friends

i have some of the best friends the world can offer. i love my friends. there is nothing better in the world than spending time with my friends. i will see some of my favorite friends in a short while when i go back to korea after finishing my teaching here in mae sot. i can't wait. i will see some more of my friends when i make it back to canada in july. i can't wait. i'd like to single out 2 of my friends in this post today.......

matt and carrie. matt has been a friend of mine for a few years now. we met in seoul in 2002. over a year ago now he started dating carrie and that's how i met her. they are amazing........and here's why......THEY SENT ME A PRESENT!!! i arrived at the volunteer office today and the co-ordinator greeted me with "hello loree. you have a package." i was quite surprised to hear this and more surprised to see that it was from matt and carrie. they sent me fun stuff. napoleon dynamite books.....stuff for the classroom.......chocolates......playing cards. it was AWESOME! you two rock. you just made my week. it was so fun to open it. THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH!

so here's to matt and carrie........hiphip horray.....hiphip horray......hiphip horray!!!

(now as for my family.....they are great too. don't feel left out. mom thank you for your present too. hiphip horray.......hiphip horray......hiphip horray for my mom as well who sent me a present...........a little closer to my birthday ; ).)

walking vs. flying

so i met david, who's another volunteer teacher, and he told me a story that went like this:

"i was eating dinner with my chinese friend one evening and he had ordered chicken feet soup. he offered me some. i said 'no thanks'. he said 'come on. you have to try it.' i refused it again and he said 'you will always walk, david, you will never fly.'"

great. thanks david for that story. now, whenever i am offered something........'you will always walk, you will never fly.' rings loud and clear in my head. i have flown quite a few times since my days living with the burmese guys, but not the night the chicken feet soup showed up at our table! i tried the broth, though.......does that count for anything, david........anything??!! tell me i at least i flapped my wings!

water fight!!!

some of you are probably wondering why you haven't heard from me in a while. well, let this rather lengthy post explain why.

thursday (and for a few keeners---wednesday) to sunday there was a festival in thailand called water festival. this started as a religious holiday and celebrates the buddhist new year. it has, over the years, developped into a country-wide water fight. to many this may sound like heaps of fun and it is, but by the time the fourth day rolled around i had enough water fight for a while.

everywhere......people of all ages threw water at everyone who'd cross their paths. this created maeham in the center of town for the four days and got quite painful on the highways. there was no discreimination of a person's age or place to throw water. driving down the highway on the back of a pickup having water thrown at you can be pretty painful........even more painful is water coming at you when your pickup is going about 80km/h as well as the pickup where the water came from........but hey.....we all survived. most days i was also traveling with another group who is taught by my friend stuart. he is also a volunteer teacher with the same organization as me. it is nice having another foreigner around to be the zoo animal with! here is a bit of a summary of each day and what my group had me doing..........

THURSDAY:
we started the day by going to the monestary. it is customary for the burmese (and probably thais too) to visit the monestary and pay their respects to buddha at some point during the festival. for the people i live with and spend my time with.......they chose the first day. so we showed up at the monestary and found some monk friends we had previously visited and spent some time talking and visiting again. we went for a walk around the yards and then it was lunchtime. there was tons of food and many people. we sat around visiting with many burmese people......stuart and i were introduced to many friends of friends of friends. everyone has to meet the volunteer english teachers! we met a woman named grace who invited us to her house the next day to make the traditional burmese water festival snack which is kind of like sweet dumplings (i'll explain later). after we had enough food and visiting we climbed in the back of a pickup to take everyone back home from the monestary. this was the beginning of my first real taste of the water throwing. wow! we were totally soaked. it is actually a nice break from the 40 degree days we have here in mae sot. after we came back to town we went home to get showered, put on dry clothes and rest before dinner. not much happened in the evening. just the regular chatting and maybe a card game or two.

FRIDAY:
today was making dumplings at grace's. these dumplings are tasty little morsels that consist of rice flour and water dough rolled into little balls. you stick a sugary piece of candy (almost like fudge) in the center and roll the balls again to hold it inside. then you drop them in boiling water and when they rise to the top you take them out and cool them down (usually with ice). after they're cool you sprinkle coconut over them and there you have your ready to eat dumplings. burmese people make hundreds of these little things to be shared with anyone who may come visit during the festival. after we stayed at grace's for a while we went back into town to hang out at the office where stuart teaches and chatted all afternoon with some people from his classes. he has really interesting students who aren't shy to talk to us. my students on the otherhand are too into tv to be much fun to hang out with. they are nice people but not as fun. anyway, in the evening we went to some festival markets, a wondeful meal at some friends' house and then went to see the daughter of this family perform traditional burmese dances. after the dancing two guys stuart and i teach and stuart and i went to the carnival which had some bands playing. it was ok. but after travelling all day by bicycle which meant getting soaked whenever we went anywhere.......i was happy to be home and get out of my all day wet clothes, take a shower and go to bed.

