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Published: January 15th 2009
Stickers!!
Friday night in a Karen village - the kids get a bit overexcited with the stickers and completely cover their faces!So I had possibly the most relaxing weekend of my life last week. I just sat, read books, did Sudoku (keep the brain working a little), played with the kids when they came along, and ate ALOT! I am officially going to be humongous when I get home. This is not helped by the fact that the teachers constantly buy me cakes and other treats, and I know my Mum is feeding me loads because she thinks I'm skinny because my hip bones stick out! But anyway, the weekend....... amazing! I said I was learning to relax and chill a bit more, and I did it well :-) There are only 3 things worth mentioning: 1) One of the village men killed a snake! I presume it was poisonous....... it was hiding in a pile of wood and he basically just beat it with a stick until it died! I felt sorry for it, but I guess I wouldn't if it had bitten me! 2) I went swimming in the river with 2 other volunteers who are staying just up the road. This was much fun and lovely in the sunshine, although I was slightly worried by the flies' interest in
Playing!
Sunday afternoon....playing with the kids! my septic foot!...... 3) my Mum caught a fish and I watched her prepare it, which was frankly, disgusting! Although I was more shocked the next day when I opened the fridge and there were these fish heads staring at me from a bowl......... it put me off my condensed milk sandwiches I can tell you!!
My week has also been quiet. I have actually taught ALL of my lessons, which is just madness, and have chilled very successfully in the evenings. I may have fallen asleep in fromt of the TV by 8pm a couple of times......... I have eaten some 'interesting' meals. I think I had pigs tail, but didn't really want to clarify, it tasted nice whatever it was. I have also endured fish for breakfast! In England I don't really do breakfast, if I do, it's toast, so having a full bowl of rice and other stuff was a bit of a challenge for me anyway..... and when you bring fish into the equation at 7:30am, I think I've gone a bit far, especially when I saw it being gutted the day before. Alas, I ate a fair bit to be polite, and
Motorbike
The kids have a thing about posing on motorbikes........ concentrated on the other dishes more!
Last night it finally happened........ I wasn't well (it was only a matter of time). I think it was a mixture of the heat and lack of sleep (I've slept a vast number of hours but had some rather vivid dreams, so it's not been good sleep). I did some sort of headache, temperature, not being able to eat illness thing, then what I did eat I vomited off the top of the stairs leading up to the house - a design fault having the toilet at the end of a path!! It was really attractive and just fantastic that the family of another house saw the entire thing as all the houses are so opened up! Hilarious! But today I am much better, and the omelette and rice breakfast was all eaten, so just a one nighter I hope ;-)
So because there is little else to report I thought I could tell you about the Karen people themselves and the village I am in :-) The Karen people are very religious, mainly Catholic. They go to Church on a Sunday, but it's not particularly strict -
Swimming......
......on a Sunday afternoon. Lovely lovely :-) The river in my village is beautiful! they sit on the floor, wander in and out as they choose and the kids just run around shouting alot of the time! They also rarely show emotion. They never get angry, and although people of the same sex can hug and show affection for one another, people of different sexes to each other tend not to. However, they are very sociable! They constantly shout to each other from their houses and they just wander into each others homes if they fancy a chat. I love it that they do that, I think it shows that the whole village is like one big family and everyone seems to get along :-) They also do their washing at the river in groups, and recently, as the mornings have been so cold, we all gather round a fire before going to work and have a chat to warm ourselves up! Not that they know waht cold is....... the headteacher was wearing 5 pairs of trousers today, and it was probably about 10 degrees still, not cold in the slightest really! All the kids also play together, whatever their age they all get along - very cute that the older ones often look
after the younger ones! They are also incredibly generous - the number of presents I have had is growing and they have all accepted me and look out for me all the time!
They are also very obsessed with white skin. They can stare at it for hours on end. I met this one woman the other day and she wouldn't let go of my arm for about 10 minutes. Just stroking it and comparing it to her arm, then stroking it again and saying how beautiful it is. There's me hoping for a tan when the Karen are completely shocked that I would ever want to sit in the sun (they use Johnson's whitening cream to try and look like me!!) They spit alot. It's completely normal to just spit in the middle of a meal, oh and burp! That's fine too! The way they sit intrigues me too. They crouch, but they can keep their feet flat on the floor while they do it, and they can sit like it for hours! I've tried and I just can't do it unless my heels are off the ground.
The houses....... well it seems
Sum-see
This is my Mum; Sum-See (on the right) and her friend, who had just wandered in for the evening. to be whatever you want, wherever you want to build it! No planning permission required, and just keep banging those nails back into the floor and hope it stays together! I don't know if all Karen are like this, but Sum-See cleans ALL the time. The floors are always swept and mopped to keep them looking lovely....... a strange thing when their general health and safety is not so up to scratch. Meat and veg chopped on the same wooden block with the same knife, and just give everything a rinse to wash it and it'll be fine! They cook on an open fire, and I have never seen my Mum use anything but 2 pans - one for the rice, and the other for anything else, be it omelette, vegetable stir fry or whatever. Rice is an occurrence at EVERY meal time - you'd think I'd get bored, but my addiction grows yet stronger..... and there's none of this pouring boiling water through it so it doesn't stick..... no, no, no - it's all clumpy and yum!! (although not so good as my rice in a bag I cook at home of course....... :-s) Also, Sum-see has taken to
I'm so attractive!
We got bored of smiling..... wrapping the spare rice in these big leaves and sending it to school with me. As if I can fit in any more food...... seriously they want me to be fat!!
There are alot of chickens and dogs (and one cat I've seen) wandering around the village. They fight in the night which is annoying, but there are some very cute puppies! The adults are all very clean, but the kids are filthy! They wear the same clothes for about a week and have a weekly wash in the river; in fact, I tend to recognise them by what they're wearing! But they are gorgeous, and being a teacher, they all bow to me as they say hello, which is weird but cute. The old women chew this red tobacco, which is disgusting! Alot of the Karen go to work in the rice fields; I don't know how they do it in the heat as they cover every inch of their bodies as the rice irritates the skin! They also weave alot..... lovely bags and their Karen clothers, which are beautiful! And finally, they don't have wine!! :-0 bad times!! So, to completely obliterate the detox, I
took to drinking beer when I was at the wedding parties. I've not sampled any whisky yet.... I'm hoping this delight is to come :-)
School.... well I've mentioned the general slackness and lack of routine. I have taken to wearing the clssic flip-flops and socks (oh yes) as the mornings are chilly, but because you have to take your shoes off when you enter the school, you don;t want to be messing about with actual shoes! The teachers and kids prepare the school meals, kids run around with knives (again with the health and safety) and wash the veg, sweep the floors etc. They also grow the vegetables in school themselves, which I think is really nice. Yesterday afternoon at school it was meant to be Girl Guides and Scouts but instead all the kids were just doing nothing (no surprise there), and the teacher's decided to give the younger kids a hair cut - basically hacking at their hair with a huge pair of scissors!! There was also a 'nit' check and nits were found, so my hair shall be up from now on :-) Lovely lovely!
I have tomorrow (Friday) off
school because it's "teacher's day" Yes, it was "children's day" last week and now it's "teacher's day". So I am heading to civilisation for one night (yay!!), then onto another village for the rest of the weekend with other volunteers....... Love to all xxxx
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Vikki
non-member comment
Whiteness
Well if they are looking for white skin they have gone to the right place! Finally somewhere that values pale and wan! Enjoy having a fashionable look-even though the idea of whitening cream makes us squirm!!