So my original plan was to volunteer my time for the first 4 weeks. I had done research on the company, and everything seemed ok up until my arrival. As I said before, I wasn't too pleased about the set up when I arrived but there's not much you can do but get on with it. Kimberley had actually complained to the company when she arrived but they didn't even reply to her. But it wasn't just the company that led to what happened. It was mainly the supervisor...
Suvannah. In a nutshell, and so I won't get myself all angry over her again, she is a nutjob. I was only there for 1 week, and she wasn't there for 3 of those days, and I could see it. The other guys had weeks before this though so I count myself lucky.
Crazy example 1: Vikki and Stephen asked to do some washing. She said that it was fine and even to give it to her daughter to do and give her 5 baht for her trouble. They didn't really feel too comfortable with this. Especially 5 baht. It's nothing. But Suvannah insisted it was fine. So they did. When washing was done, Vikki gave the daughter the 5 baht, and Suvannah went absolutely nuts at them. Saying how disrespectful they were to do what they did etc.
Crazy example 2: One evening when Suvannah took Vikki and Kimberley up t'north to another school, we decided to just get some cheap noodles and eat dinner in for a change. Not with any music though coz it wasn't allowed. So just Stephen, Natalia, Coco and myself with a plate of noodles and 1 beer each we got to wash it down with (actually I think Natalie and Coco even shared one). We put the rubbish out on Thursday, which was rubbish day. On the way to school that morning, both Stephen and Natalia (the only ones with phones) got a huge number of missed calls from Suvannah. When they called back they got a bollocking about getting drunk and how we're disrespectful to her and her family etc. Oh and apparently we were giving her a bad reputation in the neighbourhood.
Like I said I won't go in to it, but she really is a crazy lady and on the thursday evening she called us together to say that she'd had enough of us and she was resigning from the company. We had to leave the house the following day and were not allowed back to the school after Friday to continue our volunteering. I actually felt quite relieved. Most of the others had pretty much finished their time there anyway, but me and Stephen still had a number of weeks to go. We went to the school on Friday morning to say goodbye and tell our teacher friends what had happened. They said that if she had resigned then we'd be able to go back and work there anyway, and so they would keep us posted on the situation. We went back, packed up our stuff and headed to Bangkok.
Stephen and I got on to the computer to write Original Volunteers (the company) an email. We found they had emailed us to say they would refund us, or they are also trying to find a new project so we could wait for them to tell us about that one. Their email was quite defensive of Suvannah so we decided to write just to let them know that it was in fact her that caused the problems
"Hello,
Thanks for your email. We are glad to hear that you are currently working to resolve the situation. However, we feel that the whole project has not really been what we signed up for, and because of the tone of your email, we would like to take the opportunity to inform and enlighten you about Suvanah's "determination".
Both Stephen and I (we are both writing this together) feel extremely angry about the situation that we have been put in and think that Suvanna has been the main reason for the project to collapse. You are probably unaware that the volunteer apartment that we thought we would be living in alone is actually being occupied by Suvanna and her family. This caused huge privacy problems and also opposed what OV led us to believe. We all have emails to confirm that the volunteers share their own apartment and the supervisor lived in a separate accommodation. When we arrived we thought this a bit odd but decided to just get on with things, thinking it wouldn't make too much difference. But it did. Personally being in my mid twenties if I had known I was being doing a home stay then I would not have signed up with OV. We were made to keep to regimental rules, including not being able to stay out late (even on the wknd), not being allowed to have even 1 bottle of beer with our food (even on the patio outside), not being able to use the washing machine without hassle and moaning from Suv. She also constantly threatened to take us to another apartment which she described as a 'shithole', unless we stopped 'misbehaving'. She never had anything positive to say to us, always moaning on about how lucky we were to be on the project and how the school didn't need or appreciate us (we heard otherwise from many of the teachers at the schools). Apparently we also ruined her reputation in the village which we feel is outrageous because A) she wasn't even meant to be living there, and B) there was absolutely never any misbehaving by any of the volunteers.
