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Entries in Myanmar (51)

Tuesday
Apr252017

Mandalay Burma Teacher Talk

Give us the fifty daze M-F 5:30 a.m. short van trip to CAE, the private school in Mandalay where you helped 10th graders become more human with humor and curiosity.

One class was from 6-7 another from 7-8.

Four male teachers left starlight and climbed into the van. Three were morose. Two early. Their dialogue mentioned sleep disorders, international menus and the quality of their shits.

One African-American guy muttered about Kuala Lumpur fast food choices cursed mosquitos smashing them on windows.

The others talked about teaching adventures in China. We are all peasants.

Exciting.

Yeah, I’m going to miss them like you miss a rock in your shoe.

I understand your student-teachers rearranged desks into groups to facilitate sharing. You played jazz, blues and classical music. They drew and colored their dream in creative notebooks. Daily.

Yes. Eye – hand – heart. Two won't do.

I reminded them their creative notebooks would sustain them for years, long after the textbooks gather dust. Long after they vomited material to pass a test. Get marks.

Give me specifics.

My room was the only team-building configuration. The other teachers maintained rows of wooden benches where students hearing a dull lecture stared at the back of someone’s empty head.

The Black guy mumbled. They replaced him with a dour business scholar from Papa New Genie.

One British teacher lectured from the book and played cartoons.

A drawling American teacher projected The Star Spangled Banner lyrics on a screen and had the class recite words.

You’re kidding me. I wish I was.

You heard parrots…”Oh say can you see…”

Our team-groups shared ideas prior to discussing diverse topics improving their speaking confidence.

In his final class Southern Comfort had them singing “Jingle Bells.”

Boughs of folly. Oh yeah.

My geniuses played a round-robin chess tournament the final two days. Great fun.

They’d practiced chess every Thursday and Friday for a month. They focused on tactics, strategy, activating pieces off the back row, castling, attacking through the center.

They developed critical thinking skills, planning and logic, problem solving, accepting responsibility for their decisions, respecting their opponent and sharing ideas with friends.

Life skills 101.

Tuesday
Feb142017

delicate gesture

a professional stranger shows up
among whisper smiles

old man
bamboo staff
coughs
walks

voices decipher a khmer woman
in a wheelchair
dancing her smile
extends a plastic bucket 
grateful for .50¢
ageless 
her smile a fragrance
beauty remembers graciousness

 

a rail thin girl never made eye contact
removing black chopsticks from a glass

bell jar

tapped them on edge
solving water molecules

she ate slow noodles
with jutted black teeth 

her beauty encapsulated tea
left hand cradled glass
a little finger curls space

delicate Apsara dancer

refined movement

Monday
Jan092017

Mandalay 

Hi. My name is Timothy Mouse. I am a wanderer. I wander and wonder. Like Alice, I try to think of six impossible things before breakfast.

I was in Mandalay four years ago at a private school playing in the Montessori program.

The kids taught me to say I am a miracle.

Street photography was sublime.

The management wasn’t professional so I left after ten weeks. Probation is a two-way street. A friend who stayed for two years said they bled teachers after my departure.  

Dr. Scary and Mrs. Marbles were a strange dysfunctional couple. 

I really enjoyed Burma. The people are gentle, kind and smiling.

I had the chance to return with a language company in Yangon. It was fantastic combination of helping others develop vocabulary, critical thinking, facilitate teaching skills, laughter and do street photography experiments.

Everything I do is an experiment.

The CEO was mean and selfish. He lost the lease on one building where we had classrooms so I was downsized with three other teachers after five months.

I was grateful for the opportunity.

I returned to Seems Ripe, Cambodia doing a volunteer English project in a dusty rural reality for two months with low-income families.

I independently published a new book of black and white images called Street 21, about Yangon. O joy.

I published two short literary works – My Name is Tam, erotica from Vietnam and A Little BS from living and facilitating heart-mind in Laos. All the works are on the side bar.

Hungry, I scoured potential sources in Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Comabodia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Laos.

It’s a wonderful life part 42.

In June, 2015 I accepted an offer to return to Mandalay and here I is. Third times the charm said Lucky Mouse. The food is spicy. The rainy season is here, said clouds. They know me by now.

I speak perfect broken English.

