As noone has a mobile phone or internet, communication is done through the one phone in the area, often in a restaurant or shop. It involved phoning the number, asking for your contact and putting the phone down. Your contact is located and summoned. You ring back after 5-10 mins and hope your contact is there and also that the phone lines aren’t down or busy.

I tried this system to arrange to visit some teachers in a town a few hours outside Rangoon. I failed miserably although knew that they were there. My vague plan was to go to the town and play detective although I wasn’t sure what this would involve…… roaming the streets looking for someone about whom I couldn’t talk for security reasons. But it was a plan.

All of this was compounded by the fact that it was the biggest national festival of the year, 4 days of throwing water at any passer by, 10 days of government and services shut down, no public transport yet all with a great spirit of fun. It’s the only time boys can chase girls, the only time that terrible living conditions are forgotten about and a general letting down of hair occurs.

Grieta and I took a train to Bago, a mere 2 hours on slatted wooden seats. Our hotel lady was amazing and soon we had located the teachers. A soaking wet motorbike ride later we found them. They lent us bikes to return to town to get out train tickets for the next day and we proceeded to spend a most pleasant evening eating my favourite dish of pumpkin curry. I practised my Burmese and soon it was dark. I got anxious about the police, it being a strict rule that foreigners are not allowed to stay with locals overnight.

The next day we journey on the train for 12 hours keeping a beady eye on potential water throwers, ready to close the window at the drop of a hat. Given the lack of transport we had to overnight in Thazi, a trade town at a crossing point of routes.

Confident that there is always some form of moving vehicle from A to B, we smiled patiently when the words ‘mashibu’ (don’t have) was mentioned.  I became rather too familiar with that word.

We awoke early to empty streets, a lone pick up waiting patiently for customers. The guest house owner dissuaded us from taking the pick up saying there were ripping us off promising a direct bus to our destination some many kilometres way across country, perpendicular to the main tourist loop. The invisible bus never appeared and we settled for a negotiated middle price on another pick up.  We were on our way during the time of no transport.  Hee hee.  Off the beaten track and into the unknown once more.  As I sat on a bag of stinking fish, I suddenly felt small and vulnerable heading off to somewhere but it equally felt like the most normal thing to do. I had and exhilirating feeling of an adventure awaiting.

By pure chance I had met Grieta, a Belgium teacher trainer, in the queue for visas at the Burmese embassy in Bangkok and we made a tentative plan to meet inRangoon.  With limited email and no mobiles, it was freeing to make a plan that was to be a plan a month in advance.  It brought back memories of travelling 20 years ago.

I arrived to be met by the guest house, a luxury I afford myself these days being rather over negotiating with taxi drivers and full of the feeling of everyone is out of rip me off.

We were taken to a vehicle that should be in a museum.  Through the streets ofRangoonwe trundled, gear stick grating.  We passed a lot of trucks filled with the army or police, guns poking out the back. I was never to see that sight again but it was a reminder of the regime under which the country is ruled.

My first mission of the day was to meet up with one of the teachers I work with.  We had chosen a random street corner with only a vague plan B and an innocent surety of meeting.  It was not to be.  I returned downcast to my guest house and spent the evening trying not to talk about where I worked and what I did (I was under strict instructions to keep my work secret to protect a lot of the people I work with). It was something I found very difficult and after the second extra strong beer, I relented.  My audience were entranced and I felt rather like a veteran war journalist.  My dreams were filled with arrests, detention and torture.  Note to self, be more careful in the future.

Rangoon is falling to pieces, not helped by the government moving the capital to a purpose built venue in the middle of nowhere further up the country.  Yet there is a charm of nostalgia about the place which I soaked up over a sugarcane juice on the street, made from another antiquated piece of machinery. A collector’s item I’m sure.

As I wandered around the streets, I noticed a woman pulling on what appeared to be a piece of string next to a door.  On closer inspection, there were a host of strings, each with an identifying ploomb.  I watched intrigued.  It was the door bell to the flats above.  Each flat had a long string hanging from their storey.  Pull the green frog/pebble/old CD to ring the bell.  Who needs conventional numbers to indicate your abode.

Next was a trip up to Shwedaggon pagoda.  I’m a bit pagodded out but this one was astounding and I spent hours wandering around the glittering gold, watching the colours change with the setting sun.