SATURDAY:
today was the rent a pickup and go to the waterfall day. on the way to the waterfall we stopped at the house of my group's hired driver. this is a thai guy and he had to pay homage to his mother. i was invited into the house to meet his mother and watch the ceremony of presenting her with gifts, etc. after they presented her with gifts and bowed to her they "washed" her hands with water. there was a silver bowl with water and a sprig of some kind of plant in it and that got dipped and sprinkled on her hands. all the children and grandchildren had a turn and me too. it was very interesting to watch the whole thing. then we piled back into the pickup.......all 15 to 20 of us!!.......and off for the waterfall we headed. after visiting 3 different waterfalls we came back to town. we had a ton of water thrown at us all day on the highway and at the waterfalls.....but downtown is where the real maeham was!!! it was so cold by this time and i was so cranky that it was no longer fun. you never knew how much water was coming at you, how hard or what the temperature. i was certainly glad to have the truck drop me off at home. we showered and rested for a bit and then went to the office where stuart teaches to hang out for a while.......then it was bedtime.

SUNDAY:
today was dumpling making at stuarts office. i hang out quite a bit here so i was invited too. it was quite a process happening by the time we arrived. i'll post the pics that show the whole dumpling making as soon as i can find a cable for my camera. we hung out at the office all day and watched the kids dance, ate and talked. in the evening i went into town and hung out with some of the volunteer teachers for a bit and then called it a night around mid night.

today is monday and there is also no class today. it is the last day of the festival and the first day of the buddhist new year so my students wanted a break today too. this is no problem for me as i'm finding i don't really like teaching adults and living with the two guys i live with isn't always a party. they are way too over protective of me and i'm feeling like i need a break from them. i'm 28 years old and i think if i skip one meal.......i'll know when i'm hungry again and i'll survive. i know how to do my laundry and can do it my way if i want. if i go into town and come back after dark you don't need to sit in the doorway waiting for me and don't need to worry the whole time. i know i am gaining invaluable experience and knowledge etc. by living with these guys but emmersing myself in their ways isn't always easy. i have less than 8 weeks left with them and am excited to go to the beach for a few day before heading back to korea. it will be a sad goodbye but right now i'd leave today if i felt like i could. i'm sure the 8 weeks left will fly though.

i best get outta this cafe. i need a cold drink and a nap. i hope you all are well. i miss you all very much.

yup.......they're all the same

well not all the same......but close. so i was sick yesterday. threw up 3 times. (sorry.....i tend not to spare details!) anyway.....in this heat i have been taking afternoon naps........so i went to take my nap yesterday and before i'd get up the uncle i live with had to go to his office. we made plans for me to meet him there at 4:30pm and he'd show me the friday market. well around 3:30pm i woke up wet with sweat (more than usual.......usually i'm just damp with sweat!) and my stomach felt terrible. i threw up twice and went back to lie down and in the meantime the nephew showed up. i got up agian to throw up the water i drank and asked him if he could phone his uncle and tell him that i couldn't meet him. next thing i know one of my dear students comes in the apartment to ask me if i'm ok and to tell me that i am going to the clinic.......that the uncle is there with the group (ftub---federated trade unions of burma) leader waiting for me. great. i have the 24 hour flu and now i'm being rushed to a clinic. so a taxi comes for me (taxis here are scooters) and in my state of just waking up and being weak, i wasn't paying attention to my feet when getting on the back of the scooter cause i was trying not to flash everyone due to wearing a skirt and my foot slipped off the foot rest next to the exhaust and now i have a burn about the size of a canadian $2 coin on the back of my calf. wonderful day. so i arrive at the clinic.......the doctor asks me various questions (no i don't have a headache, stomach ache, fever or anything wrong.......these people are just over protective of me---but really, they just feel responsible for me) and in the end he gave some rehydration drink powder, anti-vomit pills and vitamin supplements. just like korea---it's all the same..........if you even sneeze, get a paper cut or have any kind of ailment.........it's time to go to the doctor. funny. i guess this train of thought comes from growing up where the flu is deadly and malaria is prevalent. i'm feeling much better today. nothing more than mild food poisoning or 24 hour flu.

