Pizza Squares
Beauty Baby
Biscuits Great
Tango "Fine Quality Milk Choc"
Pae Cake
Shar Paw Wae
Cake Chat
Lamont
Pacci All
Cake Chat (Pineapple)
Yoyo Jellies
Feta Cake
We had the munchies after being sick with colds all weekend, so we went to the convenience store down the street and got a slew of Myanmar snacks. Each snack cost roughly $0.10 to $0.15. I am super excited that I got a video to upload because we just watched it and laughed at ourselves the whole time! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did. These are the snacks that we tried: Pizza Squares Beauty Baby Biscuits Great Tango "Fine Quality Milk Choc" Pae Cake Shar Paw Wae Cake Chat Lamont Pacci All Cake Chat (Pineapple) Yoyo Jellies Feta Cake
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On Saturday Zoe (the middle school principle), along with a few other returning staff, led our group of new teachers on a walking tour of downtown Yangon. We spent five hours traipsing around the busy streets of the largest city area in Myanmar. We started at what used to be Trader’s Hotel, one of the highest end hotels in the country, we walked down for a view of Sule Pagoda which is in the center of the city in the middle of a round-about. Turning down another road, Zoe pointed out many of the government buildings and important places including the independence monument (a symbol of Myanmar’s independence from the British). With the country just recently opened, it is under constant construction on every corner. Literally everywhere you look there is something under construction. Here is one site we came across. It was such a fascinating walk with so much to see around ever corner. We came across a few stalls that were selling books which seemed kind of strange. Zoe explained that when the country was closed there was strict control over reading material of all sorts. Now that it is open and the regulations are majorly loosened, the people love to read. It is a privilege to them. So they copy books and prints hundreds of more of them (they certainly don't follow copyright laws here) then sell them at low rates so everyone can afford to read. There were so many fantastic buildings, bunches of them left over from the time of the British rule of the country. All of them crumbling, peeling, cracking, and covered with vines and/or mold from the tropical climate. We passed many embassies on the way to The Strand Hotel, another high-class establishment, where we rested our feet and viewed the fabulous art gallery. Crossing several busy lanes of traffic we passed through a small wet market on our way to the riverside. Zoe showed us where we can take the ferry over to another town across the river. Only staying near the river for a few minutes we continued through the busy Yangon. There was so much to see! At one point we saw a group of men playing some sort of game on the street. After I had snapped a photo they asked others to please not take any photos so I am lucky to have this one. We also saw a couple "pay phones." If people want to make calls but don't have a phone they can find one of these stalls where the ladies will let you make a call for a price. These are regular house hold phones that are attached to landlines that run all the way from the street to a nearby building. There were plenty of stalls selling all sorts of things to eat. From snacks in the form of bagged chips and what not to fried food to meat on sticks that you put in boiling broth to cook. We meandered through the streets for quite a long while more until we came to the Indian Spice Market (I believe the true name for this is Theingyi Zay Market). It had many tiny entrances all along the walls between stalls selling all sorts of goods, I wouldn’t have even noticed how to get in if they hadn’t pointed it out. The inside of this market was pure madness. It was so cramped and had so many people in it I have no idea how people manage their way around. I barley made my way in before turning back around to come out. Kim had a similar experience went into find the spices with Sharon. It is very overwhelming being around so many people. I had been carrying around little K who is about two years old and it is amazing how much the locals just LOVED him! Almost everyone we walked by, especially women, would gawk and smile at him. He was given many small gifts, a banana, a flower, a fruit, along with multiple people asking to hold him. Whenever we passed someone who was close enough, which was all the time, they would touch him or squeeze his cheeks. We even got our picture taken. It was a strange experience and I was very glad that he didn’t mind it because otherwise it could have been awful for him. We enjoyed looking at the produce and other foods for sale outside of the market. After the Indian Spice Market we traveled another twenty minutes or so to Bogyoke Aung San Market. This is probably the second biggest tourist attraction in Yangon (second only to Shwedegon Pagoda). It is a huge exotic place that sprawls over a couple levels and a large area of land. Defiantly designed for tourists it has a huge expanse of shops that include high-end jewelry stores, many shops to buy fabric to be made into clothing, and so many souvenir shops including lacquer ware, shoulder bags, puppets, slippers, gems, and t-shirts. We probably won’t be returning to this market anytime soon because it had a strong commercial feel to it. Plus there were more touts here than anywhere else we had seen in the city (a tout is someone who persistently tries to get you to buy their product – they many follow you around pushing their merchandise in your face for a long period of time and are very annoying). Right around the corner from Bogyoke we found a phenomenal Shan Noodle shop where we both had a bowl of Shan Noodles that were amazing! We also shared some dumplings that were simply to die for along with some fresh mango juice and fried tofu (that Kim especially enjoyed)! Here, drool over some pictures of the deliciousness: We were very thankful for Zoe and the others to show us around town but it was an exhausting and over-stimulating experience. I’m glad we kind of have the lay of the land down and we will defiantly go downtown another weekend soon so we can have a (hopefully) more relaxed time getting to know the area.