A day in the city was enough and I took myself off to the beach.  6 hours on a bus along terrible roads.  How can the main thoroughfare to a holiday desitnation be single track, made interesting by my bus driver clearly having delusions of gandeur of ‘I’m the king go the road – all else must head for the ditch’. Uncannily strong bamboo bridges carried us over ravines.  I concentrated on the sky.

And then the beach….. I ran down excitedly, ready for a sunbathe and swim.  Not a single lounger in sight, the Burmese population fully clothed and hundreds of bicycles for hire on the beach.  Hmmmm, not quite the beach getwaway I was expecting.  So I holed up in my lovely guesthouse and slept and read.  Heaven of a different sort.  I did find a secluded beach where my shoulders, belly and thighs could be exposed but talk of sharks from my French travel companion put paid to long swims in the clear blue water.  I spent hours chatting to the lovely chap who worked at the guest house.  One day he looked at my pictures of a day trip.  He continued scrolling through my pics and I watched in horror as my pictures told the story of where I work.  Why hadn’t I deleted them before I arrived in Burma.  I mumbled something about where I worked and an instant trust was built through our non-verbal signals.  I signed with relief.

I returned to Rango on on the luxury bus with reclining seats and air con.  Shame we had some wheel problems that involved sitting in the blistering heat with no information for hours only to stop for lunch 30 mins after the problem was fixed.  Transport was to become and all too familiar tale.

Last year the directors of the NGO I work for suggested we run English language Cambridge examinations which would give the migrant teachers an international certificate, something they have never had access to.

I was totally unconvinced believing that studying for a UK based exam, in a style and format alien to the migrant teachers was not appropriate to their needs and a total waste of everyone’s time.  I felt strongly that the teachers needed more language appropriate for their jobs rather than being able to listen to a train station announcement, be able to check in at an airport or read 3 articles in 10 minutes.

Despite my resistance, the project went ahead and in December 2010 we started two classes, KET (first level of Cambridge exam) and PET (second level).

Linda and I threw ourselves into the course, still unconvinced but gradually coming round as we saw the teachers enjoy structured learning, following a course book and having a concrete goal at the end.  The lure of an international certificate enthused the teachers and this infectious commitment to learning began to rub off on me.

We ran the two classes at The Best Friend’s library, a centre set up by Burmese monks to support the community.  We taught one class on the roof and the other in an open area just above the entrance.  Some days the teachers were freezing as the rain and wind whistled around us on the roof.  Other days it was hard to hear the listening exercises with traffic and construction polluting the air. But despite the physical obstacles, classes were well attended and the teachers were grateful of an opportunity to study for something internationally recognised.

A lot of the teachers were reluctant to travel outside the immediate vicinity of their schools for fear of being picked up by the police so we organized a truck to do a round of the schools to pick up the teachers and bring them to the course venue.  We also had to organize new ID cards for the teachers as most have no papers.  Not only was this for security for travelling into town but also for Cambridge, who needed ID on the exam day. For a couple of them, we had to verify their identity on the day.

Early on in the course, we were missing the CDs of listening scripts for the course book we were following so we trawled the streets of Mae Sot recruiting friends to record some rather random dialogues.  There was much hilarity and retakes recording what would seem to be a relatively straightforward task.

January saw final registration with Cambridge and much anxiety for Linda and I as most of the teachers were only borderline passes if that.  The pressure was on.  We had a number of Thai teachers in the group, the first time Thai and Burmese teachers have come together.  It was heartwarming seeing the teachers discuss their work places, sympathise together over ‘lazy’ students and giggle about the men in the class.

Bob and Clive had fostered relationships with an international school in Bangkok and it was this school that would pay the hefty exam fees for 25 teachers in Mae Sot as well as send examiners to us.  A huge achievement.

We also roped in our Mae Sot friends to be pretend examiners.  Many of the teachers, particularly the women, are shy and unconfident in front of men, particularly foreign ones.  I was moved by the support we got from our friends and the willingness everyone showed to help us out.

As the months went by and the 19^th March (exam day) swiftly approached, Linda and I upped the classes to 3 times a week, hunted for past papers for endless practice, organised friends to help with oral exam practice and became best friends with the woman at the photocoying shop.  It was grueling and exhausting.  ‘Making history high five’ became an encouraging mantra during those hard months.

The day arrived along with the examiners and Linda and I were beyond exhausted.  I awoke early that morning and threw on my clothes.  As I cycled to our transport rendezvous, I looked down in horror.  Wearing a mismatch of items of every colour under the sun, I gave off a distinctly festival vibe. With no time to change I had to grit my teeth and pretend this was an everyday occurrence.

