Thursday 8 January 2015

After all the hype and excitement of the last few days, we decided relaxation was the order of the day! After breakfast we headed down the street for a foot massage! There was only one girl in the shop but she was soon on the phone with two more girls. What a wonderful hour. These girls are so strong! 

Jan and Liz ended up with about an hour and a half, but my girl was a clock watcher and I got exactly one hour! But for $8 you can't complain! The 10 minutes she worked on my neck broke up all the knots and I now have so much movement that I didn't have before!

Back at Baan Thai, I worked on my blog trying to catch up and late in the afternoon I succeeded! We then went for a walk to get a Hot Chocolate at Hazel! Liz and Andrew took another path and were to meet us there but we didn't see them so we walked back. Only to see the car gone....Thant said they were out looking for us! Evidently since we weren't there when they got there, they came back to the guest house. (We had stopped at a shop to look for reading books for the kids at Blah Toh!)

We decided to go to the Bar B Que restaurant...all you can eat for 289BHT or about $11 which is very expensive compared to what we have been paying (most nights dinner for 6 is about $30)

They have long tables of food to choose from and bar b que's on each table. So the vegetables go in the water around the plate and the meat is cooked on the top plate!

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Today is our last day at the school. So sad...  We got to the school and the teacher gave Liz and I Karen shirts. They were so nice but the amazing thing was that Naw Day Wah had hand woven the tops! How special was that!

Some of the children wore the clothes that we had given them...for a second day. They get so dirty! 

When we arrived, one of the tiniest children headed for the truck. Someone must have lifted him up into the truck and he promptly fell asleep. He was just burning up with a fever, had a very rattley chest and pus coming out of one ear. Liz and I took him into the teachers house and kept bathing him with cool water and also to try and clean him up. He didn't even wake up while we were washing him, but you could see he was resting more easily. That brought the temperature down a little bit so we let him sleep. At lunch his brother took him to his grandfathers house and when the mother came home they were going to tell her to take him to the clinic, so hopefully she does that.

The children sang several songs for us, in English and Karen and also the Karen National Anthem (they all stand at attention). Some of them put so much enthusiasm into it!

Then they put a play on for us...Goldilocks and the Three Bears...and all in English! We were impressed! They did such a good job, it was a great presentation!

This was when the three bears returned and were tasting their porridge!

We unpacked more things for the teacher and the children. We had bought 25 pairs of thongs at $1.50 each and did a pretty good job of getting the sizes right! 

Most of the children did not go home for lunch so we played games, sharpened the pencils we brought with the new pencil sharpener and put things away in the new drawers.

And even did the chicken dance!

Last time down the 30 min ride on the dirt track, and we made it back to Mae Sot in record time. Nearly 6 hrs to get there and only 3 1/2 to get back...a bit of a hair raising trip around the corners!

Couldn't wait to have a hot shower! All the dirty clothes in a plastic bag and I'll get them washed...might cost me all of $3! Wish I could bring Ah Noh home with me!

Tuesday 6 January 2015

Plenty of shopping to do today! We are cooking lunch for the students...pumpkin Dahl curry and rice. So we bought onions, garlic, curry powder, Dahl and rice as well as a cooker which is like a concrete ring that you build a fire in. 

Great way to cook...no power at Blah Toh! So we chopped carrot on a hunk of wood and cut up pumpkin on a long saw horse with knives that looked like machetes. The soldiers at the border had given us about 8 pumpkins. 

As we fed 24 children with one large pumpkin, the teacher will have food for ages, as we also bought too much Dahl! We sautéed the garlic and onion then added 6 huge spoons of chilli powder (this was for the children not us!) threw in the pumpkin and carrots and enough water to cover. We made a gigantic pot and only had one bowl left.

I couldn't believe how much these kids eat! Even the three yr olds ate 2 cups of rice and nearly 2 cups of curry. Some of the older children had two serves...I couldn't have even finished one of the serves that we gave the kids. 

Then they took their plates and washed and dried them...without even being asked...well trained!

We had some tempura batter so we dipped bananas and green papaya and fried them for an afternoon treat for the children. 

While we were cooking, Jan and the teacher sorted out all the clothes that we had brought over and gave them to the children. Of course they all tried them on!

Hopefully one day the school we be able to grow enough vegetables to have lunch at school. The vege garden is looking good. That was one of the projects we organized, but first they had to build a fence to keep the animals out!

We see several of these "trucks" around. This is how we crossed the river border last time to go to Karen New Year. They hook up a tractor engine and a large steel A-frame to the wheels and put some timber slats on the back.  The driver pushes the A-frame left or right to steer. If he wants to make a sharp left or right he has to hop off and push the A-frame all the way out! It looks so funny but it is very practical especially in the rainy season!

