Hi friends!
I arrived in Mae Sai on Friday, November 6th. So I've been here for just over a week. The pictures you see are of DEPDC, one of the soccer field and some low mountains, and one of the front of the main building. All the paintings are done by the kids and visiting volunteers- this one was done by a group from a University in Wisconsin that come every summer. The first floor is a meeting area and stage, and you can see the weaving looms in the room behind. The second floor houses all five classrooms, the education office, the foreign department office, and a small presentation/meeting room. The third floor is where the kids living at the Centre live. Tuesday I started classes for the Half Day School (HDS) here. In the mornings, DEPDC provides free schooling to kids in the community and from Myanmar who cannot attend school for a number of reasons (anything from being an 'illegal' migrant, to being 'stateless' --- not having a nationality, for example the hill tribe ethnicities in Thailand who are all born in Thailand yet are not legal citizens, etc --- to not having responsible parents). Some of the kids walk, some of the kids are picked up at the border in the DEPDC big metal school bus, and some are at risk in their homes and so live at the centre. At the HDS the kids are taught Thai (Many kids speak Burmese or hill tribe dialects), English (by me!), science, and math. There are six grades, and each grade gets two English lessons/week. In the afternoons they sometimes have different activities or workshops like cooking, agriculture, and broom-making.
So! In addition to writing grant proposals for the 'foreign committee' (aka the only people able to speak and write comprehensible English- Sarah from America, Jamie from England, and myself) this week, I feel like I have not merely survived, but thrived off my first week being here. Haha, yes. Last week we had a last minute grant proposal due and had to stay at the centre from before nine until after midnight some days... and then on Saturday we had representatives come to see the organization and we put together a presentation for them. I feel like I have been thrown in over my head and am struggling to keep myself from going under... but with everything I learn it gets easier and easier, I guess? This week I am starting my evening classes as well. Every weekday evening I'll teach at the Community Learning Centre (CLC) from six until 8; I think my students are mostly monks? But anyone is welcome, some HDS kids, some parents, etc.
A couple days ago (saam wan tii leeeow-- hmm I think I may be thinking in some Thai now... this is a good sign!) I saw a sign with a cross on it and followed it to see if I could find a Church. I found this warehouse-looking group of buildings and asked if they had Church on Sunday; after about 10 minutes of Thai-glish I learned that yes, there is Church on Sunday, and it is at 10:15. Great :) Yesterday I took my bike to the Church again and learned that it was actually a Christian mission boarding school for kids from hill tribes that had no access to education (its quite a huge problem in Thailand; women and children from hill tribe ethnicities are usually the most vulnerable to be exploited because there are so many factors working against them). I sat with a girl who greeted me and we sang contemporary songs that I didn't recognize; we then took out hymnals that were in Thai but had English titles! I hummed along to 'Come Thou Font of Every Blessing' and 'To God Be the Glory' and sung the English words I remembered. Oh, but then all the kids got up to sing at the front... in complete choir formation, multiple harmonies and different parts, these kids sounded like angels... I had tears running down my cheeks as I listened. I want to video or tape them so you can hear. Ach, amazing. Some girls showed me where they lived and slept, I ate lunch with the school teachers, and spent the afternoon talking and showing some of the girls how to knit under some trees in the yard. Hm. It was a good day. I promised I would come back next Sunday :). God is really, really good. Thank-you for praying :).
I am also really enjoying living with Sarah! Haha, I think I am so adaptable ;). I feel at home here already... Last night Sarah and I went to the Sunday market and to the Tesco Lotus for groceries, and then biked to our milk man's stall to get sweetened hot milk.. yum :). I also found a fresh market last week that has these... molasses/raw sugar rice pita things that I have fallen in love with. A little old lady cooks on a grill over a flower pot filled with coals. I have woken up an hour early a couple morning last week just to have one for breakfast :). I like having a milk man, a mollasses-pita lady, and the lady who also seems to buy molasses-pitas at the same time as me. I like seeing people I know from the Centre (and now from Church!) at the market and in town. I like being familiar to the couple who makes sushi at the market, and the woman who comes to clean our house. I like feeling at home :). Maybe it is my unconscious goal to be a 'local' everywhere I go... To sink myself into a community and a culture, yet live and learn with all the experience I've had in my previous and continuous communities and cultures.
One thing I love about the East Coast is how relaxed it is. No one seems to be in a hurry, and people always go out of their way to help you... I go to school there now, but when my family and I went to Nova Scotia a couple years ago, we decided we would be 'Nova Scotian' from then on. We loved the peaceful and un-rushed culture that it seemed to be. Take that... and multiply it by ten, and you will have a sense of the un-rushed culture that I live in right now. I was walking to an English lesson the other day and told Sarah, 'oh! I always feel like I'm rushing when I'm walking with anyone else!', Sarah, who has lived here for four months already, replied nonchalantly, 'That's because you are rushing.' *sigh. It's not about being productive, it's about building relationships. I hope I will learn this lesson well enough here to have it become a permanent part of me... or maybe learn to not rush/needlessly busy myself and still be productive (mm.. yes this would be good). Maybe we feel like we have to justify our existence by always having somewhere to be, somewhere we just came from, and so many things we have to do at one time. Hmm. I think I still have a long way to go ;).
Okay friends, next time I let it go for so long I'll make sure to put up little notes just to say I'm okay... I got a couple notes wondering if I had dropped off the planet or something, haha. Thanks for your care! It means so much to me to be loved!
Blessings friends,
Nicola
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