The truck organized to collect the first batch of teachers had confusingly headed way out of town and nowhere near the pick up spot.  Frantic phone calls later, we managed to re-jig examiner transport and with the help of a lovely Thai woman, we got everyone to the exam venue just on time.  The teachers had dressed for the occasion in their Sunday best while I looked like I was the resident entertainment.

The day miraculously passed without hitch and the teachers were full of laughs and smiles having a great day out.  The examiners had put the teachers at ease and it was only Linda, Katharine and I pacing and power drinking coffee that gave any indication of the lead up to the day.

It was a nail biting wait until 3^rd of May when Linda, Katharine and I joined each other on skype for the results.  I shed tears of joy and relief as we looked at the results.  Almost everyone had passed!   As I phoned the teachers, there were many shrieks of joy.  The Burmese aren’t prone to public displays of emotions and being picked up by one male teacher and twirled around was an indication of how much it meant to the teachers.  The confidence the teachers have in their own abilities and the validation an international certificate gives to a group of people displaced from their homeland has convinced me of the value of the Cambridge exams.

I swelled with pride for the hard working teachers and the coming together of the international community, united in a common goal of providing something to those with nothing.

We had made history.

As much as I love my life here in Mae Sot, a little luxury now and again is most welcome and it was with great anticipation that I arrived at the Rex Hotel in Ho Chi Minh city.  A 5 star hotel whose pages I had longingly perused is in the heart of the city.  I arrived deliberately early to savour all the hotel could offer before Alison arrived.  My heart soared at hearing the words ‘upgrade’ at check in.  I luxuriated in the bath (the first one in 4 months), watched TV in bed engulfed in an enormous duvet, white fluffy towels strewn around the expansive room.  Noodle soup on the street?  Not when I can do that everyday in Mae Sot, thanks.

And when my cocktail Buddhist friend arrived, true to form, we headed straight for the rooftop bar for outrageously expensive cocktails and much catching up.

What a wonderful treat she gave me staying in that hotel.

For the next 10 days we caught up on our lives, explored the beaches and waterways of Vietnam and had what I can only describe as a middle-aged holiday, in the best possible way.  Early nights, full and rich days filled with interesting and soul searching conversations.

And then it was Hogmanay.  My favourite night of the year.  Alison and I had negotiated that she would try and stay away till midnight or at least leave me somewhere with others who could pander to my wish of seeing in the new year.

We found ourselves on a beautiful tropical island with a long stretch of beach just itching to be walked along.  I persuaded Alison to walk the length of the beach and work our way back to our hotel stopping for nourishment along the way.  We walked for an hour only to find cocktails with pretty much no alcohol in them.  Not a great start to the night.  As we walked along the beach under the stars, each hotel had set out chairs and tables on the water’s edge.  So romantic and more often than not, a private party for hotel guests only.  With little sign of parties or gatherings, we made our way back to our hotel where people were winding down – at 11.45pm! We joined the remaining guests to set off lanterns over the still ocean.  I looked at someone’s clock – it was 1205.  Where was the countdown and the hugs and kisses?  Was noone in charge?  Alison and I chatted a while longer and retired to bed at the very civilised hour of 12.45.  It was a gentle and memorable new year spent in the company of  a dear friend.  A turning point for me and one that felt good.

We awoke to the ear splitting sounds of construction outside our window at 7.30am and I was grateful for the peaceful hogmanay night I’d had.

We journeyed over a couple of days back to the fabulous Rex hotel for our last night together and a fond farewell.

I then continued on my own to Hanoi, missing my travel companion.  And what a shock when I arrived.  Absolutely freezing.  I’d forgotten how debilitating cold can be.  With numb fingers and toes I wore all my clothes and shivered my way round the streets.

I had tried to see Lenin in Moscow, Chairman Mau in Beijing and now it was time to see Uncle Ho in Hanoi.  Off I set.  At a busy road I tried to catch a taxi but noone would stop.  I man on a motorcycle waved to me and signalled for me to cross the road.  Now the traffic in Vietnam is something else and crossing the road, never one of my greatest strengths, was  a feat in itself.  The trick is to take a huge leap of faith and step out into oncoming traffic and slowly walk across the road, defying all logic and sense.  I couldn’t do it.  The little old man crossed 5 lanes of traffic and gently took me by the hand.  We crossed unscathed.  I jumped on the back of his motorbike and he took me to Uncle Ho’s mausoleum, the third of the great communists.  I had an inkling I wouldn’t be able to see him and sure enough, the mausoleum was closed.  It seems that dead communists aren’t my thing.