Our second weekend in Myanmar was just as busy as the first. Bright and early Saturday morning we met with the other new teachers to get a personal walking tour of the downtown area from Zoe and a few other long-term ISMers. Read all about it and see the very cool pictures I captured here: Downtown Yangon Walking Tour Sunday we finally had our first full day to relax and settle in, we slept in, went grocery shopping, hung up photos, and had general time to just be.
The first day of school came quick and ready or not, Monday morning the students bursted through the doors. Even though a small part of me was saying "yeah, you got this, you've done this plenty before" the rest of me was anticipating the unexpected that came with teaching a new grade level (from elementary to high school), a new school level (from public to private), a new school culture (from government run to international, for-profit), a new set of societal expectations (from rural Maine to urban Myanmar), and of course just a new set of students all together. I had heard in my research that the students here had a higher regard for their education and I was thrilled to find out that this was true. I told many people when I took this position that there was no way I would be able to teach High School in the States because of the attitude towards education (not being respected, taken for granted, etc.). I am very happy to say that it is different here for many reasons including the fact that this is a private school so parents are paying for their kids to come here and as we all know if you have to pay for something you appreciate it more. Also because teachers in this culture are respected just as monks, doctors, and government officials are. I had been very much looking forward to finally be respected for the career I chose instead of just being passed along and given the bare necessities that so many teachers are. And the first week of school did not disappoint. The students were eager and welcoming, their skill levels were far exceeding my expectations, and they were attentive in the way that showed me they were actually interested in being there. We started right off into exploring the element of line in my Art 1 (Art Foundations) class. I hope to soon post the unit in its entirety but here are a few photos of my classrooms and the students creating. ISM is an all english speaking school that teaches an American Standards-Based Curriculum to prepare students for American (western) colleges. What that means is that I am teaching the same curriculum here as I would if I were teaching at a high school back in the States. 95% of the student population are from local families who are very (VERY) wealthy. The other 5% are children of the teachers here. We have a "normal" school schedule that starts at 8:15 and goes until 3:00 every Monday - Friday with a good amount of holidays/vacation days off throughout the August - May. (Note: we do start the school year about 4 weeks earlier than in the States but we also get out about 3 weeks earlier. We have 190 contact days compared to 185 for schools in the States). The high school works on a block schedule where we have the same classes every other day, but they move around the periods within the day so we don't always have the same class in the morning/afternoon. It can be a bit confusing but I really like it for the most part. I teach 3 sections of Art 1 (Art foundations) that is the first art class that every student in school "must" take for their graduation requirements therefore this class consists of mostly freshmen. I also teach 2 sections of AP 2D Design which is an Advanced Placement course where students are working on building a portfolio to submit to the College Board at the end of the year. If they do well on this they can get college credits for the course. Although AP 2D Design can be taught as more of a studio arts course where you do anything from drawing to painting to collage and so forth, ISM asked me to teach it more as a digital arts course. This is very exciting because that means I can finally teach Photography and Digital Editing - two of my strong points as an artist! I am beyond happy to finally be able to share my photography knowledge with young artists. To kick off my AP 2D class we dove right into digital photography in my unit called "Beyond Auto" where we learn about the different camera settings and how to fully control our photographs. Again, more to come on this but for now here are a few photos of the students practicing and learning.
