The final day

We can hardly believe we have just spent our last day at Say Ta Nar. We have enjoyed every moment with the children and teachers. The children remembered to hand in their cameras and it will be interesting to see their photographs this year.

The Say Ta Nar Get Together was memorable. We enjoyed having our Hlee Bee visitors, Irvine and Fiona, to visit us and with their help we have taken a video of lots of the wonderful singing by children and teachers to show at our first Pirniehall Get Together in August. We loved the Burmese singing as Pho Cho played the guitar and I know he writes some of the songs himself. We are amazed at how many `Fischy Music` songs the children have learned in such a short time and they sang with all the actions. What a performance! We noticed they go around in their free time singing and acting out the songs!

'Get Together' at Say Ta Nar

We inserviced all the Burmese teachers on our Emotional Literacy project with Pho Cho translating and it was great to see how much they were nodding and were agreeing with the philosophy. They felt it was very similar to the work they had done on critical thinking skills and we agreed as we had been to a presentation by Dr Thein Lwin when he was in Forthview school. Therefore both schools are working together in many ways and both have children at the heart of everything they do. We felt happy with this exchange of information and were able to pay the teachers a small amount for participating in the session. We enjoyed food and drinks together.

We were sad to hear that Emily had hurt her foot and was in hospital last night. Pho Cho and Neesha went to the hospital to see her this morning and reported she is improving. We wish her well and know she will enjoy the rest of her time in Say Ta Nar.


Sharing food after the Emotional Literacy In-Service

The children`s etchings from Pirniehall, Say Ta Nar, Forthview and Hlee Bee have now been published and all the schools have their own copies to enjoy with their children. There will be a Burma Book exhibition at Borderline Gallery organised by an artist friend to Forthview and Pirniehall. Pho Cho will speak at the opening but unfortunately it takes place tomorrow evening when other visitors arrive and the Pirnie team will miss it as we will be on the only bus out of Mae Sot that day heading for Chiang Mai. We know the Forthview team will video it and take photographs so that we can share with Pirniehall. There was a similar exhibition of etchings in Edinburgh when Mark Lazarowicz praised all the children for their impressive work.

At Borderline Gallery

Pirniehall children with their Burma books

With a mixture of sadness and pride, we waved our lovely children off clutching their bag of goodies from their Scottish teachers...we think the lollipops and sweets were the most popular! They want us to come back soon and told us in an informal question and answer session how much they enjoyed our visit and thanked the teachers for all their learning.

Our last moments together

I feel that we three made a great team and I have been impressed by Natasha and Claire's skills in planning and implementing dynamic, interactive lessons which have extended the work from the initial visit last year. The children have been noticeably engaged in their learning and have shown enthusiasm for all their tasks which has delighted their Scottish teachers. I cannot praise the girls enough for their commitment and contribution to our Global partnership.

We shared our final end of day drinks and chats. We were presented with our wonderful Longhis which we loved wearing. We shared our own personal gifts and a gift from the Pirniehall community. We discussed Rita, an invaluable volunteer member of Pirniehall staff and her family and how much they admired Say Ta Nar and the great work going on there. Pho Cho and Neesha have sent a lovely message back for them.

Thank you Rita and family.

Leaving a mind mapping resource

We all enjoyed our last hour together sharing thoughts and reflecting on our experiences and knew that this was just farewell for this year and not goodbye and that our partnership would continue to flourish. We got on our trusty bikes and gave an emotional wave as we left the gates of Say Ta Nar and went home to pack, ready to start on the first leg of our journey back to Scotland tomorrow.

We would like to thank Pho Cho, Neesha and family for their outstanding hospitality and for making us feel like a valuable part of the Say Ta Nar family. We are missing you already!

The last journey on our bikes - bye, bye Charly Cho!

Can it be Tuesday already?

We feel a creeping sadness setting in. We are part of the Say Ta Nar family and are in comfortable routines preparing for school, working with the children and teachers, waving them all off at the end of the day and then sitting with Pho Cho and his family. We are already organised with leaving presents and have bought storage containers to hold all the resources we have brought with us. Tomorrow will be difficult!

There were Italian visitors in school this morning from the charity supporting Say Ta Nar. They were impressed with the school and the Scottish link and were soon admiring the display of abstract art. They observed Claire and Natasha leading maths games with the kindergarten supported by the Burmese teachers. Neesha, Pho Cho and Emily were all teaching this morning.

