Trotting through the last day!

You thought you'd escaped the toilet stories this year. I thought you may have too. Despite the fact that Irvine was what he called 'uncomfortable' on the 3hr stretch of the bus from Tak to Chiang Mai, I have sailed through the 3 weeks with no toilet events worth recounting....

.... and then at breakfast I felt nauseous and it started..... not a lot of fun.... especially as it's 12 noon here and I am meant to be teaching and doing a goodbye assembly from 1-4pm this afternoon..... watch this space... well metaphorically.... I promise no photos!! Hee hee..... yuk!

Emotional Literacy in Grade 1 at Hle Bee

Today, Yan Yan and Than Thaing and I put up our Feelings displays that our classes were working on earlier in the week. The children loved seeing their friends' photos on the wall. We used the words to teach emotions in Burmese and in English.

I had given Yan Yan the P1 Feelings section of the Creating Confident Kids programme that Forthview and St Frances wrote, to read at the beginning of the week so today I said I would show him how to use Circletime to help his children talk and listen and share their feelings. The children were superb and Yan Yan picked it up really fast. First they said how they were feeling today, then they gave their reasons.

"I feel worried in case my mother hits me."

"I feel angry because my parents did not give me any money to buy a sweet at school."

"I feel worried in case I make a mistake in my work."

See, how they took to it like ducks to water.... speaking of which .... the school has its own mother duck and 3 little ducklings... I always wanted a duck!

Back to the subject.....

One boy in Circletime said he liked lions so we are all being lions... and loving it!

Scottish tourists in Myawaddy, Burma

Today we visited Myawaddy, the Burmese town across the river and border from Mae Sot. We have never been inside Burma before. Here are photos of the journey.

Just left Thailand.

"Are you sure you want to go to Myanmar?"

the Immigration officer asks us.

Off we go onto the Friendship Bridge

that links Thailand to Burma.

Across the River Moei

Others cannot legally cross the bridge

so this is the alternative way to go.

We are about to enter

The Union Of Myanmar.

First we are asked if we've been in contact with Swine Flu.

Then we pay 500 baht each (£10)

and we leave our passports.

"Go and visit our beautiful pagoda."

So we do and here it is...

Then off to a Burmese tea shop

where we are brought Burmese tea

and surreally watch Gone with the Wind on the TV.

Myawaddy benefits from 24hr electricity a day

because many deals are made with Thai traders.

We visit some Burmese friends.

Off the main road,

we find Myawaddy to be a lot quieter than Thailand,

much less cars but so many bicycles, trishaws and motor bikes.

The area we visit has a lot of green trees and plants

which make it pleasant.

However, there are no pavements and the main roads are full of holes and bumps.

It's really muddy.

We like the quietness though.

Every posting has to have

a beautiful Burmese baby.

Then off on motor bikes to the market.

Aarghh!

Not our normal mode of transport.

In the dark, covered market

are many narrow lanes and

there we find

many tailors sit and sew garments for customers

in this dark enclosed space.

Back on the motor bikes

to a new pagoda in the south of Myawaddy.

Mae Sot is in the background of this photo below.

The view over to the Karen mountains in the south of Karen state.

This new community in the foreground

like most of Myawaddy

has no piped water.

Instead water sellers come round

selling water to the households.

We go back to the Friendship Bridge

where the Burmese Immigration Officials

laugh at my attempt to count to 10 in Burmese,

then give us our passports back.

As we walk back over the bridge to Thailand,

we see these women doing the washing

in the muddy River Moei underneath us.

Then back into Thailand

and to the comfort of water and electricity

in our hotel.

As we go into DK hotel,

we see a guy cycling

with 20 dozen eggs on his bike!

Amazing day.

We've been to Burma.

Future possibilities for linking with Child Development Centre

Sheila, Lisa Houston, Dr Cynthia and Mahn Shwe Huin

Today I visited Child Development Centre for the second time. Child Development Centre is the very large school run by Mae Tao Clinic. It has 1200 students. 400 0f these children are boarders in the school boarding house. They board because their parents may have died at the hands of the Burmese military because of last year's Cyclone Nargis or because they have become separated from their parents.

