holidays!

I’m currently enjoying the last days of my two-weeks school holidays for which I once again had to be quite spontaneous (as I only got to know about them a few days in advance), but still I manged to organise a very nice trip leading me from Bagan to Yangon and back to Mandalay ;-)

So two weeks ago, I found myself sitting together with two guys from Germany, who are now also teaching as volunteers in the PDO, on the sundeck of the boat heading from Mandalay to Bagan. Really relaxing way to start into a journey, enjoying the view and the food on board while getting a taint and watching life go by. We arrived in Bagan safe and sound and on the next day began to explore the ancient buildings of this beautiful area. I learned to drive a scooter within 5 minutes (never drove a motorbike before… just saying) and rolled over streets, ways and dusty paths and couldn’t get enough of those impressive sights and beautiful pagodas. The best part was to go off the beaten track, feeling like Indiana Jones, with no other people, but only nature and temples around – there you can really find some breath-taking spots and even climb up hidden stairs to the rooftop of some pagodas! Is there anything better than finishing a day like this with a cocktail at sunset? This stunning and relaxed stay in Bagan is certainly something I will never forget and something about which I’m going to dream about for a long time :-)

After three days in Bagan, the city of Yangon was almost a shock – being all busy, loud and full of hectic people! But behind this surface there are still a lot of beautiful and peaceful places – most of all the Shwedagon pagoda, overviewing the whole city and glooming golden, full of hopefulness, being like an anchor for the whole surrounding. On the next days we enjoyed some vivid markets, the river side, really good and stylish restaurants and (is there even another possibility?) nice temples. In one of them (to be specific, the Ngadatkyi pagoda – very beautiful wood carved Buddha inside!) an old man started to talk to me and didn’t only explain the building itself, but also showed me the colonial-style monastery, which is hidden in the garden around of it.

 

 

 

So after two full days in Yangon, I took the bus back to Mandalay and happily arrived there after only 8 hours. On the contrary to the bus to Monywa, it was like you’d imagine this kind of vehicle – it was really comfortable and quite big, the only disturbing details were the bullet holes in the wall. But as I said, the journey itself went smoothly ;-)

This amazing trip was followed by the next highlight only a few days later: the light-festival at full moon. For this occasion thousands of candles are lit all over the towns to guide Buddha’s way from the Nirvana back to Earth again. Together with all the people I met here in Mandalay I climbed up the Mandalay Hill this evening and became part of the probably most beautiful festivity in this country. On the top there were already prepared a sea of small candles and all together, side by side, we started to light them on by one – what an incredible feeling! Everything seemed so peaceful and joyful, the candles spread their golden lights, the city below us sparkled in silver and above everything there was a red full moon hanging in the sky. This atmosphere had something so unforgettable impressive in its own way, I really couldn’t compare it with anything else.

 

Monywa

Dorotka and I had planned to go to Monywa over the weekend and so we started our trip on Saturday morning by picking up our bus ticket and going to the bus station of Mandalay. Even though it really didn’t occur to me on the first sight, there has to be a certain and clear structure at the station, as we were directly led to our AC-Bus – which turned out to be a (big) car with opened windows. When we started soon afterwards we were only 6 people in it, but through the driver’s assistant permanent “Monywa, Monywa!” –shouting through the still opened doors, we picked up another 10 people throughout Mandalay. And they had told us that it was essential to book tickets at least one day before the trip! It is quite an achievement in itself to get 16 people into a car and even at this point they tried to offer even more people a ride. Most of them got off in smaller villages soon and by the time we stopped for lunch, everyone had a seat for themselves again.

In Monywa the two of us were welcomed by a group of eager taxi-drivers and after we bought the tickets for our return (which cost half the price to come here) we took a Tuck-Tuck and went out of town towards two of the biggest Buddha-statues in the world. On our way we stopped at a pagoda built for world-peace in which more than five million small Buddhas are praying for the humans on earth. Afterwards we climbed the hill of the two giant statues – quite impressive to be looked down on by a 114 meter high Buddha! Inside it the walls are full with paintings, through which one gets the impression to go from hell to Nirvana on the upper floors. So we started to climb those stairways to heaven but unfortunately we weren’t able to reach the top floor as they turned on speakers announcing that they were now closing the building and everyone should leave it. We tried to ignore it (we don’t speak Burmese either way, so why should we feel included?) and ran up another three floors, but eventually got stopped by a Burmese family. They told us that they were on their way down and we too really should do the same immediately. After getting out and enjoying the view in the golden afternoon light for a while we went back to town.