Neesha teaching

I sat with Pho Cho on the computer and we opened up the blog and talked about all the good work and joint projects that both schools were co-operating on. Pho cho and Neesha both enjoyed the photographs and we agreed that we looked forward to the future and working together for our children. We then talked about our Eco Green Flag and were able to show the North Edinburgh Newspaper article with our flag flying and Malcolm Chisolm and Tom Farmer who joined us for the opening celebration.

Look at the article below at:

www.northedinburghnews.co.uk/assets/pdf/2009/feb09.pdf

This lead on to talking about raising awareness of the Burmese situation and we talked about Mark Lazarowicz and his support of the two Global Partnership schools in North Edinburgh. Amazingly we were able to access Mark`s blog and show a picture of Pirniehall children holding the Burmese book we feature in with Say Ta Nar, Forthview and Hlee Bee. Pho Cho had a copy in school and was impressed to see this. I know Mark reads our blogs and we told Pho Cho that he would be happy to see that a Headteacher of a refugee school on the Thai/Burmese border was reading his blog!

Mary and Pho Cho sharing the blogs and news article.

Pho Cho has been writing an Environmental/Social Studies textbook for five years which has now been published and a copy is in every refugee school in Mae Sot. Dr Thein Lwin has written his praise and support for Pho Cho in the introduction. We are all very proud of Pho Cho who is a forward thinking professional who is passionate about education and the rights of every child. He would like to address the UN and I think he could achieve that one day.

Pho Cho's book

There was a lovely relaxed atmosphere as we ate another great lunch of Thai fish, hot chilli sauce and an intriguing prawn dish which became a talking point. Claire's face was a picture as we encouraged her to try it!

There were two main teaching tasks in the afternoon , one discussing Aung San Suu Kyi and the other a chalk art lesson about hands linking our two communities and this will be replicated in classes in Pirniehall next session. Pho Cho enjoyed seeing how involved the children were in their discussions. The children were happy to receive the photographs that they took last year. The day ended with an upper school singalong and everyone joined in as Claire lead us with her usual enthusiasm. Charly Cho was demonstrating the actions for all to see!

Showing off their work and enjoying seeing their photographs.

After waving the children off, Scottish and Burmese teachers sat and drank coffee together and munched on shortbread biscuits. We chatted and laughed together as good friends would and just savoured the moment.

A quieter Monday

What a hectic weekend we had! But we loved it! On Sunday evening we enjoyed meeting up with our Forthview friends Sheila and her husband Geoff , Fiona and Irvine who are teaching at Hlee Bee school. They had just arrived after spending time in Chiang Mai with Dr Thein Lwin at his migrant learning centre. It was raining heavily and we wore our less than attractive raincoats for the first time. We enjoyed a laugh together as we shared stories about our experiences so far. Sheila , Geoff and Fiona have been here before but Irvine was just getting used to life in Mae Sot and looking forward to meeting the Hlee Bee pupils. Fiona who is an old (but young really!)hand at teaching at Hlee Bee will make sure he is making himself comfortable!

Looking good!

Natasha and Claire went straight to school after breakfast and I cruised the streets looking for the mini Tesco`s (yes there is one here!) and a place to buy bus tickets for Chiang Mai.

When I arrived at Say Ta Nar there was already evidence of good Pirniehall practice. The girls were teaching the kindergarten children, rotating three different groups and had introduced alphabet cards and games. The kindergarten teachers were able to observe different activities.

Interactive learning in the kindergarten

Meanwhile upstairs Pho Cho was teaching a science lesson and we met the Canadian volunteer Emily, in the adjoining room, and she told us she is with the Mae Sot Education Project and will be at Say Ta Nar until December. She is enjoying her pupils and her time in Mae Sot. While the children ate lunch we then all sat round and chatted as we were fed by Neesha and were joined by the Burmese teachers.

Pho Cho teaches science and Emily with her students

Another delicious lunch!

In the afternoon Pho Cho was able to see Claire and Natasha involve the children in simple mind mapping to organise their thoughts prior to writing. He commented to me as he was watching that he could have used the whiteboards in the morning when he was teaching his science lesson. He understood the value and we think he will soon be making good use of these boards in future teaching tasks. The children loved their afternoon of language games and drawing charcoal portraits of each other.

