MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 Our Christmas tree :)

Aw they are getting all grown up!

The Right to Education

Well Hello! I know its been a while! Paul and I have our Christmas tree up with lights, decorations, and of course many many presents (with make shift, random, and recycled wrapping of course)...I hope you all are gearing up for lovely holidays with friends and family!

Life has been moving along here. Paul and I are going to Sri Lanka for three weeks in Jan/Feb for a bit of learning, exploring, and surfing.

As for teaching, things are going really well! Aside from loads of super fun 'gigigam' (thai for activities) Lydia and I ran our first workshop with the teenage classes: Self Esteem Building. The teens seemed to enjoy it and Lydia and I learned quite a bit about our students! We also handed out questionnaires so that we can get to know them better and prepare future workshop topics.

Questions included:

'Where do you see yourself in 5 years?', 'Who inspires you?', 'If you could do anything you wanted in one day what would you do?'...etc.

Most of the kids answered that in 5 years time they wish to be studying...which puts them at university level and is such a wonderful thing to hear. When the BRP was started none of the kids were in local schools. Roj and Kaan, two former BRP social workers had started a school called 'The Rainbow School' and after a few years the BRP was able to get most kids accepted at local schools. As you can imagine this was a struggle for many parents for a lot of reasons...fear of authority, not wanting to lose people to help around the house, help make money for the family, etc.

Now 10 years later most of the teens are doing very well in high school and hopefully at least a few of them will be able to go on to University. One obstacle in the way is the recieving of completion certificates (diplomas). Currently at the schools in town Shan students are not given certificates upon completion. This means that their chances of going to Unviersity, regardless of how smart they are, are limited. The only Universities known at the moment by the BRP to accept students without certificates are Christian schools that discriminate against non Christians. One option is to move kids to boarding high schools/international high schools that give certificates to everyone, but this of course is a big decision as well. Hopefully this will be possible in the future...it goes to show you how LUCKY all of us with citizenship to a country and financial oppurtuinty (even when it often seems like we don't, we really do!) are to be able to study to whatever level we choose, in whichever state or country we choose. Hopefully the world will someday see a day where everybody is given this oppurtunity.

 Older girls classroom in front of my house

 Animal Camo/Cubism Painting

Tie Dye

 Picture Frame Making Project!!!

Surprise!

 

The Sharecropping Village planned a surprise party for Lydia...here are some pictures to share!

 

Post Frosting Fight!!

How to love chaos...

Wow Im exhausted, what a wonderful but crazy week. After doing catch up with two classes after Loi Krathong I left myself a tad bit unprepared for the younger kids and with my lovely co-teacher sick it made for some crazy classes with the older kids as well! Not only am I getting an idea of what its like to be a teacher (constant planning and more planning...and after thats done more planning) I am facing many more hurdles teaching art (and crafts) that I didn't get last year while teaching English. Heres a little look at my last weekend...

Thursday: Rock Village Younger...so tired from the rest of the week that I planned something simple, stamping and coloring followed by balloon animal making (their favorite) Lesson learned: check the balloon pump before class...it was broken and balloon animal making didn't happen ... and language barriers are much more difficult when the kids are disappointed!!

Friday: Bulumburri Village Mixed...showed up...one kid doing homework and two kids MIA...class canceled

Saturday: Rock Village Older...first day that the older girls came to my house for class. We finished making our sketchbooks and did some light hearted candle making...an easy project without Lydia to translate!...Strange Run-ins: (1) Neighbors Golden Retriever comes to visit and insists on humping my leg while I am showing the girls what to do next...the only way to escape was to lock myself in my house until the dog left. (2) caught my bamboo porch on fire trying to melt the gel for the candles!

Saturday: Sharecropping Older...We finished making our sketchbooks and due to a quick run from the earlier class to this class we ended up making fudge afterward instead of candles. Village challenges: passing a baby between two students and me while working with "adult" glue, scissors, fire, and molten chocolate.

Sunday: Sharecropping Younger...We made stainded class candle holders using tissue paper and tissue paper flowers...only 1 minor hiccup: no classroom = if you forget something you have to go without or run to town!

 My favorite raccoon faced kitten, Hiccup

 T finishing up her sketchbook

 Enjoy your fudge much?

Smile!

And now to begin all over again tomorrow!

Peace, Love, and Popsicles,

Michelle

World Aids Day and Burma

Often times the rights of individuals and minority groups get forgotten amidst country-wide oppression and abuse. On this Aids Day (yesterday for some of us) let us not forget those that are experiencing compounded human rights abuses.