 

We had some delicious pancake-dinner at the night market later and were also quite successful in shopping very nice tissues. Monywa is the hottest and driest place in Myanmar, but it started raining at night and didn’t stop the whole next day. This wasn’t even too bad as we had our soft and comfy bed, a good breakfast and REAL coffee and cake for lunch in a bakery. The ride home was alright (real bus this time and it didn’t even rain in!) and at our arrival it even stopped raining for a while! So the whole trip has really been a success and very nice ;-)

Now it’s raining in Mandalay for almost three days with hardly any interruption and the strange thing is – it’s cold! We’ve only got a few degrees above 20° and even if I’ve been glad about the fresh, cool air at first, it would be nice if everything wasn’t that soaked and cold all the time now. Let’s hope it stops soon, because otherwise the water on from the balcony will flood into my room…

 

The Yankin Hill - hiking in Mandalay

Last Monday we had a holiday and one of the classes in which I’m teaching, decided to use this free day for an excursion to the Yankin Hill at the outskirts of Mandalay. For this occasion they invited their two volunteer-teachers (Dorotka, the Czech girl, and me) and four of their Burmese teachers to come along. At this point I have to say that I found it quite impressive that the kids organised this whole trip on their own – considering that back home it sometimes has been too complicated for a teacher to plan an excursion with a class… AND the organisation turned out to be really good: all the students (and teachers) knew where and when to meet and so we got picked up in the morning by cars and drove to the hill.

The sun was shining and promising to make it a quite hot day, as we started to climb up some really steep steps to the first platform on our way. Enjoying the great view on Mandalay and the surrounding mountains, the kids made clear that this hill was even higher than the Mandalay Hill and partly they wouldn’t even dare to look down! So after taking a short rest there we went on and made our way from one pagoda to the other until we reached a small monastery on the top. From here on we didn’t have to go any further up as there is a kind of loop road starting there. Every five minutes (or probably even more frequently) the kids asked Dorotka and me whether we were already feeling tired and somewhen around this time our answers slowly changed from “no, we’re fine” over “a little” to an honest “yes, very.” After enjoying the coolness of two very nice and mystic caves (with Pagodas in it, obviously) and some good wishes on different ponds and wells, we all sat down next to one stupa thankful for the shade and the soft breeze around us. Afterwards we went to another platform with an impressive view where we had a huge picnic for lunch.

 

 

Having finished lunch we slowly started our way back down again and after quite a few more pagodas, we eventually reached the parking lot safe and sound. While waiting for the Pick-up the kids cheerfully started to sing songs (reaching from ‘twinkle, twinkle little star’ to ‘I have a dream’) and we all welcomed the heavy rain bringing at least a little change from the heat on our way back home. 

 

 

some changes around me

In the meantime I have changed my schedule quite a lot. After I mentioned that it’d also be interested in teaching science and general knowledge, they asked me whether I could only take those classes instead of English as they’d really need more teachers in these fields.  So now I’ll once again start with some observation in my new classes and then go on with preparing the lessons together with their Burmese teachers or on my own. Besides that, I had my first lesson in the so-called teacher-class, where some Burmese teachers can learn and improve their English. In the beginning I was a little bit nervous about the thought of teaching teachers, but it’d say that the first lesson went quite well and they are a really nice and easy-going group. Some of them are even my age!

 

A few days ago, a Czech girl, Dorotka, moved into the room next to mine and now she’s also teaching here at the PDO. Using my water kettle we’ve already prepared some surprisingly tasty instant noodles (with partly undefinable pieces of dried meat in it) twice in the evenings and made use of the terrace on the roof top of our dormitory. Up there, you wouldn’t believe you are in the second biggest city of Myanmar and together with the nice, cooling breeze it almost feels like a summers-night in Italy – if I just hadn’t chosen those incredibly spicy noodles!

