Sicky sick sick.

Hardly got any sleep last night, had a really painful headache, sore stomach. Woke up at 4am achey and tired and boiling hot, put the fan on and 1 min later, I was freezing cold. I called mum (it was 10pm in Scotland) and she told me to drink lots of water. I was so weak though and could hardly move downstairs to get water. I eventually went and was drinking lots through the night. Still couldn't sleep though. So at around 7am I got up and tried to sleep in the hall, that didn't work. So I had a shower and went to sleep downstairs, took paracetamol and slept for an hour and now all I have is a dull headache.

How strange, it was so horrible and painful, I really thought I had dengue. I'm glad it's gone away now though and I'll be drinking gatorade, hope it doesn't come back!

x

I must blog. I must blog.

Last Friday we went to CDC for mum to say goodbye kind of. Myo Nyo showed us the beautiful floral statues made from candles and lots of little trinkets. The students had made these, they were amazing, professional looking.

This is my house! It's being built, should be ready in September. My one is the one closest, it's two story. Wood upstairs and concrete downstairs. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. It's so cool seeing it improving every time I go to CDC.

You can see it from inside the main school gate. It's beside the nursery building which is a 5 min walk from the main school buildings.

We saw little Jack there.

The kids playing opposite nursery, some people waiting to go home. That's the football pitch beside the wee pond.

This little shack is opposite my house, that's the view from the front of my house.

That's the neighbour inbetween my row of houses and CDC nursery.

The front of my house.

On Saturday we went to the Saturday night market. We saw a crowd of people and went over to find thai kids having a breakdance-off. It was so funny, every time someone made a mistake the other side would all hit the floor to chuck them off. Strangeeeeee but soo interesting. I could've stayed there for hours.

Mum bought me a huge pink mosquito net.

On Sunday I moved into homestay. Very sad saying goodbye to mum! Spending the night in different hotels in Mae Sot, weird. It's nice to be back at homestay though, somewhere I know well.

And that night we had a goodbye dinner with the CDC teacher's who Campie teachers have been working with. Lisa and the kids and Jack, Niamh & little Aine.

The next morning we got up at 6ish and mum and Geoff picked me up in their tuk tuk and we went to the bus station. I wasn't a happy bunny.

Saying goodbye to Lisa and the kids.

I went to Mae Pa that afternoon to Jack and Niamh's house. I visited Jack's sister Naw Blay. Later on Jack and I went to the Dam and he taught me how to ride the motorcycle! I'm fabby at it, I might rent one for a day sometime during my stay and see how it goes.

I went to Tesco that night to try and find potatoes to bake in my microwave. My brothers John and David bought me a microwave to go in my new house for my birthday :)
But there are hardly any potatoes in Mae Sot. There are some things that there are very little of, I learnt that it's because the border has been shut off because of disputes between Thailand and Burma and that a lot of deliveries come from Burma so until the border opens back up again, there's no potatoes!

But....I did find Betty Crocker brownie mix. The exact same one from the co-op. So I made brownies in the micro :D

Ther next day Bobo and I went to the tea shop hidden in the market and everyone remembered me from last year :) lovely lovely people.

But there was a totally steemin drunk guy and he climbed onto this cardboard box carrier thing whilst the girl was pushing it. She seemed to know him though and found it funny..then he fell onto the mingin ground.

Today I started at CDC nursery. I went and Ku Paw, the headteacher of nursery said she was busy in the office and just to 'teach'. So I did what you do when you're put in that situation...sing Fischy music!! So we sang songs and went over them. Then I tried to do circle time, but they just don't understand it and so many of them are shy and will not speak. It's takes like 3 mins to get one child to say something with a class of 60 or somethin. Does not work in circle time with kids getting bored and mucking about.

Then we broke for lunch. Ku Paw fed me and told me I need to learn how to eat Karen food because they're doing a project where they learn about other people in other countries.

I always feel like a rubbish teacher, but the children enjoyed the songs which was good. After lunch, the teachers did a little task where the children had to go up and they were told to close their eyes. Then they were given a bag of rocks and a bag of soft-play balls. They were asked lots of questions about how heavy they were and how light they were.

We coloured in pictures after this.

Then they slept. I played 'Relax', a Fischy music song which is so soothing I almost fell asleep too!

The teachers all look after them like mothers. Wiping their noses and stroking their heads to get them to sleep, but one of the teachers kept going round and uncrossing their legs and making them lie straight and hitting them with sticks if they werent sleeping! They all do that here though, it's just their way.

After the kids slept the teachers washed their faces and covered them in talcum powder. Then they went off home. Rocky came to pick Ailsa up.