Follow this link to an 'Irrawaddy' article on Aids in Burma:
Aids Day Highlights Plight of Burma's Sufferers

xx Michelle

Pictures to share from Loi Krathong :)

 After collecting banana leaves, banana trunk, and flowers the kids taught us to make Krathongs...

 After dark they are taken down to the river to have hair, fingernails, candles, incense and money added to them and then floated down the river. Hair, nails, and money are added to get rid of different amounts of bad karma.

 Lanterns are set off for good luck.

A parade goes through town with floats from different groups and villages.

A bit of a catch up!

Eeek! I am very much behind on my updates due to a bout of food poisoning last week!! I have had a very successful first two weeks of classes. The older classes have enjoyed jewellery making and hand sewing and binding their own cloth sketchbooks to use throughout the classes (pictures to come soon! they are so talented!) and the younger kids have enjoyed bead animal making and squishy balloon face making!

I am trying to ease everyone into the "individual creativity" side of things (hm does that phrase make sense?) As I may have mentioned before in Thai culture the teacher is one of the most respected persons in a child's life...you do not talk back or correct a teacher even if they are wrong. At least here in Pai, the schools seem to teach in a military style leading students to take in the teachers beliefs instead of creating their own. This seems to result in Thai children struggling immensely with individual thought and creativity...and the effect this has on art classes? All the kids copy the demo or choose to do things identical to the person they most look up to in the group and when given a task many kids often say that they cannot do it before trying. I am hoping that as time goes on the art projects encourage a bit of self-confidence and individual creativity. Of course the Thai value of respecting their teachers is a very important and positive thing, but it would be wonderful for the kids to be able to uphold these values as well as grow into self-confident individuals. :)

Off to make Krathongs for Loi Krathong...wikipedia it :)

Love, Peace, and Popsicles,

Michelle

Aung San Suu Kyi is released: Nov 13

 

Click on each picture of Aung San Suu Kyi to be directed to an article published since her release. 

As many of you may know Aung San Suu Kyi has been emprisoned for the majority of the past 20 years since she won the general elections. Instead of becoming Burma's Prime Minister the military refused to turn over power and Suu Kyi was put under house arrest.  Suu Kyi is not just a major human rights figure in Burma, but throughout the world.

Quick the powers back on!!!!!

AHHH! Coming to a close on week two and its been a good mix of crazy busy and relaxing. Here are a few highlights of being back:

-Seeing the kids and old friends and meeting new ones
-The 'Bum Gun'I mean really who needs toilet paper?
-Panaeng Curry
-Endless baby kittens
-Hammocks
-A stocked beer fridge
-Campfires
-Motorbikes
-Changes to practice speaking Thai

 I have been to all three villages for a visit, have done some face painting with many of the kids, and taught the older rock village kids during their English lesson. Last year I began English classes with a friend Lydia to the kids in the Rock village and Lydia carried on after I left. When we began most kids didn't know even a handful of English words and now they are well on their way to reading, writing, and speaking!

This past week has been full of chores. I had to take a trip back into the city (Chaing Mai) to get some arts and crafts supplies as you can't find much in Pai. After running around (and getting my very botched and very very basic Thai into the game) I was able to find a lot of weeks worth of art supplies without too much hassle...Unfortunetly my dreams of doing ceramics and building a wheel and a kiln are looking impossible due to not being able to find clay ANYWHERE! But alas there are so many fun things to do and the older students seem very keen on jewelry making, tie dye, screen printing and baking!! On top of getting ready for teaching Paul and I have been looking around for a cheap bike (fail) and a house to rent (we move in in 5 days).

I start teaching on Saturday and will get into a regular schedule...its looking like I will have 5 classes: 2 older, 2 younger, and one mixed between fridays and mondays. As I get back into it Lydia and I will be adding in educational and health workshops. Ok thats enough to bore you for a while! Fun blogs ahead as the adventures begin!

Love, Peace, and Posicles,

Michelle Emry

:) Mai Soong Ka

Mai Soong Ka...'Hello' in Shan :)

After 48 hours straight travel...plane...wait...plane...wait...bus...bus...buuuuussss...bus...I have arrived back in Pai. I have spent the week searching for a house to rent with Paul, and possible bike to buy (not much more than renting + the rentals available are a bit dodgey these days). I went back to the Rock Village (where I worked last year) to surprise the kids with face paints...so wonderful to hear their laughter again...and plan to meet the other two villages on the weekend. Enjoy a few pictures below and I will write soon, hopefully with a bit more of an exciting humorous story-telling edge! For now I continue to recover from the jet-lag!! Happiness to you all! x x

  No matter how many times I'm here the tacky fabrics never get old!!