Suv also regularly kept 'forgetting' what she had already told us. For example - During Stephen's first week, on one of the days the lessons did not start until 9.30am so she told both him and Vikki that they could lay in, but then she proceeded to knock on their door at 6am the following morning to shout and moan about why they had not yet left. She then denied ever allowing them to lay in. Likewise when we were told that we were allowed to drink beer outside the house, we were once again told off when she saw the 4 empty bottles in the rubbish. We also feel that the others were persistantly bullied by Suv by the way she disrespectfully spoke to them. She constantly told all the girls about being dressed inappropriately, even when she often helped choose and buy the said attire.
As she sat us down last night to tell us that she was resigning from OV, she began by calling us 'assholes' which I found extremely rude seeing as we have done nothing wrong, and have travelled all this way to give our time to a project we were all looking forward to. Noone ever deserves to be treated as we were.
So revisiting what we mentioned earlier about the accommodation, we would like to point out why we think that we have been mislead by OV as well. Aside from the apartment being ocupied by the supervisor and her family, there were only 5 beds for 6 volunteers. Stephen has spent the last 2 weeks sleeping on the floor, when he expected to at least have a single bed, as the documentation outlined. The accommodation was also over 30 minutes away from the schools unlike what we were lead to believe. It was more like 1 hour for the morning and in one case, 3 hours on the way home. We would like to say that the laundry situation was unacceptable. What exactly were we paying rent for? I personally resorted to just doing hand washing just so not to get an earful. Considering the total amount we handed to Suv for rent, or in Stephen's case to OV, and the possibility that Suv was living there rent free, we should have been at least been allowed to do one wash each a week. We have done some research and the money we all paid could actually rent us quite a luxurious apartment or two in the area, or even closer to the school. There was absolutely no need for the 'shithole' threats. We both found them personally degrading.
We would like to ask you where the rest of the airport transfer fee goes? This should have been no more than 10 pounds per pick up, as some of the others have done the journey since. Natalia and Corinne were even charged 25 pounds each when they were collected together. We understand the need for OV to make profit but the margin that is added to this service is extortionate and prays on the good will of the volunteers.
One last thing that we feel we were deceived by is the description of the actual school project. We both agree that the one reason we signed up to this particular project was to offer our help to underpriviledged children. This was an average school for Bangkok and could be compared to any state school within England, comparative to the respective country. The OV documentation also stated that if anyone wasn't comfortable leading the class then they could simply be an assistant, but given the nature of the heavy timetable this could never be seen as an option.
Personally Stephen and I have decided to go and find another project ourselves, and therefore are requesting a full refund of our administration fee and remaining rent as follows:
Anya : 30 pounds (3 weeks) + 295 admin fee
Stephen: 295 + 110 pounds (2 weeks @ 20 pounds, and 2 weeks @ 35 pounds) and at your discretion some kind of rebate considering he was attempting to sleep on a hard floor for the first two weeks.
Apologies for the long email but we feel that given the defensive tone of your email towards Suvanna, we wanted to tell you that in no way was the project let down by us volunteers and hope you can use the above to move forward with arranging future projects. We also advise that you issue some sort of contract to the next supervisor, which we are aware didn't happen, as we are all now in a situation which is costly and wasting what we feel is our precious volunteering time that we were all so looking forward to.
We anticipate your acknowledgement of our email and that you recognise that we all did give everything during our stay.
Best regards,
Anya Lukover and Stephen Goodwin
PS - Please can we request a contact number for Poppy who we have been informed arrives today. We can't imagine how she will feel when she turns up at the airport to this mess. We would just like to let her know that she can come and meet us if she is feeling disorientated. Stephen's contact for his Thai mobile is: 0838307371. If you could let her know to call from a payphone as it doesn't work otherwise!"
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