For food this week I had a combination of eating on the street at the stalls near school and eating in the cafiteria. Wherever I decide to go it is usually the same types of choices: white rice, fried rice, or noodles - a handful of different meats in oily, often times spicy, sauce (chicken with the bones, beef, mutton, or pork) - and a variety of various veggie dishes, again usually in an oily sauce. These are some of the meals I had this week: Luckily I have a phenomenal wife who is a phenomenal chef and cooks us equally phenomenal food from home. Kim has been struggling for the past week or so in terms of trying to find the basic ingredients that she is used to like sugar, flour, brown sugar, pepper, and so forth. Recently, after many trips to different grocery stores, she has realized that they do in fact have such ingredients but they are all named different things or are just in different languages. She is very happy to finally be building up our supply of kitchen goods that she is used to. The interesting thing is that it is significantly cheeper to eat out than to cook ourselves. We can go out and get a meal for $1-$2. The downside is that it is always rice or noodles or noodles or rice and that has gotten old pretty fast. So it is wonderful to come home to Kim's home cooking. Here is one dish she made this week:
Thursday night we were walking back from getting a few things from the supermarket and decided to go for a drink. On the way down to the market we had seen a couple buildings with flashy lights coming from the inside and big signs at the entrance saying things like "DJ" "Spy Wine" "Club" etc. So, silly us, we thought they must be dance clubs. Heading up to the doorway we passed a half a dozen security, which you think would have been our first clue that something was a little off, but the thing is here businesses tend to have a large amount of employees that are just for directing parking. However, when we arrived at the front door there was just a small lobby that looked strange. So we asked the security guy who opened the door for us "Beer?" and his response was priceless: "Yes, yes, bootie bootie." Without skipping a beat we turned and walked back out to the main road. Our laughter lasted all the way to the next building where we decided to play it safe and ask one of the security guards (you think we would have learned by now) hanging around the entrance to the parking lot. Kim: "Beer?" Guard proceeding to do a foul hand gesture "Titty Bar." At this point we gave up all hopes at finding beer and just headed back home before we found anything worse. On the way we saw two other ISM teachers having a beer at a nice local establishment and decided that must mean it was safe. After we got our cold drinks we decided to order some fried chicken and what came was probably one of the worst meals I have been served since being here. We got a plate of what Kim calls "fried assholes" because it was a plate of bones from the worst part of the chicken with barley any meat on them. It was pretty ridiculous - even more so when they charged us $4 for them! I know that doesn't seem like a lot but when I can eat a full lunch for less than $1, four is quite a lot for a plate of deep fried bones. At least the drinks were cold. And that was our Thursday night Titty Bar experience.
To celebrate finishing my first week of school and being in Myanmar for two weeks, Friday night we met up with Shelly and Luis (two new ISM teachers) and grabbed a taxi over to the famous 19th street. 19th Street is well known in town, and in the guidebooks, as a place where the locals come to drink late into the evenings. There are a series of locally owned drinking establishments spilling out into the street with their miniature plastic chairs and tables wet from recent rain. The word was that this was the place to come for a night of drinking festivities on the cheap.
It was a drizzly evening, which made the others that were going to join us decide otherwise, but the four of us decided to make a go for it and I’m glad we did. Because of the rain, some of the places were closed – or at least not as busy as I imagine they usually are – but most had a fair amount of customers with beers in their hands. We walked down to the end of the street, out to the hustle and bustle of a busy main road lined with street carts and vendors in every direction. This may not be an up-all-night kind of place (like Bangkok) but it certainly wasn’t the “everyone is in bed by 8 pm” city that I had read about before coming. After walking back down to the end of the road we started on, we decided to kick back at one of the places towards the end of the “strip.” Kim and Luis got a draft beer as Shelly and I sipped some wine coolers. Conversations were warm and flowing in strange languages all around us (from other expats and locals alike), our talk revolved around where we call “home,” hopes and dreams for Myanmar, and our beginning impressions of this strange new land. Drinks were cold and smiles were large. All of a sudden I felt sick to my stomach. Sure that I was going to hurl I excused myself to the bathroom, but before I got there I got so dizzy that I blacked out a bit and half sat/half fell on to a set of steps. I knew that there was almost certainty that I would get sick in the first few weeks of being here but the urgency of which it came didn’t seem to fit that of food poising or the like. Taking a couple minutes to I then recalled feeling these symptoms before. A couple other times in the past 10 or