Our first lesson with the kids went well: nobody died, although I think somebody cried. We used all sorts of increasingly desperate measures to teach the kids their prepositions: “under”, “over”, “in” and “out”. We started off with the tried-and-tested Hokey Kokey (or Hokey Pokey, if you’re Canadian) but then gradually descended into ball games, relay races and limbo, although the latter should probably be renamed “several clueless volunteers attempting to stop a seven year old running around poking other children with a big stick”.

Later, we took a large songthaew into town with some of the kids and teachers for their daily fruit and veg shop at the local markets: the journey was unbearably hot and cramped and the market itself didn’t improve things, the smell of meat and fish was overpowering.

Well, we had to get ill some time.