This is Thailand y'all...Part 2

This change also affected the Filipino teacher at my school. But he wasn’t being offered a job at the same school as me.  Even though we’d only known each other 2 days, we were sad to be going to different schools.  We had been told someone would come pick us up around noon to head to Korat (the capital of the providence we were in) to the bus station and help us get to our new towns.  I received a phone call and a message from two people at XploreAsia after they saw my Facebook status asking how I was doing and telling me good job with the positive attitude.

I had packed pretty much everything the night before.  Jhon, the other teacher, was still living at the other apartments so we met at a coffee shop in between our two places for breakfast.  It was around 10:30 and my phone rang.  It was the HR rep from my agency – the same one that had emailed me the day before.  Her and another lady informed me that the school in Sikhio changed their mind and were back in contract with the agency and I wasn’t leaving, and would still be teaching at the same school.  Talk about messing with your emotions.  I hung up the phone in a shock and walked back in the coffee shop.  And Jhon was on the phone with them now.  After he hung up we both just kind of started at each other in disbelief.  Then my mom texted me that she was going to bed and that she hoped my move went smooth and to let her know when I got to my new place.  I walked outside, called her and absolutely lost it.  I was crying so hard I’m sure she had no idea what I was saying.  But what I was saying was I want to come home.  I can’t do this.  I finally calmed down enough and said I need to call Joe and talk to him.  

While I was on the phone with my mom, Jhon had messaged Joe.  I went back in the coffee shop and told Jhon I needed to go back to my apartment to process all this.  He understood.  On the walk back to my apartment I got a call from Joe.  He was very apologetic and said that the Thai teachers loved us and had nothing to do with what was going on.  It was between the higher ups at the school and the agency.  I told him I was very nervous about going back to a school that so quickly got rid of us over money and once we didn’t show up on Thursday, they had no one to teach about 44 classes of 45 students!  I told him I still wanted to go to the new school.  He completely understood.  Thursday was spent with many phone calls back and forth between Joe and me and even a phone call to people at XploreAsia to see what my options were.  There were also lots of tears and checking out flights back to the US – which resulted in more tears because then I was a failure.  By 4:00 it was agreed that I could move to Sakonnakhon and that my agency would reimburse me for my bus fare.  All that needed to be done now was move out of my apartment, get to the bus station in Korat and on a bus to the very Northeastern part of Thailand.  Easy, I can handle that!