painting for peace

Last Friday my CLC class of Novice Monks and I chatted about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and what that means to us.

On Monday we finished our lesson 15 minutes after class was supposed to be finished. They had completed their 1 1/2 hour English exam (with flying colours... I just marked them) and listened to a song that my friend Andrew had made from a poem La (one of the students) had liked.

When class was over (late, as always), they still sat. Moei asked if we could read the four points of the UDHR again that I had introduced on Friday. We read them all together again, and I assigned their last journal article, to be handed in today, Wednesday. Just... their thoughts :)

Human rights have useful to people. If not have human right. It must be born sell people and buy people. The people not have rights. The people don't obey each other. don't understand each other. If not have nationality don't know who is who. who live where. If not have Universal Declaration if must born World War III. Universal Declaration important to people. - Moei

My country don't a rights and free. because. My country is communist. don't have dignity and rights. the residents of a country don't is rights election as not equal same other country. I wan my country Burma all people are born equal, free, and have dignity and rights.
- Dang

Tonight, Wednesday night, was our last night together. On Saturday morning I am leaving for Laos with the DEPDC team until I fly out next Thursday. We went over the tests from Monday, learned one more article from the UDHR concerning the right to genuine elections (in light of Myanmar's upcoming election), and then spent the rest of the class painting our thoughts towards the human rights lesson content. Dang said he had never painted before, and so we all learned together, how to mix colours, to clean the brushes in the water before we used them again, and how to spray the paper to make little dots all over (La had fun with this... he's the smiling one spraying his paper with green paint). They painted the little cd cases I had made for them (I burned each a cd of songs we had used in class) and pieces of canvas an artist had given me in Chiang Mai. Most of them painted the Shan flag. Shan is their nationality, even though they are from Myanmar. Because they're not ethnic Burmese or ethnic Thai neither country will give them citizenship. Here, they are termed, 'stateless', or 'undocumented'. There are many minority ethnicities/nationalities in Thailand and Myanmar, all whom aren't citizens of any recognized country. "If not have nationality don't know who is who. who live where." Hm. Man, these are some smart monks. I feel so honoured to have been their teacher. I hope you have also been blessed by the reflection, peace, simplicity, and quiet learning these teenage boys continually demonstrate.