                                        Face paints :)

                 Our new 1 day old kittens @ the guesthouse :)

10 days and counting!!

Hi all!

In 10 days Paul and I will be taking off again for Thailand...Paul is trying to find space in every corner of his bag for his new dirt bike gear while I am going mad wondering where all of these wonderful art supplies are going to fit...as Paul said the other day "we are going to look like a traveling circus once we arrive in Bangkok!"

Where have I been since the last post you ask? I finished up my 2009-2010 trip in Thailand, went back to Australia and graduated with a Masters in Human Rights and went to the bay area and Portland for a few visits. I then found myself living in Vancouver, BC, Canada with my lovely boyfriend Paul, where I've been nannying, working like crazy to raise funds for this next trip, spending hours at the local pottery studio, and spending many beautiful days in the BC mountains and parks.

So about all those art supplies...if you don't know already I am returning to Thailand to initiate a series of art programs in three Shan villages (two of which I was teaching in last trip). I will be starting after school art classes for the younger children and if all goes as planned a 'Young Women's Art and Discussion Group', and a 'Mother's Traditional Crafts Group'. These art classes will provide opportunities of freedom to explore individual creativity and expression. The 'Young Women's Group' will provide a stronger emphasis on expression and confidence building and will give them a safe and supportive space to address issues that they face as teenage Shan women.

I know in the past I have been pretty poor at keeping up on this blog, but I will be doing my very best to provide weekly updates and pictures on my time in Thailand and other random thoughts on human rights and the situation in Burma. :-P

Love, peace, and happiness to you all,

Michelle xx

PS An update on 'N' from my last post. She was able to receive permission to cross into the next province and is attending a much better high school in the 'big city'. She is thriving and absolutely loves it. She has been there nearly 7 months and her English is improving much faster than my Thai! I cannot wait to see her soon.

                                N and me at a local waterfall

     looking through the book the kids made me for my last day teaching last year

Stateless

Meet N. N has become a good friend of mine. On the days I am not in the community and N is not working I tutor her in English and occasionally go for walks through the markets for a fun chat and some Thai practice. She is 16 and brilliantly smart, but like the rest of the Shan kids is not getting a very good education here and is learning English from a non-English speaking teacher. As she is eager to learn I try to fill in a bit of the gap and practice English with her. N is an orphan who was born in Myanmar/Burma. She came here when she was five with her sister.

She currently has no birth registration and due to this is unable to get the appropriate identification to even ask the local district office if she can travel past the check point. There are many checkpoints throughout Thailand. They are run by the military and one of their purposes is to check for Burmese people traveling so called "illegally." This includes N and even includes the many children who were born in Thailand, but have Shan parents from Burma. Even though N has a card that permits her to be here for 10 years at a time her lack of birth registration inhibits her from traveling past these checkpoints or even being able to ask for permission to do so. This includes not being able to go to University if she wishes to do so in the next couple years as all of the Universities are outside of this province.

Gaining proper permission and identification for the kids is a long and unlikely process and has already proved many dead ends after 6 weeks of emails and phone calls, but the only thing I can do is to remain as positive and hopeful as possible that the people I have easily grown to love will one day have the rights that you and I do. The people in this community are not the only ones facing these issues. Thousands of Burmese people all over Thailand face these issues on a daily basis.

It is such a privelege to get to share smiles and laughs with N and the other children everyday. It is such a privelege to play soccer and make friendship bracelets with the kids, be handed by one of the kids a two week old puppy that just opened its eyes, and to laugh with the older girls as they say the word "sexy" as it sounds the same in English and Thai and they find it really funny. I am thankful for every moment as every moment is a sign of hope and love in the world.

Love, Peace, and Popsicles,
NAILS (or to some of you, Michelle)

PS On a lighter note...all of the cats in town have bent tails that look like they have been run over 5 times...I recently found out that it is a deformity they all share. Also their are many Thai hippies with dreads in town that make dreamcatchers and Native American head dresses. :)

Some pictures to share :)

Beautiful View

Me and Lily...Little one from a favorite tea hangout

One of the many beautiful views around town/ Lizard taking residence in my bungalow

Preparing Christmas Dinner

Christmas

Christmas night at a local hangout...Almost Famous

I hope you enjoy a handful of pictures from my time here so far.