These are the 3 toilets bought after our stay last year, photographed from the Grade 4 classroom. They look great but they do hum when the sun comes out as they are very, very used 
by 300 children. Do you remember last year, we laid a brick floor? Tha Zin has extended the school building to accommodate her extra 70 children. You can't really see here but the Grade 4 classroom floor is concrete and the brick floor we bought and helped lay is now the classroom wall! It is also part of a little one bedroomed house behind the school where Tha Zin's brother, the tuk tuk driver lives! Masters of recycling.
To the right, you can also see that in the rainy season, the ditches around
the school fill up and become a little stagnant. Here a child's flip flops has fallen into the ditch. Ugh! The children take their flip flops off when they go into class - Burmese culture. However many children also run about with bare feet on the stones, gravel etc. They don't seem to mind at all.
the school fill up and become a little stagnant. Here a child's flip flops has fallen into the ditch. Ugh! The children take their flip flops off when they go into class - Burmese culture. However many children also run about with bare feet on the stones, gravel etc. They don't seem to mind at all. Today we started our next joint partnership project, which is a book about Burma by Scottish and Burmese children. This project will be contributed to by 7 primary schools including Hle Bee, Forthview, Sa Tar Nay and Pirniehall. Here you can see 2 Hle Bee children etching aspects of life in Burma. One is young monks with candles, the other is Dau Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Grade 4 children concentrated spectacularly well yesterday afternoon for 2 hours on this work. Today they will finish, adding more detail to their etchings and Grade 5 will etch. Next week, we hope to etch at Sa Tar Nay, it will be fascinating for me to spend some time in another school.
8 comments:
Wow! So much stuff on here. Really interesting to follow your progress. You're doing great work! Note to self... learn how to use blogger!
Gordon! It's brilliant to hear from you. I have bought you a map of Burma for the dept. They're only 100 bhat so do you want more than one? Mary is now here too and is overwhelmed with delight and excitement at how warmly they have been welcomed and at how lovely her link school is. So we will both come back to the cluster empassioned (is that a word?) to learn alongside these Burmese people. There is a high school here that we are visiting next week...
As for using blogger,Mary says if she can do it anyone can. We had a technical hitch yesterday when IT went down in the hotel but we seem OK again today so I will finish uploading for the LOTS OF PHOTOS posting, which ended up being 1! Enjoy your holidays.
Rowena also made an interesting post today but where has her comment gone? I did publish it... So I will reply and hope it appears later...
I was also blown away by the question about Scottish children living with their mothers because it came out of the blue. I was also taken aback by their shock that so many families in Scotland are single parent or divorced or that couples are unmarried. They explained that this almost never happens in Burma. You have to be married to have sex and children. I told them not to follow the Scottish way! Scotland's hardly a great role model in this respect.
The question about the US was an ancillary question. When talking about fashion/hair dying etc I said that Scottish fashion copies American and that was the context for the question. They were unaware of Scotland being influenced by US but they do watch TV and were aware that US influences world greatly by this.
Skin colour - yesterday, Tha Zin said to me that I have beautiful white skin. She couldn't believe it when I told her I am trying to make it brown by exposing it to the sun. She was even more disbelieving when I told her about fake tan. They had never heard of it. Why would they I guess. So I put it down to TV, celebrity culture but also the people they see who have power, wealth etc are white so it's what they aspire to possibly.
Fascinating. Rowena, Geoff videod that whole Grade 5 question discussion so there may be some excellent clips for us to use. You will probably enjoy seeing the whole discussion.
I hope your comment appears as it was great and well worth posting.
Could you post it again?
And yes I am really happy Louise is on her way.
Thanks Sheila for your thoughts- my blog is there but it appears on the day you are blogging against as oppose to the actual date you are typing the blog. So my comment appears on 9th July...
I now see the context of the US comment...however to more important things.. the fantastic times you are learning from these very young people and also what you can give.. doing super stuff Sheila, Geoff, Louise, Fiona and co...
Rowena
Ah I get it Rowena, I think. And of course the days are different here as we are 6 hrs ahead.
Thanks for your encouragement. Geoff's not very well today - feeling sick and dizzy. Hope he recovers soon!
Thanks so much for getting the map that'll be excellent - we could always use a few more if they're easily available, but one is great. Look forward to reading how you get on visiting the High School.
I'll get more Gordon. They're cheap and laminated and impossible to get in UK. I tried all year. High School is next week with Murray. Mary was delighted to hear that you are in touch. We are both so hopeful that you can take any primary work forward in high school but clearly the Burma work is now precious to both of us. We are really appreciative of your interest and support.
PS Gordon, did you also check Mary's blog on www.pirniehall.blogspot.com?
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