After a few days of the cold I was ready to head back to Mae Sot and the familiar warmth that is here.

And on Christmas day, I received another gorgeous one from Linda.  A special present indeed from special people.

To top it off I got a Christmas stocking from Santa and other goodies from home.

Christmas day was spent at my friend Katharine’s place where we cooked chicken and bread in their pizza over and chatted under the trees.  By night we danced under the stars and exchanged presents.  It was a gentle day filled with warmth, hugs and happy chatter.

Photos
Mae Sot and Bangkok: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelwithkaren/sets/72157625655833039/

school christmas: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelwithkaren/sets/72157625656214195/

volunteer christmas: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelwithkaren/sets/72157625655885265/

vietnam: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelwithkaren/sets/72157625781635896/

The lead up to Christmas was a busy time here as Linda and I started a new exam preparation course.  This entailed a lot of running around sorting out transport, books, venue, coffee, cups, not to mention placement testing various teachers who had appeared out of the wooodwork to join our course.  Word had spread and it was a difficult position to be in.  We are the teachers on the course, the coordinators and the senior teachers all rolled into one and the conflicting roles made it hard.  We had to turn some people away, negotiate with a larger NGO and prepare to teach the course.  It’s never easy wearing more than one hat at a time.

We are teaching at the Best Friend’s library where the monks are based. The monks are very accommodating, helped of course by their handsome looks, cutting a dashing figure in their off the shoulder robes. I was teaching one evening on the roof with a backdrop of the most amazing sunset over the mountains, monks robes drying on the line in the foreground with Thais and Burmese laughing together. All the stresses of the last few weeks melted away. Linda and I have got an invite from one of the monks to his place in the countryside behind the rubbish dump where he is involved in a relocation project with the dump families. Talking to him outside reduced me to a smitten teenager. Mental note to self – maintain decorum when faced with gorgeous monks.

Soon it will come time to register the teachers for the exam and then the pressure will truly be on.  Gulp.  Hope they pass.  This is the first time such a course has been offered to the teachers and the first time Thais and Burmese teachers are working together.  A lot of people and organisations are involved in making such a course possible, a school in Bangkok, the NGO directors in the UK, a large NGO here, the teachers, the monks to name a few.  When things feel a little overhwelming, we bring out our catch phrase – making history high five!  Indeed we are making history but it’s awfully hard work both changing and saving the world, phew.

During the week, a local artist worked with the children, the culmination being one of their pictures being transferred to the outside wall.  The kids got involved in filling in some outlines on the last day but then got a bit carried away so I had to be the baddie and stop it all.  Whisking away paint pots and brushes amid a sea of disappointed faces.

The school lookes quite amazing now and is a beacon of colour as I turn the corner through the sugar cane fields.

Here are some pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelwithkaren/sets/72157625414134183/

The shcool has a lot of attention in general, being located near the rubbish dump where pictures of cute kids playing in the rubbish can be easily had.  As a result, the school is inundated with donors and visits from foreigners.  This can be quite disruptive to the school day but looking back over my time here, and comparing it to my other schools, a huge amount has been done.  There is a massive garden where the principal is often found tilling the land, carefully administering manure and keeping a watchful eye over the watering of vegetables.  There is the coolest mushroom house and an amazing water filtering system – a large water bucket with lid and 7 layers of differing sizes of sand and stone interwoven with mesh and beans.  Dirty water is added to the top and comes out clean at the bottom.  They only have a small one but a New Zealand NGO is going to provide a large, cement one to cater for the whole school.  It’s genious.  Cheap, effective and natural.  The principal can built it himself too.

Next week we are gearing up for a 10 school football league and so the principal has roped in all the parents to clear the land in front of the school ready for a football pitch.  In exchange the parents get lunch and the dads have been playing football in earnest.  It’s lovely to see such a community effort and the school is a buzz of activity.  Shame that practically no teaching is going on

The best news of all for me is that all my three schools have food until the end of the school year.  Hurrah.

We all awoke to churing, gurgling stomachs – perhaps fish cakes should be avoided in future.  Dreading a  6 hour bus ride with no toilet, the mood was sombre.

And what an awful journey.  Winding roads, the driver hairing round corners trying to get enough momentum to get up the next hill.  Urgh.