Again, the children didn't want to go home so about 4:30 we bundled them all into the back of the truck to take them for the short ride to the end of their road! They get so excited about the smallest things!!

We had a horrible nights sleep. The walls are paper thin...you can actually see the light from next door through the timber cracks in the wall. Next door had their TV on until 2am. You could actually hear the ice clinking in their drinks as they drank.

Monday 5 January, 2015

Today we headed for Blah Toh, the area in the Karen State of Burma (Myanmar) where our school is located. The vehicles are packed with everything that we bought yesterday! The children and the teacher just love it when we bring things for the school! 

The trip is an arduous journey. Only about 150km from Mae Sot but it took us 5 1/2hrs as is a very bumpy road that has over 1200 curves and corners. Jan drives as it doesn't upset her stomach so much.

We arrived at about 2 and the children had a huge welcome sign on the front of the school to welcome us! 

They were so excited to see us...we get so many hugs from them! They are all so helpful and made light work of all the equipment and school supplies we had managing the steep steps with ease!

Two years ago when I was here, I took lots of photos of the students and different things around. I had the photos printed in 8x10 and made photo books. I wrote the sentences in English and sent them to a teacher in Mae Sot at the special school who translated them into Karen and Thai then sent them back to me so I could print them off and glue them in the books. The teacher must use the books often as they could remember the English words! 

The students learn Karen, Thai and English. Two years ago, the children knew no English. now most of them can count in English as well as say their colours in English. All greetings are done in English and they are able to understand simple directions. The teacher has done a marvelous job with the children!

We always buy games and equipment that we know the children will enjoy and learn from! I think we get just as much fun buying as the kids do playing (and of course we get to play too!)

We also bought a bike ($40) for the kids and plenty of sporting equipment! 

The children usually go home at 3 but it was 4:30 when we took off so that the kids would go home as they didn't want to leave us. We headed back to Umphang to a place that we stay. Such a lovely place, like a tropical rainforest and I love all the flowers there!!

Had a shower as Blah Toh is so dusty, then we went to find dinner! Came back and hit the sack, tiring day!

Saturday 3 /Sun 4 January 2015

Today we went to Borderline Book store and tea shop for breakfast as the other places we thought of were closed. This place supports Burmese living in Thailand and sells goods made by Burmese women.nafter breakfast we had a Burmese Cooking class in their kitchen. Jan and I had done the class two years ago but we chose some different dishes so learned some new things. We chose a Mandalay Noodle Salad, coconut pancakes, Dahl and vegetable curry and a banana honey drink. 

We then went to the markets and Saturday is certainly shopping day. Cars, trucks, motorcycles all compete with the bicyclists and people walking! Dodgem is the name of the game!

The variety of the markets is amazing and there are all different sections, Thai, Burmese, Chinese etc. we bought the ingredients for the meals we are going to make then stopped at a tea house for some local delicacies, a custard pudding after mimosas and little duck pies. So many things that we would just not eat...they eat all parts of everything. We saw some little turtles, toads, cockroaches and chickens with all their insides next to the meat. The picture just above is dried shrimp! Back to the kitchen and start preparations! But we made so much! Even after the four of us plus Maung Maung Tin who came for lunch, it looked like we hadn't touched a thing! 

Headed back to the guest house for a massage! Heaven! 

The night markets were on so we wandered through them,,,so many different types of food, sweet and savory and so crowded!

We then went to Canadian Daves for dinner...a Canadian who came to Mae Sot, married a Thai lady, opened a restaurant and never looked back. I was so full from tasting goodies all morning and then eating what we made for lunch, I could hardly eat another thing so I just had a bagel and cream cheese for dinner.

This morning was shopping day after a Karen breakfast of things I have no idea of, but they all tasted nice, soups and noodles and tempura tofu.

We made a list of things that we needed for Blah Toh and off we went, spending money and filling two large trolleys quite full and only spent about $400. Then off to buy a guitar ($40) and storage containers. Wish things were this cheap at home!

The others had massages while I packed most everything in the storage containers so that we will have room for everything and everyone when we go to Blah Toh tomorrow.

Tonight we are having tea here at the guest house that we will order from a small place that we wanted to go to the other night but the smoke in the place was not going to make for a nice meal. And what a feast! Again my resolution is to try all so I had fish cakes, cashew and pork hoisin, steamed ginger fish with lemongrass, sweet and sour prawns, coconut and chilli soup and a very very spicy hot pork soup with noodles.

To say the least we certainly enjoyed the feast! Notice the roll of "serviettes" that Karen people use!!

Off to Blah Toh school in the morning.