The best day of my life....(short of the birth of my baby!)

Hello, Fiona guest-blogging here! Having finally made it to Mae Sot (!) the day came for my first visit to Hle Bee. We filled up on breakfast at the legendary Canadian Dave's and then prepared to wobble on the bikes along the road to the school. This is quite an event - dodging goats, pot holes, motorbikes, pedestrians, cars...and each other!! Still it works up a lovely sweat and raises a few eye brows as the possie of hooting scots (and honorary scots!) head up the road.

No amount of looking at photos and hearing stories can prepare you for seeing the school 'in the flesh'. As you come along the lane you can hear the loud noises of several classes working in close proximity which let you know that the school is ahead. After a crash landing with the bikes you peer over the wall to be greeted by smiling faces.

We went on a tour of the school and were introduced to each class - the children were completely besotted with Louise, as they all want to have her very white skin, which they think is beautiful...ironic really since many a 'blue-skinned' scot hankers after the gorgeous brown tan! The first thing that brought a huge lump to my throat as we walked round the main building, was seeing the kindergarten class working away under the building. The head height in the room is just a bit higher than most of the children so any adult teaching in the space has to stoop the whole time - health and safety eat your heart out. The rooms are quite empty of the things which we take so much for granted in our schools in Edinburgh - few toys, reading books, writing tables, construction etc. and yet there is a huge sense of pride in the school and children are eager to learn. The children learn mostly by rote and concentrate so well, considering there are so many distractions from the noise levels in each of the very large classes. There are no support staff or piles of resources to fall back on and yet the children and staff seem to achieve so much from so little.


Tour over and many 'minghla bas' later - time to get out the new Duplo (and a few extra wee people and cars chored from Forthview nursery)!! We had balked at the idea that there were 50 children in the nursery here, but today discovered that there are actually 150 children in three classes!! With little or no toys and one teacher in each class - so, so different. This was the first time for these first fifty Kindergarten children to play with the construction set and many were unsure how to begin. However, with a little encouragement they began to build and build, keen to keep hold of their first creations. They sat engrossed for ages in their small groups. This roused huge interest from the other classes who were just finishing their lunch and gathered at the edge of the area, so Sheila and I lead an 'impromptu' Fabby dabby dee singalong, swapping classes over to allow everyone to get a chance to dance or build. What a lot of fun, with the children reminding me so much of my own P1s (sorry, big P2s now!) with the amount of energy they were putting into the singing.

Then out came the parachute which I had brought from school. Again the first time that the staff and children had used this, but they took to it like ducks to water, as you will see from the photos. I suspect there are hours of fun to come with this activity...


In the afternoon we introduced the handwashing programme which both schools are going to be working on. Our Guardian Angel was on top form translating the songs and interpreting the video for Sheila - what a talented and amazing Angel we have! Again it was amazing to see the amount of information that the children can take in and repeat back in such a short space of time. The coming days of using the newly-installed sinks will tell us whether it has all sunk in, but they seem to be well on the way.

The day ended with a mad assembly, with the whole school crammed into the room, where I discovered many similarities between Sheila and Thazin...whilst Hle Bee does not have a tannoy system, Thazin does have a megaphone - it is not dissimilar in high pitched tone!

So the end of my first day at Hle Bee, two scuzzy toilet visits later (and yes those stories are all true!) and sweaty everything all round...what an amazing place to be. As I came into Mae Sot on the bus on Sunday - highly knackered and emotional - a Forthview calm down favourite by Dido started playing over the loud speaker...'I just want to tell you, you're gonna have the best day of your life' - it surely was an omen, because I just did.

Fiona