One of\nMarkus\u2019 initiatives while here was to upgrade the volunteer room we\nwere sleeping in (much to our delight). \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After two days trying to teach the English class alone, the\nteacher came back on Monday, as we were beginning the cleaning of the\nvolunteer room. I was glad to see her, but soon realised she doesn\u2019t\nspeak much more English than her students. After an arduous\nconversation, I managed to communicate that I wanted a few minutes to\nchat with her at the end of the day to find out how I could support\nher. I then went back to help Markus and the others. Tidying the\nroom, we realised just what a hovel we were sleeping in. One third of\nthe room was filled with random junk, including asbestos wall panels,\nwhich we carried downstairs to discard. We swept about four times,\nmopped, dusted, washed, \u2026 and by about noon, the worst of the\ncleaning was done. As we were too many for the rest of the tasks, we\nwent back to the clinic for the afternoon. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the evening, we were happy to find Markus had laid large\nplastic sheets (designed to resemble floorboards) over the whole\nfloor, installed a couple of low tables and chairs, a small table\nwith a kettle and five new mosquito nets, with clean mattresses and\npillows. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, as agreed, I went into the class room for the first\nEnglish class. The teacher had explained that they were preparing for\nexams, so I intended to just go in and watch the class. Her baby girl\nwas sitting in the front row, with the students. She gave them some\ninstructions then, after a few minutes, told me her daughter needed\nthe toilet and she would be right back. I looked around the class, to\nsee how they were doing. One girl called me over and asked me to help\nher read the text she was revising out loud. After her, another asked\nthe same, then a third, \u2026 I realised the teacher had been gone at\nleast ten or fifteen minutes. As I reached the front of the class, I\nsaw a paper had been pulled out of the class register book \u2013 the\nhandwritten exam for the following week, which the kids had been\nreading while I wasn\u2019t looking. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the teacher came back, she asked me to draw some pictures (a\nwaterfall, seashells, \u2026), to be labelled by the kids as part of the\nexam. Despite thinking there were better ways to use my time, I\nstarted drawing and she left the room again. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I was drawing, I felt a child coming to get water from the jug\nbeside the desk, then another, \u2026 after a while I realised they had\nlooked over my shoulder and all the children knew the full contents\nof the exam. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I stepped out of the classroom and found the teacher sitting with\nother teachers pulling apart notebooks to make smaller blocks for the\nchildren\u2026 I tried to explain to her that the children had seen the\ncontents of the exam and received the classic \u201cyes, yes,…\u201d \nanswer. Finally, I asked another teacher to please explain what I was\nsaying. The English teacher was not particularly concerned but, with\nenough insistence, suggested I draw new pictures. I told her I would\nremake the full exam and went off to work on the texts. Marc\nsuggested I take photocopies off the images in the text book, instead\nof drawing the pictures again \u2013 a suggestion I was very happy to\nfollow later in the day. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following day was spent in the clinic, as the exam session had\nstarted. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of Markus\u2019 initiatives while here was to upgrade the volunteer room we were sleeping in (much to our delight). After two days trying to teach the English class alone, the teacher came back on Monday, as we were beginning the cleaning of the volunteer room. I was glad to see her, but soon realised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[20,21],"class_list":["post-29543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-myanmar","tag-aung-myae-oo","tag-volunteering"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29544,"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29543\/revisions\/29544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kastoof-ontour.world\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}