I decided to go to the after school English class. I didn't feel like doing it but because my motto this year is to seize opportunities - I did it. I said I wasn't gonna teach, just watch. Then he asked me to introduce myself, I talked about what I'm doing at CDC and Scotland and about me. They asked really good questions. It's nice just to have conversations with them and their English is fantastic, it's not like teaching, just chatting away. Really nice.

They asked me to come every day to their after school class :)

I cycled back along the Asia Highway and randomly turned off, thought I was lost but came out next to Borderline. So I went in and then me & Bobo went and had tea together.

Afterwards, I came home. Then went out and bought mangosteen and made cheesy pasta. Good filling food with mangosteen to finish - yum!

Longgggggggggg blog. I'll try to do shorter ones every few days.

BUT COMMENT NOW, I spent ageeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees typing. :)

x

I miss my mum!

Today Mum and Geoff left Mae Sot. I went to the bus station to see them off with GA and Lisa, Jack and Ailsa. It was sad to say goodbye, but it didn't feel like I was saying goodbye until I got home and cried and cried. Then I fell asleep.
Mum is on the bus, but the windows are so dark I could only see in a bit.
So they board the bus and I get a phone call 3 mins later from mum crying, awww.

Then they left, GA and I went to the his motorbike. We got onto the highway and the bus was opposite us on the highway, so we waved but they didn't see.

Just a tiny blog to say I'm depressed and lonely. But the first week alone's always crap.

But you should definitely read this article I just found on the Irrawaddy website.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=2296&page=1

I'll do a catch up blog soon and start blogging better.

x

Burma - It Can't Wait.

I going to post videos from a DVD I bought in Mae Sot. The videos are all uploaded on youtube so I'll send the links.

I know some people have seen these before but I thought some people who havent might want to see them.

Some of them are pretty rubbish but there are some good ones.

The first is Will Ferrell talking about the situation in Burma.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWDJZmp1TGY

Wee catch-up.

I know I've been rubbish at blogging my time so far. I think I'll get better when my mum goes back to Scotland and I'm not going out for dinner every night.

I joined my mum and her teacher Katherine last week when they taught songs to the children at CDC.

I visited my Karen mother at Casa Mia and all the girls there.

...and I put the £81 deposit down on my first house!

We had loads of questions for the Landlord, but she was lovely. The house won't be ready until September-ish, so on Saturday I'll move back into homestay until the house is finished. It's all very exciting.

The house I chose is the one beside CDC nursery. It's got two bedrooms, two toilets and a kitchen. Plus, it's going to be the only one out of 6 with a shower! So I'm going to be looking for a roommate :)

I'm off to watch a movie, goodnight all! x

House Hunting

So, for the last week I've been looking for a house in Mae Sot. First I went to Auntie's coffee shop and the woman who works there told me I could stay in her sister's house for free. They are Thai/Burmese and her sister lives in Mae Sot Villa. It's quite far away so we went in her car to visit the house, her two sons came too.

I couldn't believe how amazing these houses were, total luxury houses. I didn't know they had them in Mae Sot. They showed us inside and they had a spare bedroom. It seemed perfect, but so far away from where I'm working. The house had beautiful wooden floors and a huge tv! Comfy sofas and luxurious toilets (tall ones). There's a community swimming pool which is beautiful, with a pool bar. The problem is that it is too far away and I wouldn't feel as if I was living in the community I'm working with.

Trying to get as many options as possible, we asked Canadian Dave if he knew of anywhere and he pointed out to us a real estate lady opposite his shop. We went to her and she said she'd take us to a few places.

We went to a place which had for of the same kind of houses. Small and wooden, not great in the heat. It didnt seem to safe though, as nobody was living in the other houses.

The lady then took us to a house which was 'very far away'. She took us up the CDC school road whch we thought was quite strange and she stopped right beside the nursery where I'm going to be teaching. They're building small houses there which look just right for me. Plus, it being right next to work is a huge plus. It's quite expensive but I think it's a good place to be. I can have a kitchen too which is good. The house is so close to CDC and their boarding houses. Plus Lisa and Rocky live not too far away.

This house will not be finished until September though, so I will live back in homestay until It's finished.

Today Sylvia, the owner of Homestay where I lived last year, took us to look at some apartments. One was quite a bit cheaper than the other. But one had kitchen space. The cheaper one doesn't have space for a kitchen though, whereas the more expensive one does.

I think just now, it seems like the house beside work is the best one. But we've heard there's another little place beside the school too, so we'll have a look this week and make a decision.

