Two months into the meth year

Laputta riverside

Crab market in Laputta

Going up a coconut tree

All the excitement of starting the new Meth year has developed into a really busy schedule of teaching, planning, lessons being observed by management at different senior levels, checking students'  assignments and dealing with heaps of admin work. 

Still enjoying work and learning a lot but feeling stressed and by mid-week, my only thought is counting the hours left to run away from the college and spend my weekend at the beach or in the city to wind down. If I go to Yangon, I'd be hanging around with my EfECT colleagues for cocktail drinking in one of those places where happy hour starts at 5pm. If I head to  the beach, I'd be meeting up my colleague Corinne, who also lives in the area and we'd be discussing work issues or life in general while we indulge  ourselves with western food. 

When I decide to go places on my own, I find real pleasure in walking along an empty beach or the feeling of being unnoticed in the big city (unlike in my little town where everyone stares at me constantly).

And here's a couple of things that are helping me to keep going right now:

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1. My next few weeks till the end of the year add up to two working weeks, two weeks off (including half week training), two more weeks of work and then four weeks holidays with a trip home (including a week of completing the teaching practice part of the online course I've been doing on ELE-Spanish as Foreign Language). 
Not bad, eh?

7th Joint Bar, best reggae club for dancing in Yangon

Locals riding on the beach

Massage right at the beach

The monsoon season has ended and after four loooong months of tropical rain, day in day out. I was kind of waiting for the winter season as I remembered what it was like last year when I lived up north but it only cools down evening time and early morning, the rest of the day is blazing hot. My nasty heat rash should be getting better, too, as the weather  dries up but I haven't noticed it yet. Finally, I may succeed in my attempts to grow vegetables in my back garden but also too soon to tell. 

Dancing night

Having fun with group F

With Khin Soe Win in my classroom

Early this week I was invited to a worshipping ceremony in which teachers express their respects to their senior teachers and elders and ask for their blessings. It involves everyone on their knees in praying mode and you keeping still as a Buddha statue. Then I received an envelope with money, 50,000 kyats (about 40$ and equivalent to 20% of the average Myanmar teacher monthly wages). On Wednesday 28th October, Buddhists celebrate Thadingyut, full moon day and end of Buddhist lent. I must have written and posted about it last year, so it's happening again, only it's different setting: town, teachers and management. The big difference here is that I seem to live in "central square", right were all the action takes place and that means for the last few days  I've had to put up with lots of noise in the form of hours of loud praying and chanting right at my doorstep at odd hours like 3:30 am. It will be coming to an end today with the preparation of a decorated tuk-tuk for parading around town showing donations from the college to various monasteries. There will also be a farewell karaoke party for second year students who finish their term now, then it's exams time (lots of chanting at night) and a break of two weeks before the new batch starts and classes resume on 1st December. 

College staff plating chinlon (Myanmar popular game)

 Another major event to mention (I can only just mention) is the national elections being held on 8th November. Being employed by VSO/British Council  in a project in partnership with the Ministry of Education in Myanmar means I'm not allowed to discuss or comment on politics either in private or public forums like this  blog. So there is little I can say here, just to share with you all that  it's amazing to witness the enthusiasm and big hopes from people taking part in a historical first "free election" in 25 years. I'll tell you more when I see you or by private email if you are interested in knowing more of the situation on the ground.

Our bus broke down