so years I had these indicators of stomach sickness and sudden dizziness. The relating cause of this, I quickly learned after having a full-fledged fainting spell when I was 15, was the heat. Although I feel like I have a great immune system and I rarely get ill, I don’t even get motion sickness, but something about intense heat makes my body start shutting down. I regained my sight enough to stand up and help myself outside where I sat (on a miniature plastic stool) in the rain, peeling my shirt off to reveal only a skin colored tank top undershirt. The locals stared (they usually don’t show their shoulders, let alone something so low cut) but I didn’t care, I just needed to cool off. A couple minutes of sitting in the breeze and rain later I was feeling a bit better as we decided to hop on over to another little place just next door. The rest of the evening faded away with $0.80 mojitos and men broke into a dance as a trolley with loud American hip hop music rolled through. Often times the group of assistant teachers and school staff will get together and eat lunch in the teachers room. Just as any other teachers room the microwave is in constant demand, a small array of dishes litter the sink with no one to claim responsibility, and a small stack of school related paperwork is spread across the table in hopes to be read. Mostly the chatter of lunch-time gossip is heard from the moment you open the door. Although I often go out for lunch at one of the street stalls, or grab something from the cafeteria and munch on it at my desk while doing various school tasks, I found myself in the teacher’s room heating up my lunch the other day. Like other times when I had wandered in there was a handful of ladies with a mix of foods in dishes spread over the table. Often I had noticed that the group of ladies will make one big meal for lunch right in the teachers room which is prepared with a range, multiple rice cookers, an electric kettle, and a variety of kitchenwares. If I have learned anything from my time here it is that you can make anything in a rice cooker. I’ve seen them prepare and enjoy such group meals as cabbage soup (well, I think it was cabbage . . . you never really know with the language barrier being what it is) and rice based curry dishes. But today they had a whole different spread. There were a dozen or so small dishes filled with a range of different foods, both liquid and solid; there was a larger bowl that held four different “greens” and a giant pot of rice. One of the ladies that I usually saw cooking was holding a giant bowl and mixing together a bunch of the ingredients with her hand. I approached one of the assistants that I knew and asked her what the spread was all about. She explained that it was htaminthote, which means rice salad. What you do is start with a white rice base and add a mixture of the other items depending on your particular taste. They gave me a bit to try that they mixed up for me (leaving out the spice) and I was really impressed that I actually liked it. When they offered me more I gladly accepted and asked if they would show me how to mix it myself. This is what they had for options, in the picture below starting with the large bowl and going around clockwise: (In the big bowl)
Rice noodles Shredded cabbage Been sprouts Cooked potatoes cut into small cubes (Starting with the small container on the right) crushed chilies/ chili powder an oil based sauce to make it more sour (kind of like soy sauce) garlic oil fish sauce dried ground prawns crushed nuts a bean powder/flour crunchy fried onions chicken powder (like powdered chicken base for soup) and the bowl of green stuff was oriental greens (I don’t really know what that means but it smelled and tasted like cilantro, maybe they meant herbs?) I mixed up my own little bowl and added everything except the cabbage, chili powder, and greens. The ladies laughed at me as I tried to mix the salad with my hands, they told me that my bowl was too small but I thought I did a pretty decent job. I ended up making way too much and had about half of it leftover. But I was really surprised at how much I liked it – it was nice to have a dish that was not too oily and that I could make depending on my tastes. The idea is that every person mixes his/her own so they can make it how sour/sweet/spicy they want which was just perfect for me. ---- If you haven't already, take a read through our transition post 36 Hours in Bangkok ---- We arrived in Yangon on a warm dark night. It didn't take us long to make it through customs and find our bags. To welcome us was the school’s director, Almber, my principal (of the High School), Randy, the middle school principal, Chloe, and the elementary school principal, Zoe. We piled into an ISM bus with all of our luggage and were off to our new apartment. Also in our building at Pearl lives Almber and Zoe (along with a number of other ISM employees). The two of them personally escorted us up to our new apartment to make sure we were happy and had everything we needed before leaving us for the night. They provided us with $100,000 kyats (about $100 USD) and a welcome basket that included: -Tissues -Toilet Paper -Milk -2 apples -2 oranges -2 bananas -Tea -Sugar -Instant coffee -Oreos -Croissants -Bread To see our new apartment take a look at this post: Our Apartment. Our first full day in Myanmar was quite busy and really great! After a shower and unpacking just a few things we went downstairs to find something to eat. The first two floors of our condo are filled