I'm looking forward to having a kitchen again and not eating in restaurants every night :)

x

Sunday

On Sunday I went to Lisa and Rocky's house to see Jack and Ailsa. They now have 5 Naw Naw's living with them. They are lovely, beautiful girls who attend CDC school. So when they asked me to go to Church with them, I couldn't say no. They are such sweethearts. Most of the Naw Naw's go to seperate churches but I went to the Mae Tao Clinic church with 2 of them and some other girls from the area. It wasn't too bad because they are such beautiful singers and they wanted to practice their English on me. I knew the service would be in Burmese and Karen but I can understand some of it so it's not too bad. But the service went on for 2 and a half hours! I thought it was and hour and a half, so for an hour people kept getting up and I thought it was time to leave...then they went up to sing again! It was the longest Church service I've ever seen haha.

When we got back we were hungry and Rocky had made some pasta so we dug in.

Then we walked back to Casa Mia and the teachers had their dinner. They had been to the border to cross to Burma that day and the Thai side told them that Burma was closed because they had 'problems in their Country'. What a joke.

So anyway, after Casa Mia we walked back to the DK hotel as it rained and rained :)




If you want to read my Mum and her teacher's Burma blog go to: www.campieburma.blogspot.com

x

Bloggybloggy.

So on the 10th we went to visit one of the CDC boarding houses but we couldn't find it, we just went to the border, looked around for a bit. we had many confusing conversations on a payphone about the whereabouts of the boarding house.



This is us on the tuk tuk to the border.

That's the bridge you cross to go into Burma. Burma is the side you can see.

The colourful house is strange, it completely stands out from the deterring houses to the left. The theory is that it's a show for the people coming into the country.

We caught a songthaew from the border to near the hotel. A songthaew is a tiny wee bus thing.

It seats 8...there were 21 of us on it! It stopped at the Mae Tao Clinic and a newborn baby and new mother got on. the mother was hangin off the end of the songthaew. insane!

That night we went to visit Poh Cho and Ni Shar who are teachers coming from Say Ta Nar school to Scotland in October. They are husband and wife and are amazing people. They are so excited to come to Scotland and visit different schools to learn more about education.

I taught for a few days in their school last year and Poh Cho is a fantastic headteacher. He's lets the children know their rights which is so important for them. He holds school assembly's on issues like street children, child trafficking, child labour. They are such inspirational people.

x

First day in Mae Sot

On our first day here the teachers went to CDC school, their partnership school. I walked to Borderline to collect my old bike. I love this bike, I used it every day last year. I had amazing vegetarian noodles and met everyone from Borderline shop again.

After, I cycled through the market to Hle Bee school. It was amazing to see everyone again and go to all my old classes. I went to see the baby and she was sleeping. I woke her up by being too loud and she was not a happy bunny. She is speaking though!

Unhappy baby.

At night we went to Casa Mia and I got to see my Karen mother. I missed them so much and it was lovely to see them again :)

x

Mae Sot 2010!

This year I've come back to Mae Sot with my mum and 3 of her teachers. They have a link with CDC school, which is part of the Mae Tao Clinic. The teachers are staying for just over one more week and my mum and Geoff are staying until later on this month. I'll be staying for a year (but we'll see how the hot season goes) to help out in the CDC nursery.

So, we finally reached Mae Sot last night after 4 days of travelling. On one of our many flights we flew over Burma. It was so clear, the detail we could see was so amazing.

We stayed at the Amari rincome again. It was so amazing to sleep in a proper bed after that 24 hour long journey. Went out for dinner then slept.

In the morning we had our Amari breakfast, veryy good.

Went for a swim at the pool. There was a conference on with lots of Thai men that day and it just so happened that whilst we were lounging beside the pool, they had their lunch break. So about 60 Thai men walked past us to go to lunch next to the pool.

Then me, mum and Geoff went shopping, I got shoes and went for lunch at The Pub.

That night we went to the Migrant Learning Centre and spoke to the students there about us coming to Mae Sot. Then we went for dinner in town, it had the most amazing pizza. After, mum's teachers (Hannah, Katherine and Alicia) and I went to the night bazzar.

The Next day Hannah and I went for a wee swim, then we all went for breakfast and went to get the bus to Mae Sot. We spent all day on the bus to Mae Sot, lovely views!

Eventually, we arrived! Greeted by Lisa, Rocky, Jack and Ailsa! It was so lovely to see them all again. Little Jack and Ailsa were very sweet.

We got to the DK hotel and went out to Canadian Dave's for dinner. We met Lisa and their family there and our Guardian Angel came too! We had a lovely night and after we went off to bed. We were so knackered!

More tomorrow from today! x