Every picture tells a story...

Emails and blogs are a wee bit like a sneaky chocolate - instant pleasure just popped in your mouth.

Cards and letters are more like homemade, toasted fruit scones - baked with care, kept fresh in a tin and savoured with a cup of tea and your feet up!

Forthview children gave me a huge bundle of letters and cards, each made by hand and written with care, to deliver to their friends at Hlee Bee School. Inside a wee message of “Metta Sutta” – loving kindness - from the edges of Pilton to the borders of Burma.

Beautiful bright colours, funny wee cartoons, cheeky questions - shared hopes and dreams!

A week later and 6000 miles away, forty children in Mae Sot each patiently waiting for their names to be called out by their teachers as their were twinned with their Scottish pals.

Struggling with the pronunciation of names very different from their own, solemnly accepting their envelopes and carefully, oh so carefully, peeling them open with nimble fingers. Fearful that they should tear their precious contents and saving the colourful wrappings – as valuable to them as the card inside!

Each card and letter came with a Pilton child’s photograph holding their Hlee Bee pal’s name – just as Forthview children had received their cards and photos from Ms Laing and our Burmese teacher friends, just the month before…

Same excitement, same questions about the messages within – every picture telling a story and personally connecting kids to each other across the world.

Shyness dissolving into laughter, as they showed each other their new pals’ photos and cards.

Another week has passed – torrential rain in both countries temporarily flooding the areas outside both schools. Kids in both communities sheltering inside, until the storm clouds pass…

The beautiful cards they made for me to take back home to Edinburgh, waiting to be delivered by hand to their Pilton pals, are sitting on my desk, waiting until the Forthview children are back to school after their October break.

Their reciprocal photographs and messages may be appearing here on a blog they can only sometimes see, yet their cards, ribbons and envelopes remaining treasured new possessions pinned to the walls of our classrooms and houses as daily reminders that they, and we, are not alone.

From Forthview to Hlee Bee!

From Hlee Bee to Forthview!

And now with children as far away as Australia having read our blogspot, making saffron ribbons to show their families, friends and communities, that they too are supporting the Burmese peoples’ dreams of peace and democracy.

Thinking of communities like those of our friends in Hlee Bee and Rangoon, just as they are thinking about us!

All uniting - thinking globally… acting locally…