with businesses, mostly restaurants and stores. When we got to the bottom floor we ran into Almber who showed us around a bit. He brought us across the street to a little market called Asian Light which has a fair selection of groceries as well as household items. We poked around for a bit then went back to the condo to eat at the bakery. The Yangon Bakehouse is a social restaurant who’s mission is to help battered and beaten women get on their feet by teaching them how to cook/bake and work in a restaurant. We ordered a sandwich and some small quiche. It was quite a pricy place (our bill came to about $9 usd) but it was great food and for a great cause. Shortly after we finished we met up on the ground floor of the condo with the rest of the new teachers and the welcome staff. We took some time to change money at the money exchange on the ground level then wandered around in Pearl for a bit longer before boarding the bus. The ISM PTA was so kind to bring us all out to lunch at a lovely local restaurant. A few of the parents met us there to welcome us and show their support. It was a buffet style lunch in an old British house and included shrimp and fish skewers with sweet chili sauce, fried rice, thai chicken and vegetables, pork salad, cold sliced beef with tar tar sauce, and a green salad with cheese sauce. For dessert we were served mango mousse and a fruit salad. Lunch was excellent! We were surprised that there weren’t any Burmese dishes and are looking forward to trying true Burmese cuisine. We enjoyed walking around the grounds of the estate and running back to the porch when it began down pouring. It is monsoon season here (May to October) which means that the sky is almost always overcast and it often lets out enormous amounts of water suddenly that floods the streets and everything else. Kim began talking with one of the PTA mothers who, after finding out Kim was a chef, mentioned that her sister just opened up what sounded like a café of sorts that served coffee and pastries. She said that her sister might be looking into expanding to include a wider menu and asked if she could contact Kim. Although this specific opportunity might not amount to anything, we are very excited to be right in our assumption that Kim will be able to find prospective jobs by just meeting different people. Back on the busses we were taken to get some household items. We went to Ocean View which is a type of department store with a variety of household goods and groceries. We were told just to get the essentials and that we would have plenty of time to come back and get other goods. There we purchased: -surge protector strip -mop -broom -mop bucket -dish soap -laundry soap -floor cleaner -disinfectant -all purpose cleaner -dish towels -dish scrubby -wall hanger for shower -hangers -lamp -toilet paper -trash bags -silverware holder -storage container All of this came to $58,000 kyats (~$60 usd). The store itself was extremely busy and they only gave us an hour to grab things so it was very hectic and a bit stressful., but it was a good first trip all in all. This is a picture of Kim on the conveyer thing in the store. It is brilliant because it locks the shopping cart wheels so it doesn't roll. When we got back to our apartment one of the workers from Eco (the business who service and maintains the apartments) came by with an inventory list. We had to go through the list item by item to say what was in the apartment and make sure that everything was in good shape. Our hosts warned us not to sign unless we checked every item. We are missing a few things like a bureau for Kim, a dish drainer, another garbage bin, etc. so hopefully they will bring those by in the next couple days. At this point we were still exhausted but we really wanted to try and stay awake so we could sleep through the night. We decided to go find some groceries and headed across the street to the Korean grocery store. This was an interesting experience. As soon as we walked in all six cashiers turned to us and bowed while saying what I assume was ‘welcome’ or ‘hello’ in Korean. As we began to wander around the store there were many more workers standing around who seemed to be only there to greet us (again with a bow). Everything was in Korean and there were many strange items. All of the products were very expensive (as it was a very nice store that was very clean and well lit) but we didn’t want to leave empty handed so I got a box of moon-pie like cakes that I had tried a sample of and Kim got a thing of soda. There are no crosswalks so we almost died multiple times crossing the street back. But Zoe said that the locals would get in A LOT of trouble if they were to hit a foreigner, so they might come very close but they would never actually hit you. It kind of reminded me of a game of frogger where you had to try and get to the next line on the road. So we went back to Asia Light to grab some things to eat. We grabbed: -apple juice (~$2.00 usd) -mandarin orange juice (~$2.00 usd) -yogurt (~$0.70 usd) -crackers (~$0.85 usd) -chips (~$0.50 usd) -milk (~$2.00 usd) -chocolate cake snack (~$0.35 usd) -creamhorn like snack (~$0.35 usd) -clock (~$2.60 usd) -2 adapter plugs (~$0.65 and $0.20 usd) When we returned we finally were able to get online! Yay! The internet is not quite as slow as I expected, it does take an extra few seconds to completely load a page but it is defiantly better than what I was prepared for. We took some time to Skype with Robin, Sonny, and Stan (and by we I mean me because Kim feel asleep