Kimberella: Part 1

I washed my laundry on Sunday. In a bucket. Outside.

For those of you that have never washed your laundry by hand before (please let me know if you HAVE and if you have any tips on how to make it less energy/time consuming), I have outlined the process in steps for your convenience:

Step 1: Fill bucket with water and detergent.

Step 2: Soak clothes for 20-30 minutes.

Step 3: Wash gently.

Step 4: Rinse....and rinse....and rinse again.

Step 5: Wring out water

(preferably don't do this while you are holding a camera in one hand as wringing is generally considered a two handed activity).

Step 6: Hang up clothes on clotheslines.

Everywhere.

Step 7: When the clothesline snaps because you put one too many pairs of wet jeans on it and all your clothes land in dirt and gecko poop, start again at step one.

Also, try not to swear.

Don't Worry, Be Happy (Ku-ku-ku-Koo-Koo-Koo)

I feel better today. I’ve taught my choir “the cup game,” and it’s been a HUGE hit. Everyone is beyond excited for choir every day, and if I don’t call everyone up for practice, invariably someone will come find me to make sure I know that they want to sing.

I taught Lo Choy his second violin lesson today. He picks things up so darn fast! After we played violin for a while, we got out a guitar and he taught me a few new chords. Wouldn’t it be awesome if I improved my guitar skills while I was out here? My fingers are sore from practicing….it kind of hurts to type.

Some of the twelve/thirteen year old girls invited me to eat lunch with them today. They were full of questions about my family and friends and wanted to see pictures from my home. They think my family is beautiful. Every time they see a picture of Jenna they say, “ooo, Beau-tee-ful, no?” And they start giggling like the girls they are when they see pictures of Jared. They all want to be facebook friends with him now, I think. We played around with photobooth on my Mac while Mimi played with my hair. It was fun to laugh with someone.

It’s been a long week…but today I remembered that the experience I have in this life is ultimately up to me. I choose how react to things that come my way. That doesn’t mean I won’t have hard days….but it means I can learn from them and choose to move on.

Discouraged

I have just finished a very discouraging week. Well….actually, I’m not done yet. I still have a day and a half to go. This week I’ve come to the realization that volunteer work is still work—just as mundane and frustrating as any other job, only you don’t get paid for your efforts.
I just finished trying to teach the group of home-schooled teenagers…impossible. These are the kids that Didi didn’t send to school because she was afraid they would get involved and gangs and drugs. I went in to teach them believing fully that if I just went in there with enough energy and preparation that things would go smoothly. Wrong. These kids are masters at slouching, ignoring, and speaking about things that have nothing to do with the English lesson (although, I can’t honestly say they weren’t, because they were all speaking in a different language). Sigh. I only teach them for the next week until Paul gets back from his visa run in Cambodia….but I really want to TEACH them….not just bore them for an hour every day. I can’t decide if I need to be more creative or more strict—maybe both. I came up with educational games for the kids to play, and they simply refused to cooperate. They seemed to respond better when I had them sit around the table and lectured to them about the subject. Isn’t that a little abnormal? I thought kids were supposed to learn better with hands on, interactive things….I’m really confused.
Also, I’m MAJORLY struggling with the fundraising end of things here. The internet here is not reliable and is often not working for half of the day. The information I need access to is not easily available, and, to make matters worse, I’ve never written a grant before in my life. I’m the only person they have working on fundraising right now, and they’re asking me to raise 21,000 dollars for a tractor before we run out of clean water in March. Needless to say, I’ve been feeling kind of frustrated at times (yes, that was an understatement.)
Why am I here? Am I even making a difference? Can I do this day after day for six whole months?

On a happier note, I saw this the other day:

It made me smile.

Wild Things

4:52

I will never teach 25 nursery kids without another adult ever again. Especially on a roof when I don’t speak the same language that they do. Far too crazy. I didn’t teach them any new songs….simply tried keeping them singing old songs while I prevented them from jumping off the roof and beating each other to death. There were about 5 big bullies in the group—the ones there not to sing, but to terrorize everyone else and to cause mischief of every kind. I tried to send them away, but any time I would ask them to leave, they would grin at me and continue with whatever they were doing—I had to untangle one kid from a headlock that Kong was giving him. Crazy….I was supposed to teach them for an hour, but after 25 minutes, we called it good. Only two kids cried today…I consider it a success.

Here’s a video from the last time the small choir met. Again, I’m probably singing too loudly....and again...I can't get the video to post...so it will have to wait...