Our meeting was to discuss the possibilities of linking Child Development Centre's Primary School with a Scottish primary school and linking their secondary school with a Scottish secondary school through the UK Dept for International Development's Global Schools Partnership scheme. Mahn Shwe Huin, the Principal of CDC, Nant Htay Si, CDC Vice Principal and the 5 senior teachers I met were all very excited and keen to pursue partnership if this is possible. It was also decided that if we can proceed to partnership that Nant Htay Si would be the first person to visit Scotland. This is very exciting indeed.

Nant Htay Si, Sheila and Lisa

Dr Thein Lwin and Lisa Houston helped set up this meeting. Lisa is a Scotswoman who has worked at Mae Tao Clinic for many years as administrator and sometimes travel home to Edinburgh to meet her family. Her husband Rocky is Karen and they have 2 beautiful Scottish Karen children, Ailsa and Jack. Lisa visited Forthview earlier this year.

We were joined towards the end of our meeting by Dr Cynthia. It was a great honour to meet her. You can read about her amazing story and work on http://www.maetaoclinic.org/. but in short, Mae Tao Clinic provides free health care for refugees, migrant workers, and other individuals who cross the border from Burma to Thailand.

Dr Cynthia is very keen to see such a partnership develop and looks forward to the professional development opportunities it will bring her teachers and the unique learning opportunities it will bring CDC students.

Hle Bee gain Health Accreditation status

Today Headteacher Thazin showed me why she wasn't at Hle Bee yesterday. She had gone with some students to collect a Health Accreditation certificate and prize for Burmese Learning Centres. Only 7 schools gained this status and Hle Bee was one. Well done Hle Bee.

Emotional Literacy in Grade 1

I used the Fischy/James Brown song, 'I feel good/bad/sad' to start off thinking of different ways we can feel good - happy, excited, laughing, wonderful and we can feel bad - sad, angry, worried, scared. The children wrote the words in Burmese and English for a display.

The boy above is writing SCARED.

This boy is ANGRY!

This girl is HAPPY.

The children are writing AFRAID in English & Burmese.

Their photos and writing

will make a good class display

later this week.

The children worked in groups. As you can see, there are no desks or chairs.

And finally, they are feeling HUNGRY

but lunch today, like 3 other days of the week,

is just rice.

Only on Friday do they get a little curry with their rice.

Hle Bee buildings

Hle Bee School has grown from the 2 buildings we first saw when we came. Here's a tour. The first building (below) is still built around Thazin's house, which you can see above the green tin (and therefore roasting) roof. Kindergarten B is in here. Fiona spent a lot of time last week showing how to run it like a nursery. In front of the house is a wee staff room, full of ants!

Below is the original second building. It holds 150 children in 3 classes - Kindergarten A where Fiona did some critical thinking work in groups on HOMES, a topic Forthview children in P1 and P2 will be investigaing too. One activity was that the children took home disposable cameras which Fiona will get developed in UK and the prints will be brought back with Forthview prints of the children's homes next year. We have to say that 150 children aged between 6 and 10 in this building is a nightmare. There is no space to move, never mind teach creatively. These children have no desks or chairs either as you will see in the next post on the blog. :(

This lovely long building below holds 2 Grade 2 classes with desks and chairs. This is where we held the teacher training session last Friday.

The Grade 3 and 4 building below is very near the toilets and pretty niffy!

Grade 5 and 6 share this huge new building below and there are less than 20 in each class. It seems strange to us when 150 Grade 1 and Kindergarten are squashed into the small building that Grade 5 and Grade 6 have so much space but resources here are prioritised to the oldest students. It's a great building as a wee breeze comes off the fields behind into the school. Thazin complains it's freezing!

To the right of the Grade 5 & 6 building is a house under construction for 5 teachers. This will be a luxury pad for them! Due to finish in a few weeks. Today the construction workers were trying to get the school's 2 cockerels to fight!

The construction workers live in this big house below which they share with the teacher Yan Yan.

This playground is out of bounds because it is the rainy season. Pity.

A shelter for the children to stay out of the sun made this week by Mon Sein (janny) and Mon Soe (cook).

The toilet block now has 7 toilets and they get the waste sucked out twice a year. I think it's due!

This is the tuck shop, selling all sorts of sugar treats and condensed milk to the children!

A side view of the tuck shop where the janny, his wife and baby live.

It's grown so big, hasn't it?