On Sunday we rented bikes and started a sightseeing tour through town. Feeling quite cool on our vehicles we quickly arrived at the area of the old palace (where we had to pay some really high entrance fees) and had a look into some of the houses of the old king’s 50 wives. Afterwards tried to find a flower-market (but only saw one man selling some green plants) and took a rest at an incredibly cheesy, pink church. After the sunset at the riverside, the streets started to get really crowded and it wasn’t that much fun anymore to be on a street without any lights. But eventually we arrived at our supermarket and (feeling horribly sticky and dirty because of the streets and all the traffic) enjoyed some delicious ice cream there.

 

 

One week at the PDO

How time flies – I can’t believe that I’ve already been here for a week now! On the other side there where already happening so many things, that it could easily fill two or three weeks ;-)

So last Friday I was picked up and warmly welcomed by Milow (his English name) who’s working here at the PDO. After the one hour drive from the airport to the City, I was shown my private room in the girl’s dormitory and thankfully fell asleep on my bed (all in all it took me 27 hours to come from Austria to Mandalay).

On the following day I was given a tour through the area of the school, met quite a few teachers and coordinators of different sections and was introduced to the principal. The effect of that tour was that my head was stuffed with new names, information and places so that I was totally confused where to find which office for which department, different corridors and classes or even my own dormitory! Eventually I found out that all the buildings are built in one straight line, so that I could just start at the beginning of our street and look for the right building and then go on with finding the right floor…

Milow invited me to join him and another very nice girl from the PDO, two Burmese nurses and four German nurses and doctors on their excursion to Mingun on Sunday – so when I climbed into the truck that morning I met those four women from Germany and they were also immediately able to help me quite a lot, by explaining how things work around here. So we took the boat to Mingun, and while they made a medical check of the kids in the Kindergarten there, I was shown the building itself and had time to explore the pagodas and monastery together with the Burmese girl. Even though I’ve been here two years ago, I still was so amazed by those places! Don’t know what I liked best: the white Pagoda in front of a blue sky or the sunset on the river at our way back home.

 

School normally starts on Monday, but on this one there was still some holiday and so I was still able to have another day off. When my family and I were in Mandalay for the first time two years ago I met some students and monks on our way to the Mandalay Hill and they just wanted to improve their English by talking to tourists, so we exchanged our Facebook-contacts and regularly wrote messages since. So on Monday morning one of those friends asked whether I’d like to meet his relatives – shortly after I was once again sitting in the back of a truck, where I was greeted by two families and they invited me to come to their house and have lunch with them. Everyone was being really lovely and caring (even though there were some language barriers), I was told to refer to them as my Burmese family and the tables were full of rice, salads, meat and vegetables – it really wasn’t difficult to make myself feel like home there ;-)

In the afternoon four of the boys from the morning picked me up again and together we first went to the Kuthodaw pagoda and then started to climb the stairs of the Mandalay Hill. Well, what can I say – is there anything more beautiful than seeing everything of the land below you turning golden while the pagoda behind you glitters through its thousands of little mirrors in the dark-blue sky? And all that without being too kitschy, even though my description kinda sounds like now… on our way back to town they bought different kinds of food and I was once again invited by them and ate dinner in their monastery – what else could you want?

 

On Tuesday my very first day of school started and I actually found my classroom! As I was told by some students, their teacher was just gone to University and so I stood there on my own and tried to make the best of it. Luckily I had prepared some pictures of Austria and I also told them something about myself, so I guess it all wasn’t even that bad. The next lesson I was supposed to do some “observations” but when the teacher arrived, he told me that he hadn’t prepared anything and ask me to hold his lesson. So I did everything again and in the end I somehow became the Geography teacher for this class. But the kids are really lovely and eager to study, even though the discipline during the lessons can’t be compared to the system I know. But in the following lessons I (partly) managed to get them to raise their hands and answer individually, instead of the “normal” habit to answer in one choir or shout anything that comes to their mind. In the meantime I even found some books with exercises in them and it’d say that this helped me quite a lot to bring some structure and improvement into the class :-)

 

 

 

Only a few days left!

While keeping myself busy with packing my stuff and organising the last details of my trip, I’m getting more and more excited – I’m so much looking forward to start this adventure! Besides trying to figure out which essential clothes to take with me (one of my friends from Mandalay once complained about the cold in December, but what does “cold” mean on a European level?), I collected quite some things for the PDO. With lots of help from some friends and my family I gathered clothes, toys, pencils and blogs for the foster homes (which also belong to the PDO and are organised by them) and thanks to my English teacher, I got a lot of teaching material for the school and myself.  Didn’t know that those things can add up weight so quickly and even though everything fit quite easily into my 3 pieces of luggage, I had to repack it a thousand times to meet baggage regulations...