It’s been a busy week back filled with boring report writing and paper work to finish off this phase of the project.  The next phase begins in earnest now, running a Cambridge exam course at the first two levels, KET and PET.  I was initially dead against the idea – what good would it do anyone, the content is completely irrelevant for teachers here etc etc.  I was on my high horse ranting and adament I was right.  We put it to the teachers – we have nothing, they said.  This would be a great confidence booster for them so after a bit of reflection and with my tail between my legs, I have been converted to the idea and am now fully on board and raring to go.

We have to deal with a larger NGO and this is causing a few headaches.  It seems to take ages to make a decision when more than 3 people are involved but we are slowly getting there and fingers crossed we can start the week after next.  The teachers are all excited and I think it will be good for them to be part of something bigger than their current world of the Burmese migrant community.

A rock hard bed, no sheets, a howling dog and a loud disco nearby brought about broken sleep for all of us and cursing of this crummy border town.  But soon coffee was at hand and a walk to the border past a bustling market and friendly locals lifted the spirits.  We crossed without event and firmly negotiated our way through the hassly border touts to find a Burmese tea shop where we had our fill of curry for breakfast and practised our limited Burmese much to the amazement of the locals.  We took a little walk up to a hotel on the hill and saw a glimpse of Burmese life behind the eye of the border police.  It inspired me to go to Burma, a land hidden and controlled but with a people who have an amazing spirit and the best pumkin curry ever.

An obligatory pair of sandals and 3 DVDs late we were back at the bus station only to find the bus to Chaing Mai was full.  It’s one of the biggest festivals in Thailand for full moon this month and the whole country is flocking to Chaing Mai.  We ran after a local bus and jumped on it to Chaing Ria.  No air-con and open windows, much better.  I squeezed myself into the seat made for small Thai people and marvelled at the rolling hills and yellowing rice, ready for harvest.

We overnighted in Chiang Rai and worried about accommodation in Chiang Mai, everywhere we phoned was full for the festival.  Oh well, something will turn up and we concentrated on having a fun night in the market eating delicious food watching a dancing and singing show under the warm night lit up by an almost full moon.  One of the sights in Chiang Rai is a monastery up on the hill and we found a friendly monk who showed us the chinese temple.  He had fortune telling sticks, numbered in a pot that you shake until one falls out.  It took ages for me and I was sweating under the pressure of being watched, trying to meditate and breathe as the monk had shown me.  10 feel out after a particularly violent and frustrated shake.  Again he advised.  Eventually one fell out and I went to read my fortune.  Not good at all – I have a big mouth and this prevents me from finding a spouse!

Still worried about the prospect of sleeping rough by the river, we headed to Chiang Mai. Having a big mouth, I let Linda and Tito do the room finding while I sat and knitted in the courtyard of a quiet guest house.  Luck was on our side and 3 people checked out as I sat there so the hunt was over before it had begun.

In the evening, we went down to the river to watch the festivities.  Hundreds of lanterns floated in the sky making new constallations.  Little flower boats floated down the river and the streets were filled with food stalls and a buzz of an anticipated festival.

http://www.cluniemusic.com/caim.htm

the other half being a woman from Northern Ireland.  They are here to spend a week in an orphanage further south and asked if they could come to the dump school to sing for the kids and do some celtic dancing with them.  I have got tired of people only wanting to see the dump school cos it’s the most well known and you can get moving pictures of kids working and living on the rubbish dump.  It gets a lot of attention and I feel that it’s interesting to see other schools too, some in worse condition than the newly built large dump school.  So I have started making deals, I can take you to the dump school if you also see my other schools so now I am landed with the extra task or organising visits to my other two schools.  Totally worth it though to spread around the interest.  Yesterday, the elderly duo came to school A, a very well run and efficient school with a super headmistress.  The women sang beautiful, haunting tunes from the homeland and I had a pang of homesickness.  It was surreal to be sitting in a one roomed school with a bunch of Burmese kids listening to Celtic blessings and prayers.  Then we got grades 4-7 up for a twirl of the gay gordons!  Much collision and laughter later, the visit was over and a resounding success, one wee girl had even fallen asleep, a sign of a good lullaby.

Last week was a frenetic one with Bob and Clive, our bosses over to round off this phase of the project.  They came to all my schools to see the teachers in action.  The teachers were nervous but gave great lessons full of the things we have been working on – pair work, personalised tasks, praising in English, nominating and breaking the chant and repeat cycle that is so prevalent here.  I was so proud of them.