicate with them.

I would definitely recommend living this experience to anyone who is spending some time in Thailand and once you are here you could check their improvement by yourself. I am certain it will be even better as they do such a great job at both the nursery and the school.