Country Mouse

February 1, 2011

3:26 PM

I just finished teaching Malek—the head care mother here. What an incredible woman she is. After we read through a small book called “Country Mouse and Town Mouse,” she told me that she was a country mouse—she did not like the noise and business of the town. I laughed with her about that, and then we continued with our reading. I’ve been reading her “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.” We got half way through chapter two today. I stop a lot to explain words and plot to her…but over all she understands pretty well. Today when we finished reading she told me that she enjoyed the story—it reminds her of when she would climb in bed with her Grandmother and her grandmother would tell her stories that had been passed down for generations. I asked more about Malek’s life and she told me stories about walking to school. Her high school was several hours away in another village, but education was important to her father, so she would make the trek to learn. She couldn’t walk on the roads because they were covered in landmines, so she would trek for a full day through the jungle and then stay in the village for a few days to attend school before trecking back home.

She also told me about the pits that existed in every Myanmar home—a hiding place for when the soldiers came. She told me about being awaken in the middle of the night to the sound of shooting—she wasn’t awake enough to find the door in the floor that led to the pit, so as the soldiers were shooting at her house, she cowered in the corner. She said that after awhile it grew completely quiet, and she wondered if she were dead…after sitting for a few more minutes she realized that the soldiers must have left. She quickly found the pit and stayed there for the remainder of the night. She says it was the worst when they had to hide in the monsoon season. The pit would be muddy and full of mosquitoes—she says she was always afraid that there would be snakes slithering through the mud.

It is a bizarre experience to become friends with someone who has such a different background from me. At home, we don’t like walking to the school half a mile away because it’s too hot—imagine walking for a full day in the jungle to avoid being blown to bits.

Malek expressed to me her gratitude for being able to live here at Baan Unrak and learn English—she says she hopes that one day when the situation is less scary in Burma, she hopes to return to her village and teach them everything she has learned. Again, what an incredible woman.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

On Sunday I went to what everyone calls, “The Cement Stairs,” to watch the sunset.

Not a whole lot of color in the sky that evening, but it was beautiful anyway.

I sat there for a couple of hours watching the floating houses sway on the water. If I were to live in Thailand for a long period of time, I think I’d want to live in the middle of the river like that.

The water would rock you to sleep every night, and you’d be more secluded from the noise of your neighbors than the average Thai family. I think they may even have electricity in their houses—I heard the sounds of a radio or CD player coming from one of them. If not though, I could live by flashlight/lamplight for a while. I even like the idea of having to get into a canoe to go anywhere in town. I love water.

I read to the nursery kids with Paul yesterday (NZ Paul is back in New Zealand now, so I don’t have to keep identifying which Paul I’m talking about). I picked two of my favorite books from the small library we have here: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Where the Wild Things Are.

They were a hit. Especially the first read--for the rest of the day there were little kids running around yelling. “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!!!!”

Didi stopped to talk to me at dinner last night. She’s very excited about the work I’m doing with the children’s choir. She says that School Didi has heard that I’ve started a choir and she wants me to come teach at the school as well. I told Home Didi that I’d be more than willing to teach at the school, but she’s reticent to let me go for fear I won’t be able to teach as much here. How nice to feel wanted! I really hope they let me teach at the school though. With any luck, they’ll have me teaching so much that I won’t have to be stuck in an office trying to figure out how to write a grant proposal!

Here’s a video of the older kid’s choir. I’ve started to teach them “Do a Deer.” This is the video of the first time we sang it all the way through. I think I probably sing too loudly in this video—I guess that’s a result of me trying to lead with my voice since my hands were occupied with a camera......Ok the video is having issues. I'll have to post it at a later date. Stay tuned =)

Wreck

Saturday January, 29 2011

6:05 PM

I just witnessed a motorcycle wreck. Well, I heard it anyway. I was just coming out of my house to head to Teahouse when I heard a loud BANG and a scream. I had just watched a movie about the oppression in Burma, so my first thought was that it was a gunshot…but when I walked past my gate, I saw people running down the street toward a car. I walked past the wreck on my way to the teahouse. The car had apparently hit a motorcycle as it came around the corner. The bike was almost completely under the car, and there were two women a few yards in front of it. About 50 townspeople had already crowded around the wreckage—some were fanning the victims, others were just watching. I felt out of place as a farang, so I didn’t stop and watch with the rest of them. I caught a glimpse of the girl that was nearest to me as I walked by—her face was pretty scraped up and bloody. As far as I could tell, both of them were alive, but I couldn’t make out if they were conscious or not. There were pieces of broken fiberglass (or whatever motorcycles are made of) all around the scene.

This is the fourth wreck that I’ve known about in the last week (not including the car wreck my mom got in at home). Pom-Pom (the lady that did my laundry last week) apparently got in a mini-bus accident a few days ago. The car had flipped over, and she had to go into surgery for her eye. Two volunteers in the area that I know each got into a motorcycle wreck last week as well. I enjoyed my bike ride yesterday, but I think I’ll be more hesitant the next time I get on one—no one even wears helmets in this area. I ran into Gemma (the dog-sanctuary founder) on my way from the scene today and she says that wrecks aren’t usually this common, they just seem to all be happening at the same time. I hope they stop sooner than later.