Day One - Meeting the Pupils and Teachers at CDC.

Welcome Staff Meeting At CDC! on PhotoPeach



 
Wow - feels so amazing but also so surreal to be back at CDC...Miss Lendrum just feels overwhelmed. Went into last year's KG class (you remember 2 hours of maths every afternoon number to 5!) and they launched into 5 Little Ducks - brilliant. It made my year. They have all grown so much and still so gorgeous -yes Mum I've remembered I can't bring any children home.

We had a late start today - with Fried Egg Rice at Auntie's for me and some European cuisine for the others. We then collected our bikes and headed up to CDC for a meeting with the primary teachers where we explained this year's project in fuller depth for those who had not been previously involved. Was lovely to see faces old and new. The fabulous Myoe Nuant did a great job of translating for us.

Seeing as Campie children had asked questions for the CDC children we decided to get the CDC teachers to ask the Campie teachers questions. Some were very hard to answer.
e.g.
How do you teach different levels of the same children in the same class?
How will we carry on working together if the project is not allowed by the UK government?
How do you manage special education students in class?

On our way home we popped into the nursery for an unplanned visit to see the beautifully decorated room that some of the children learn and play in...Ku Paw was pleasantly surprised to see us even though she was heading for a shower!

Only one near miss whilst cycling through Mae Sot...poor Ms Laing hit a long rut in the road and did an amazing emergency stop and jump before hitting a concrete wall. Real 'Wonderwoman' action shot, no photos though as Miss Lendrum was too busy holding on to her handlebars and Miss MacNaughton is a speed demon on her red wheels! Ms Laing is fine and dandy by the way.

We are all very excited to get started tomorrow with an early morning 'I Wonder' assembly at 8:45 - better make sure we get up on time! Oh goodness me...a 6 am alarm call. Ahhhhh! Miss Macnaughton and Miss Lendrum

For me today was very moving. The partnerships are a lot of hard work, jumping through hoops to get the DfID funding and negotiating visas is such depressing hard work as our teachers apply and apply and get refused entry to UK.  Then today, I have the incredible privilege to stand up in front of 21 Burmese and Karen teachers and talk them through the project we have planned together.  We have SO MUCH, they have so little and yet we can come and they listen so attentively to us.  I hope the work we do together in this year helps them as much as their partnership helps us in Scotland.  I feel so humbled and so very lucky to be part of a partnership with the immensely inspiring Burmese people.  Sheila