As a Turkish lawyer said in The Language CompanyI know my English is not grammatically perfect but I know it’s fluent. Yeah baby.

It’s an English language company. Teachers. Someone with a pulse.

Similar to TLC with more engagement diversity.

My classes begin with 9th graders at an expensive private school 6-7 and 7-8 a.m. Courage to speak and vocabulary while having fun in a non-threatening environment. Draw your dream.

Next are anxious college prep seniors. I came from Cambodia on an elephant. Really, said one sharp girl. Yes, really. His name is Packy and he’s in the secret garden having lunch.

They wait in a fancy air-con room on the fifth floor near the broken elevator for university entrance results so they can apply to a school and become a doctor or engineer or real human. They are the future. We focus on speaking fluency. Take a risk, kids.

Afternoons are with Primary 1 & 2 at a rural private school forty-four minutes out of town from 1-3.

Reminds me of the primal experience outside Shuangliu, China in 2005 – trees, farmland, rivers, birds, wildlife and subsistence living.

Kids there easily said, “Let me try!”

It’s the first time any have had a native speaker. Open your head, heart and mouth. Draw your dream. Write what you don’t know. 

Say please and thank you. Practice good manners. Share. Be kind.

Say I need help. Three little important English words.

The assistant primary teachers and admin are supportive and understand my small character development.  

Young learners teach me songs. We hold hands, share hugs, dance, sing and play games using the alphabet, animals, and colors. Storytelling imagination. We practice cursive writing. The hand is directly connected to the heart.

We meditate on our breath. Posture.

I act my age.

It’s the same Asian educational story - young ones have no fear. O joy.

Older ones have been tyrannized into passivity. It’s a cultural/educational reality. Big ears no mouth authoritarian social conditioning. A few have the courage to ask questions. Group work allows people to speak freely.

The culture taught them to respect other people’s integrity. Silence is the norm. Silence is the loudest noise in the universe. 

As Einstein said, "Learning is an experience. Everything else is just information."

I respect their situation. Students are emerging from imaginary shells and discarding social context masks with a new sense of love, responsibility, leadership ability, polite manners, teamwork and courage.

They experiment in creative notebooks. I bring objects to sterile classrooms – a yellow leaf, an apple, a feather, rocks, plants, and bouquets of yellow and white daisies.

Smell this.

Draw this and write your feelings.

Your creative notebook will be with you long after textbooks gather dust. It’s your best friend.

Share with your pod people.

It’s a joy to be a small part of their process. Let’s have an adventure.

The 9th graders live in a hostel, sixteen to a room. Sexes don’t mingle, when I shift them to team tables with each other they freeze initially. Patience is my teacher. Say hello. Ask questions about name, family, food. Spark it.

Next week I expose them to Emotional Nourishment. Share hugs. Hold hands. Dance like nobody’s looking.

THE WORKERS

Let’s go.

One day the 12th graders walked down five flights of stairs to sit out of the broiling sun in small groups drawing, sketching, coloring and writing about the workers.

Seventeen young male and female laborers inside the front gate shoveled sand, mixed it with water, carried piles of rocks on their heads to a cement mixer, welded metal and created a new cement floor. Earth needs more floors.

Local teachers couldn’t get their heart around this essential activity. A young student from elementary said teachers nicknamed me Free Man.

Amazing Victory (his English name) a local teacher said he appreciates the students having this opportunity. He said it’s a welcome sight in their system focusing on texts, marks, exams and rote learning.

We returned to the classroom and wrote about the experience. Share details with your partner. How did you feel? What did you smell, hear, visual awareness? Where’s the real education value?

One girl drew the back of a woman in a floral designed Longyi balancing a basket of rocks on her head. Clear description. Her essence. Too shy to share with the class I did it for her.

Look at this amazing art.

Homework – go for a walk with your notebook and colors. No gadgets.

Basics. Ten teachers stay in a hotel. It’s an old funky comfortable place with a blue shimmering swimming pool and well-established interior meditative garden with palm trees, wild flowers, ponds, lotus, ferns, and green life. Birds and cats. Like China 1,000 years ago.

The smiling laundry woman wears red and orange and green tie-dyed blouses. Ebullient. She’s been here thirty-one years. Her ironing skills are immaculate as we converse. I will invite her to come to my classes and teach the kids how to apply gentle pressure to cloth. The young ones will get it.

