First week at school

Sandra of course takes me everywhere so i joined her this week for her first week at school. It was a preparatory week so no kids yet. Year plans, week plans and all that. We learned that she'll be teaching 30 kids in 2 classes. Together with her assistent teachers she divided these kids into Grade 3A (16 kids) and 3B (14 kids). Her assistent teachers are Sandy who's already been at the school for one year but who had the worst class that year and had teachers who didn't help her at all. So everybody has warned Sandra she was pretty useless though when she asked further it seemed she basically never got a chance. And a new teacher with a burmese name that i can't remember at the moment (luckily Sandra wrote it down somewhere). It was quite chaotic this week. Many things weren't arranged yet. Not all books had come in, the classrooms for the lower grades were being repainted, they were still hiring assistent teachers (that is why we only learned on friday morning who was going to help us) and a maths teacher for the lower grades. And this is what we know about. The timetable we'll hopefully get on monday since we have no clue except that Sandra will be teaching one or the other 3 grade classes for the first 2 periodes (each period is 45 minutes). We'll see how it goes on monday.

For the rest we've all been busy trying to find an appartment. Not difficult if you'd be willing to shovel out $400 or more per month. But that is not what we want (and can afford). Kyaw Kyaw saw quite a few places but most of them were so run down that he didn't even take us there. We did see one place not far from the school. Run-down but not too bad. A bit of paint would do wonders. 2 bedrooms, small 'entrance room' cum living room, big kitchen and a tiny bathroom. All topped by a baclony that Sandra felt would fall appart if she looked at it for too long. The bathroom had a western style toilet but no shower. Just a big water container with a small bucket to use. And a big tap above it to refill the thing. And she even realised later that she should have tried to see if the toilet flushed or wether to pour water into it with a bucket. I must admit i hadn't thought of it either. The kitchen was big but very sparsely furnished. A refrigerator (and hopefully enough electricity through the day to power it but that is up to the government), a small earthen cooker, a sink and of course cups, plates and the like. No stove. Nothing in the 2 bedrooms except one matress and mosquito net(the owner's mother was living there temporarily). In the 'living room' a huge tv set (with satelite TV) and 4 plastic chairs. No tables, no couch, no nothing. Linolium on the floor everywhere that seemed to have been bought as left over pieces at a discount store. Mismatched, to small, laying loose... well you get the picture. No (super) market and teashop anywhere near the place (at least not a teashop where we'd feel we could actually eat or drink something. But it was quite close to the school. So we met the owner. He wanted $200 per month!!!! Sandra thought she had to reattach her jaw after it had dropped towards the ground with terrible force. And later she heard from Kyaw Kyaw that the man had actually said $250 in Burmese before that. No way that was ever going to happen. Not furnsihed it would be $100. That was what Sandra thought it was worth furnished an all. So we're still looking. We've reached a deal with the hotel that we can stay for 1 month including breakfast for $300. The room is clean, nice, light and big and they have a garden of sorts. And it is close to the school so we walk most of the time unless it rains buckets (it is rainy season after all). Though it is bloody hot but otherwise we would get little excercise, besides it gives a good excuse for being seen sweating the equivalent of a small river. Being here for a month will give us some more time to look around.

Ok, we're off shopping. Sandra needs some nice longyis and tops since she can't really be representative with her worn travel clothes. Besides we need to buy a world map for one of the classrooms. And some stickers and stuff like that for the weeks ahead. So Bogyoke market it is. Touristy but they have some awesome stuff. And longyis in the right size for western women...