Just yesterday another exceptional volunteer from Orillia, Tracy Penley, was consoling and trying to cheer Moe Tha Zar a 19 year old who must leave the college today as she had just heard that her mother back in Burma, her last living family member, is terminally ill. Tracy played the Hip Hop music Sarah and Hilary had given and smiles came through the tears, then laughter as we all hopped around the mosquito nets once again.
Cathy at www.projectumbrellaburma.com
THANK YOU SARAH (the picture is the nervous but proud teacher on opening night)
In the past, the month of December for me has usually meant celebrating holidays, being around family, and writing exams for University. This December, I was fortunate enough to spend a month at Kah Tha Blay Junior college volunteering for Project Umbrella Burma, teaching young adults the English language among other things. As much as the experience was completely new to me, a different country, teaching students my own age, palm trees instead of pine, I found that the month's themes for me still held. We celebrated local holidays, became the type of family that comes from sleeping, eating, learning and working together, and there was still an element of education and testing one’s knowledge.
While celebrating Karen New Years and developing close relationships with the students may be easy to compare to holidays and family back home, the theme of education came in more subtle forms than one might expect in a school setting. It is assumed as an English teacher there would have been a fair amount of traditional learning, and while there were formal classes along with teaching the of lyrics to Bryan Adams song of new hip hop dance moves, there was more to the education for me than just teaching the students. Living with them for a month, we were able to educate ourselves on how we relate to this group of peers, who are giving up their family life and their homes to better their future for their families and communities through the opportunities the school provides. While we share common experiences, it is the backgrounds that we come from that frame how we come to them, how they affect us, and how we react to them. This is what I’ve learned we have in common, and how it’s not the same for us:
Everyone enjoys a good campfire! And some start the fire at 5:30am if they're on cooking duty, to make rice and curry for the rest of the school. I feel that if O.D.C.V.I. had requested this of me, my reaction would not have been as willing.
We all wanted to learn a new language, and feel we have to. I struggled very hard to learn the Burmese version of Bryan Adam’s “Baby When You’re Gone” to try and understand Burmese pop, and explained to them our frustrations with never becoming fluent in French. They however, are working on their 3rd and fourth languages, as they are living in Thailand where you need more than Karen, or Burmese. Oh, and some shared their frustrations with not being able to write in their first language because it was mandated by their government that they not be taught it. French doesn’t seem to trying now.
We both just want to be happy. When I taught a lesson on expressing emotions in hopes to get a different answer to “how do you feel?” than “I feel happy!” I found the answer remained the same every time it was asked. It could be argued that the lesson just didn’t sink in that much, or that everyone was genuinely happy every time I asked, but when a student opens up to you about their family living in the mountains for weeks at a time while the military regime burns their village and commits violent acts against their relatives, I can understand how college life is constantly a happy place, a place with food, shelter, free education and friends. I can just begin to understand what it would feel like to admit to the darker emotions that come with the past.
In the girl’s dorm, it's one big sleepover, including calls on cell phones (relatives contribute to these second hand miracles) to friends. The difference here is that we’re sleeping under bug nets to prevent malaria, a privilege many didn’t have in their own villages, and calls to friends may be to tell them they can’t see them after all because their security clearance with the Thai police fell through, and they can’t make through the military checks on the highway. A much different kind of long distance relationship.
There are so many more moments of reality checks I had, realizing that expectations of how life is going to work out, and what to expect from it are different for students like me than those who are Karen, are refugees, and living in Thailand away from their family. A private 2m square cement shower room that shares a wall with a pig pen is a Big Deal, hip hop dancing and Break Dancing on a stage made out of mud and straw is fine… the list really goes on. Essentially, I learned that these students have been through so much in their 18+ years, more than I can begin to understand how they cope with. As a result, they are so appreciative of every aspect college life can bring to them, whether it be the guarantee of rice every day, access to computers and English lessons, or opportunities to contribute to their communities once they have proudly completed their program. I have been reminded by them, and learned from them how to be grateful, how to be family when you’re not near yours, and how to learn as much as you can when someone offers you an education, no matter how hard you must work, and a chance to give something back. I feel that what we learned with Project Umbrella Burma has been the most rewarding education I’ve had in my travels, and hope that I’ve given back fraction of what I’ve taken away.
When saying goodbye after only a short month, I found it more difficult than the ending of any other teaching or camp counselling experience I’ve had. Cathy helped me pinpoint this difference, reminding me that never before have I been worried for the future of the people I’m leaving, and I feel this is true. The lives of these students are so uncertain, and that scares me, but I feel hope for them knowing the support they have been given, and the doors that will open. When we left, a student called the very next day to remind us not to forget them, and that we should meet again. I was feeling exactly the same.
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