as for pics........i will have some up asap. i have a few from the b-day i can put up. my people are concerned about security and few people who are still going back and forth between here and burma don't want their faces on my website. they have to be super careful with security issues. many of them are wanted by the burmese gov't for being involved with the democracy movement. i will do what i can.

happy birthday to me!

yup.......i turned 28 last wednesday.......and what a day it was. the day before i was given a traditional burmese outfit that i was to wear on the special day. one of the guys i live with told me that i should wear yellow lipstick to match with purple eyeshadow!! hahahahaha! too funny! i would look like the easter bunny if i wore that. it turned out that i didn't have to wear makeup---thank goodness! but it was fun to wear the burmese clothing. that consisted of a blouse and wrap skirt. the people i'm teaching planned for 5 monks to come to the building where i teach and we fed them a fairly elaborate lunch of various dishes----a veggie stir-fry, fried beef, fried fish, some chicken curry, some kind of soup and of course rice! after they finished eating they said a prayer of protection for me and we presented them with a tray of things (incense, flowers and some other stuff). after the monks left we ate the same menu of food, went home and relaxed and then met again for dinner. here's where the funniest part of the day happened. before dinner they presented me with a cake and the leader of the group had written "happy birthday loree" on it with icing and was pretty proud of that. i was impressed he spelled my name correctly. then they sang to me , i blew out the candles and they said to cut it. so i began cutting the cake and they said "now try it, teacher." then after a small bit of confusion i found out that i was to cut a piece for me and try it. so after i did, the whole thing was taken to the kitchen and we sat down to eat dinner. dinner was a veggie and chicken noodle dish. very tasty. lucky for me we didn't have to have rice at both meals!! (i'm getting used to the rice. i don't hate it so much anymore. good thing!!) but they never brought out the cake again. i left after a while to get a call from my mother and to call t. met some friends and then went back. they were very worried about me being out after dark. i assured them i'd be fine............and i was. all in all, i was so touched by their generosity. these people have next to nothing but somehow manage to be so generous to me. i miss my friends in sokcho dearly and want nothing more than to be back there with them, but i can already see that it is going to be a sad good-bye in june. oh yes.......the cake did reappear the next day during our break between classes!

survived my first week

i have made it through my first week in my new house with my new housemates/brothers. they wait on me hand and foot. because i'm their teacher i'm 5th in line of importance.........right after their parents. so they tell me it is their duty to wait on me and protect me. it's a bit awkward having them do everything for me, but this is the burmese way and i'm living in a burmese house...........so we'll do things the burmese way. it's a learning process, that's for sure! it's a requirement of the program i work for that these guys provide me with my meals. they make various meat sauce curries and things with rice, but they feed me about 3 cups of rice at every meal. i already hate rice. but i can handle it for the next 2 1/2 months. i just have to train them on how much to give me. and heaven forbid if i even look like i'm about to clear something from the table! up go the hands and there's a big race to get from me what i'm about to bring to the kitchen.......together with an "aaawww, teacher!"----so funny. also another thing they have to get comfortable with is me seeing them without a shirt on. asians tend to be so sensitive to this kind of thing and these 2 guys especially. if they have just come out of the shower or if i arrive home and catch either one of them without a shirt on.......again with the "aaawww, teacher" (but this time it's more under their breath) and they run to the nearest shirt and throw it on. it's definitely and experience. i'm sure there'll be many more stories to come about life with these 2 guys!

the classes are going well. i have 5 students now and i think 2 more are joining this coming week so i will have 7 in all........the 2 guys i live with and 5 women. they are super keen. usually the group would get broken into 2 classes and i'd see each class for 1 1/2 hours a day. but these people wanted all 3 hours of my time everyday so i see all students from 8am-930am we break 'till 10am and then finish at 1130am---mon to fri.

they are planning a birthday party for me on wednesday. they are so sweet. so far the plan is to visit the monastery and feed the monks lunch in honor of my birthday. then have a party from 6-730. hahahaha---the whole 6-730 thing made me laugh. they tend to get a bit carried away with scheduling. but they are trying so hard to make this a good time for me. i truly appreciate everything they do for me.

i must go for now. i hope all is well with everyone. i'll be sure to let you know how the birthday festivities go.