Louise felt a bit unwell again today and went out for burger and chips with GA. When she got home, it all came back up again. She's now starving and said, 'I think my stomach's gone off burgers but my brain hasn't...'!
There were 2 interesting bits to tell you from this week's phone calls.
1. Louise was telling me that Hle Bee teachers get up at 5.30am to go to prayer
s and clean the school before the children start arriving from 7am for school. They often don't eat until lunchtime. I felt quite guilty about that because when we are in Hle Bee School, we generally roll up about 9.30 or 10am, fresh from breakfast. The funding for these teachers has again faltered and they have not been paid as they should be. The next secure funding is likely to be December. So these totally dedicated people are doing this for no pay. That is so humbling and quite desperate. Some teachers have left and gone back to Burma because they can't live without pay. In this picture, you can see Hle Bee' s dedicated teachers with the pupils saying bye to the Scottish teachers in July 09.
s and clean the school before the children start arriving from 7am for school. They often don't eat until lunchtime. I felt quite guilty about that because when we are in Hle Bee School, we generally roll up about 9.30 or 10am, fresh from breakfast. The funding for these teachers has again faltered and they have not been paid as they should be. The next secure funding is likely to be December. So these totally dedicated people are doing this for no pay. That is so humbling and quite desperate. Some teachers have left and gone back to Burma because they can't live without pay. In this picture, you can see Hle Bee' s dedicated teachers with the pupils saying bye to the Scottish teachers in July 09. 2. Louise was at a quiz night and a Burmese monk who played a key role in the monks' protests of 2007, spoke to everyone. The monks' protests of 2007 are known as The Saffron Revolution.
He told them what had happened to him and his fellow monks when the junta cracked down and stopped the protests. It was a chilling thing to hear. He managed to escape Burma and is now a refugee in another country.
He is visiting Thailand because The All Burma Monks’ Alliance, which led the peaceful mass street demonstrations in September 2007, recently issued a statement calling for the government to apologize for its brutal confrontation with monks in Pakokku two years ago, in which hundreds of monks were beaten and injured, and to release all monks who were imprisoned after September 2007.
The monk alliance set an Oct. 3 deadline for the military regime to apologize. If the junta fails to comply, the alliance said it will start another boycott of alms offered by all military and government personnel, known in Buddhism as “patta ni kozana kan.”
To read about what happens in the next few days with this, read http://www.irrawaddy.org/.
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