Developing active-learning skills

A special visit to a Karen refugee camp

We felt privileged to be invited to visit a Karen refugee camp today with our Burmese friends.It was a 7.00am start which is not our best time of day but we made it in time. We needed to show passports at a checkpoint and our friends showed their work permits. The two hour journey passed quickly and we were soon approaching the first section of the camp which was zone A. There were two further zones and we were stunned at the size of the camp which holds 30,000 refugees. Each zone holds 10,000 people!

Entering Camp

We entered the gates and were immediately met by our friend's father who has an important role here and wound our way through the camp, passing fresh food stalls, bamboo houses, a wide variety of interesting stalls-in fact everything you might see in a town or village. Smiling faces greeted us everywhere.

Stalls

We felt relaxed and welcomed. The amazing Burmese refugees have built up a warm and caring community where everyone knows and supports each other.There is a hospital in camp as well as many schools and additional facilities like barbers and dressmakers. Resourceful families have thought of every need as some of them they have lived in camp for 20 years!

School Life

We were invited on a tour of the camp and visited a number of schools where teachers and a nursery headteacher graciously showed us where their pupils learn and pointed out a shared football and play area.

Open Space for Sports

We received outstanding hospitality and are truly overwhelmed by this experience. We are so thankful to our friends for taking time to share this day with us.

These photographs will give you a snapshot of our unforgettable day . However, we must not forget that these refugee families have been forced to leave their own country and are displaced people who have lost their freedom and many of their human rights. As we left the camp we knew that they had not lost their dignity or hope for their childrens future.

Community Spirit

Arriving home on the back of a motorbike-taxi!

Across the Freedom Bridge to Burma

It's the weekend already and we have planned to visit Dr Cynthias clinic as we have heard so many inspiring stories about the dedicated help and treatment that all Burmese people receive here. Patients come from all over, including Mae Sot and many risk coming across from Burma to benefit from the free medical care and much needed medicine. We were humbled to see this great work in action and as it was vaccination day we saw lots of mums and new born babies waiting for innoculations.

World renowned Dr Cynthias clinic

We witnessed a number of disturbing sights from the bus as we headed to the Freedom Bridge and we have spent time talking about this and trying to make sense of it all. Clutching our passports we passed through the Tak immigration checkpoint and walked over into Burma or the union of Myanmar as it is now called.

Passing through immigration into Myanmar

We moved on to the next checkpoint and paid for a days visa and the officials took our passports to ensure our return. To say that we were a little disconcerted to hand over our passports is an understatement. However as we had no choice we forced ourselves out of the office still not convinced! We then had our temperatures taken to detect if we had swine flu! As I had a Thai phone with me I then quickly phoned an American resident I had made a connection with last year and was reassured to hear this was normal practice. Feeling relieved we walked for miles in the scorching heat to absorb this new experience...we were actually in Burma!

We spotted a Bhuddist temple and went in to enjoy some peace and calm from the bustling streets. We were soon surrounded by lots of lovely children in smart uniforms obviously on a lunch break from the local school.

Relaxing at lunchtime in the temple.

We followed the trail of children back to The Basic Education High School in the hope of meeting some teachers and introducing ourselves and talking about Say Ta Nar. The children were mesmerised by us and we caused real excitement on the campus. Children were waving to us and giggling around us and pointing fingers as we tried to find their teachers. We did eventually find three teachers but they were unable to speak English and had no idea what we were trying to say and looked bemused. Disappointed at this we realised we should leave and with a smile and our best 'Mingla Ba' we continued on our journey.

The Basic Education High School

We moved further into town hoping to get a better sense of the every day communities and we were not disappointed. We saw lots of the market stalls and streets where families were living and again we were a source of amazement for many people who smiled and shouted to us on our travels.

Some sights from our travels

We heard the lovely singing voices of children and we were soon standing outside a Bhuddist school. We were so pleased to have discovered two schools in the three hours we stayed across the border.

The local Buddist school

After collecting our precious passports we had our temperatures taken again and we were informed by the clerk that we were 'normal'. Little did he know! We wondered if we would have been sent back if we had had a temperature.

Under the bridge

We struggled across the bridge flagging in the heat and saw a family in a tyre making their way towards the Thai border. This is a sight I witnessed last year as families try to find a better life for their children. There are so many harrowing sights around the area of the Friendship Bridge and we found ourselves feeling quite emotional and reflective about everything we had experienced. A Saturday we will not forget.