while I was getting it set up. So that was our eventful first day in Myanmar. I am so happy that everything has been going smoothly and that ISM is so welcoming. Sunday began with our first trip to the wet market. There are many, many wet markets all around, Zoe led us to the one closest to our building. It was about a half a mile away. As we walked there Zoe shared little tidbits about the neighborhood and life in general. One thing she mentioned was about how they changed the import regulations for vehicles a year or two ago so now there are an extraordinary amount of cars and trucks on the roads making it difficult because the city was not designed for them. Another thing she mentioned was how they tried to fix up the city a bit when they hosted the South East Asian Games back in December. They made the sidewalks a bit nicer but you still have to be careful when you walk around to be sure you don’t step off into a crack or hole. We will be making a post all about the wet market very soon! For lunch it was getting a tad muggy out so we decided to get take out and eat in our very cold air conditioned apartment. I went down to one of the restaurants in the Pearl complex (in the building next door) and ordered from a little shop there. I got two types of fried noodle dishes, one with larger noodles and one with small rice type noodles. Only one of the dishes was supposed to have seafood but they both ended up having an array of shrimp, squid, and fish in them. Although I will eat seafood every now and again I’m not a big fan so that was a little disappointing. We also got a chicken soup dish that was very tasty. I was surprised that there was no chicken in it but rather it was made with chicken broth that was thickened and creamy and served with the thin rice-type noodles. Lastly I grabbed some tea leaf salad. This was something we had read a lot about and was excited to try because it is one of the main dishes of Myanmar. It was a cold salad that had a mixture of things in it including pickled tea leafs, nuts, and seasonings. Each noodle dish was $2.00 usd, the soup was $0.50 usd, and the salad $0.85 usd. So we ate lunch (and had leftovers) for about $5.35 usd. We met up with the rest of the new teachers and our hosts (the principals and director) to board the bus headed to Shwedagon Pagoda. See our whole Shwedagon experience on this post: Shwedagon Pagoda | The temple of all Myanmar temples After the visit to Shwedagon everyone stopped at a hotpot place for dinner. Hotpot is where you have a large container of broth in the middle of the table to share with the group. Everyone goes to pick out ingredients to add to the broth, this ranges from seafood to tofu, from noodles to eggs, from vegetables to greens, and so much more. After letting the ingredients stew in the broth for a bit everyone enjoys a big bowl. It was a fun event for sure, the food was good and more filling than I had thought. Kim got a little stressed out when everyone began throwing random ingredients in that didn’t normally go together, perhaps next time we will set up a game plan first. What a weekend! I can’t believe how much information we have received so far and how much we have learned in just this little time here. I am so glad that we are here for so much longer which will hopefully be enough time to see and do all the amazing things that Myanmar has to offer! But for now, bed, it is orientation first thing in the morning. First thing Monday morning I hopped on the ISM bus to school where I finally got to see where I would be teaching for the next two years. The High School has two buildings (one of which used to be the middle school) with a small outdoor space in between. We have one large art room that will be shared between me and the other new art teacher. I will also be teaching out of one of the computer labs for my digital media/ 2d design class. We have quite a bit of work to get the room ready for students next week. The tables and stools were recently purchased from the west and really make the art room. There is a range of supplies that need to be sorted and organized. There are also preparing a small adjoining room for us to use as well. This room needs to have carpets removed and furniture moved in as well as other projects done to ready it for the students. I’m not sure how we are going to work everything exactly but we will know more when we see our schedules later in the week. (I'll do a post soon all about my school, with lots of photos I promise) After a tour and a new teacher meeting we went over to the middle school where they hosted lunch for all of us. They prepared a variety of Myanmar dishes most of which were meat and/or vegetables in either a broth, sauce, or curry. They were served with rice and a clear-broth soup. Everything tasted very good and most were not spicy. We then had our first Myanmar culture lesson. Zoe started by showing us various maps of Myanmar and Yangon, explaining the different regions and ethnicities who live in each. We talked about different restaurants to go to, transportation, sites around the town, and other various city related advice. Auntie Amy then joined us to talk about Myanmar traditions; she showed us the traditional dress, explained Myanmar customs, and shared with us some Myanmar snacks. She was so sweet to give us small gifts to go away with. We received one pair of owls figurines – a symbol of good luck in the Myanmar culture. She also gave us these two small dolls always land heads up no matter how you throw them – they are