I wear a Longyi, a form of sarong, the male national dress, every day. Delightful. Soft fabric, thread, colors. Students and teachers appreciate this. Ventilation.

Conservative morose foreign teachers strangle dreams with a tie. Tuck in your shirt. I imagine their classes border on boredom. So it goes. 

AIS prison school where I did the Montessori program for ten weeks is east of town.

I hitch into town for supplies and street photography. This location is central, easy for walking, exploring and connecting with the local community. A bike would be sufficient however it’s too fast for street work and engaging people.

The road is made by walking.

You know how much I love dust.

I enter a pharmacy near Paradise Hospital for powder anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals to add to water.

Where are you from, said the smiling man of Burmese-Indian heritage. Tibet. He got it. Tibet? I see. Yes, I walked here. Come visit again. We can talk. You can be my friend. Ok. See you later.

The camera entered a narrow lane. It passes wooden and bamboo homes with families sitting outside or indoors watching a soapy opera, men reading papers, kids playing, women bathing at a community zone. Draw water.

A plane flew overhead. Three kids sitting on a bamboo platform waved at the plane. Good-bye, ha, ha.

Thanks for your patience, a great teacher.

Truth, love and compassion.

Friday
Apr222016

The Commander's Wife Buys Confectionary

In Shan State, Burma in the long now, there was a running insurgency - land, freedom, peace, justice, jade, teak, gold - golden triangle profit and greed with Chinese dynasties.

A shiny green army pickup truck pulled up at the New Moon bakery in Lashio.

A soldier in green jumped out and opened the door. The wife got out – longhair tied bun tight, white and silver longyi, designer purse, imperial jade necklace, diamond studed serious face.

Six soldiers exited the back of the truck. They were on a mission to liberate cakes, cookies, sweets from glass shrines.

The commander got out. Short, wearing a camouflage jacket like a forest with depressed green pants and black shiny shoes. Epaulets on his shoulder.

His sharp black eyes stared at a stranger scribbling at an outdoor table. Zero expression.

His eyes lay buried in his face with recessed emptiness. The commander's war camo boonie hat sat at a rakish angle folded in the front. Decorated with a golden military symbol of happiness, compassion and love.

His wife climbed into a new sun. Her husband uttered quick syllables to #2.

Number two had military bearing without a care in the world. He barked into a walkie-talkie.

A military policeman guarded the front of the truck. Smoking soldiers stood around as motorcycles loaded with succulent strawberries streamed goodbye.

She exited followed by a salesgirl trundling bags of roles and sweet goodies. A soldier jumped to attention, took them and put them in the truck. She spoke to her husband. His face said he was an obediant child.

He followed her to the market for shopping. Soldiers marched behind the queen.

Years later they returned with strawberries, apples and bananas. Soldiers loaded everything into the truck.

Someone called the commander. He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt. He opened his mouth. Perfect white teeth. He smiled. He barked. A soldier open the door for his wife life. She got in.

He got in and removed his party hat. He smoothed his hair. The military police stopped traffic. They drove into a dream come true.

Wednesday
Apr202016

pen fountain

Sublime beauty near and far
golden butterflies
bamboo homes rolling hills golden rust colored
labor in fields waving raving children

urination

copious food sources, roses

Staring at a writer sitting in tea place cold morning
broken lights curious faces, voices whisper
is doing this
being flowing

“pen fountain” said a laughing boy
standing on a cement slope all the men staring at this transit tori process

The market is excellent.
No foreigners enter hilly labyrinth of morning. A source of fascination.
Zen of sitting nourishment. Monks barefoot meditation. An open hand holds everything. 
Burning coals. Tea.  Fractured light flowing energies.

Character is action.
Tell me a story. At the train stop in Hsipaw 24 lost european souls pulled on their acts

wasted the way onto shoulders
descended to the platform
unloaded packs into tuk-tuk for Golden Dragon hotel.

They took self declined fake images and left.

The lone traveler stayed on the train. It rolled north. The conductor walked through the empty car. He stopped at an empty seat, collected empty plastic water bottles, chopsticks, food wrappers, Styrofoam containers, dreams, nightmares and fantasies mixed with rising expectations, desires and needs.
He dropped everything out an open window.

The train rolled through night.