given to people who are down on their luck to show them that no matter what happens in life you can always get back on your feet. After school Regi, the other art teacher, and I joined Zoe to go meet Gail, the previous art teacher. She had invited us to her apartment so we could greet each other before she left for her retirement in Texas. Over a glass of wine she shared with us the Yangon art scene and all of the progress she has made with the art program over the years. It was lovely to be able to absorb some of the knowledge that she has about art at ISM and in Myanmar. Kim has been keeping busy this week organizing the household and finding her way around our neighborhood. Our new friends Steven and Sharon live right downstairs with their kids H & K; Steven is a Social Studies teacher with me at the high school. On Monday Sharon and Kim went to the wet market to get some groceries. She got 20 quail eggs for 600 kyat ($0.60 usd) unfortunately only about a dozen of them made it home. Pork was also purchased from a meat vendor which turned out to be very fatty and expensive, 8000 kyat for 1 kg ($8.00 usd for 2 lbs). Being a foreigner that they don’t know they tend to jack up the prices of everything. We are working on developing our bartering skills. It was amazing to come home to all of the suitcases unpacked and the house in order! I am so lucky to have a wonderful partner!! Although it was fairly late when I returned home I wanted to talk with my family because I hadn’t gotten the chance yet. Luckily I was able to Skype with Andrea, Sam, Zane, Dad, Drew, and Autumn, all at the same time! It was so nice to see everyone and get to share with them a bit of the adventure that I have had so far. Before long I had to say goodbye because I was so very tired! Long and exciting days! Another orientation day started with the director of the school addressing the entire ISM faculty. He shared with us all about the school’s mission, the school’s directive plan, his philosophy, and what we were to expect in the next few months. Afterwards we headed back to the high school to have a school only meeting. For lunch some of the returning teachers took us out into the neighborhood to show us some good places to eat. Oddly enough many of the usual places were closed (we later found out there was some sort of holiday), so we all hopped in the bus and headed to a restaurant down town. There was a big group of us and unfortunately they only had two English menus, needless to say it took us quite a long time for everyone to order. After which we ended up waiting a while for our food to start arriving, when it did become coming it took about 45 minutes from the first plate to the last plate. I’m not sure if I mentioned it before but we quickly realized here that the concept of one person ordering their individual plate is very strange to them. In Myanmar culture (and many others) they eat by getting a variety of plates to share and all eat a bit of everything at the same time. For this reason they do not wait to serve everyone at once, rather they bring dishes out when they are ready. This happens very sporadically. It is strange and defiantly something we will need to get used to. After lunch we returned to school where I only had a very short amount of time in my classroom before grabbing the bus back to Pearl. Kim had been very busy during the day and I walked into an amazing smelling apartment. Kim had found her way to CityMart which is a more high end grocery store for the area that has a larger selection of goods with a variety of meats, frozen foods, cheeses, and a few aisles of dry goods. For dinner she made a delicious soup of carrots, eggplant, onion, pork, baby potatoes, with a chicken curry base. We invited another new teacher over to enjoy the meal and Li Qi made great company. The rest of the week continued with about the same routine; I went to school from 7:00 am to 4:00 pm returning home about 4:45 pm after days of meetings and getting my classroom prepared. It became pretty stressful and overwhelming with the amount of information I was presented with and the short amount of time I had to get ready for teaching the following week. But I made it through. I ate out at the stalls near school a couple times usually having a rice dish with a bit of protein and some veggies. Here is where I ate on Thursday: Kim spent the rest of the week going on adventures with Sharon, H & K. They found the park to go for a walk in, went downtown for an indoor playground, tracked down the stationary store, and did lots of laundry. We have shared washing and drying machines in the building that only hold a very small amount of clothes at one time. Most people find easier to hand their clothes up in their house to dry. There are some very helpful housekeepers who have been hired to do laundry for other people in the building who have switched over our laundry on more than one occasion. They do it just to be kind and don’t expect anything in return. It was an intense first week. Everything of course still feels very foreign and new but mostly in an exciting, adventurous kind of way. It feels nice to be unpacked and getting to know the area. I'm looking forward to feeling more settled and for school to start on Monday. Here's to a weekend of rest and of course more adventuring.
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Alisa & KimTwo expats living, teaching, and eating their way across this beautiful world Archives
October 2020
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