The Phaung Daw Oo is a monastic school providing free education to every child.  It started as a small project, but soon developed into one of the biggest schools in Myanmar and built up a clinic, a teaching centre, workshops as well as foster homes.  For more details have a look on their official website (http://www.dhammadana.org/pdo/about.html ) or this article (www.Irrawaddy.org/magazine/a-monk-with-a-vision-puts-school-within-reach.html ).

During the time I’m spending there I’m mostly going to teach English in different grades and organise a few smaller projects at school, but I’m also hoping to be able to help at  the foster home, as I really enjoy spending time with children. I’m so much looking forward to working at this place, preparing my classes and exchanging with local teachers, students and other volunteers. I for myself can’t think of a better way to get to know a new culture and meet a variety of people!  And my free-time I’m naturally spending with exploring Mandalay and its surrounding :-) 

Next time I’ll already be writing from Mandalay and hopefully I can also post some pictures of my new home ;-)

About me and my plans

In the beginning of summer 2015 I graduated from my school in Austria and before going on to University I took the chance to do a Gap-Year. I see this year as the unique possibility to combine the things I always loved doing, always wanted to do (but unfortunately didn't find the time for) and the things giving me mere orientation on my future way: volunteering, travelling, internships and (one or two) language courses.

As my first destination this journey is taking me to Myanmar, where I was given the chance to take part in a volunteering-project in Mandalay for about 3 months. But let’s start with the beginning:

I already travelled to Myanmar twice (in 2013 and 2014) with my parents and I completely fell in love with the country’s beauty and everything it has to offer. “it is quite unlike any place you know about” – I couldn’t agree more with Kipling. If Southeast-Asia is famous for its rich cultures and the friendliness of the people (two things, which absolutely fascinated me from my first journey on!), I feel like Myanmar tops everything. During our trips I had the chance to visit quite a few locations of the country, one even more stunning and beautiful than the other, see parts of the amazing culture and even make some friends my age, with whom I’m still in contact via Facebook and co.! So when one of these friends (from Mandalay) by chance told me that foreigners have the chance to help and work as teachers at his school, I suddenly knew that this possibility would mean a dream coming true for me. And several months later –after some time of thinking, organising and my graduation- this dream of spending a bit more time in Myanmar is actually turning into reality! Leaving Austria in the middle of September, I’m starting to help and teach English at the PDO (Phaung Daw Oo) school in Mandalay and in this blog I’m now writing about my time and experiences there. Hope you enjoy reading it! ;-)

 

Nachdem ich im Juli diesen Jahres mit Matura die Schule abschloss und danach einen laaaangen, warmen und herrlichen Sommer mit einigen Reisen durch Europa genossen habe, beginnt Mitte September für mich ein neues Jahr: mein Gap-Year. Ein Jahr, das ich vor meiner Studienzeit mit den Dingen füllen möchte, die mich persönlich faszinieren und interessieren und die sich während des normalen Alltags leider nur schwer verwirklichen lassen. Also ein Jahr in dem ich Zeit habe, freiwillig zu helfen und zu arbeiten, Sprachkurse zu belegen, mich mit Praktika auf meinen kommenden Studien- und Berufsweg vorzubereiten und natürlich zu reisen.

Die erste Station meiner großen Reise bringt mich nach Myanmar, wo ich für ungefähr 3 Monate an einem Volunteering-Projekt teilnehmen und hauptsächlich Englisch unterrichten werde. Aber mal von Anfang an:

Mit meinen Eltern und meiner Schwester bin ich schon zweimal (2013 und 2014) in den Ferien durch Myanmar gereist und ich war jedes Mal beeindruckt von der unglaublichen und vielfältigen Schönheit des Landes, der Kultur und Lebensart der Menschen dort. „it is quite unlike any place you know about” – treffender als Kipling könnte ich dieses Land nicht beschreiben. Die reiche Kultur und die Freundlichkeit der Menschen in Südostasien hatte mich schon bei meiner ersten Begegnung mit diesen Ländern fasziniert. Die Schönheit Myanmars übertraf für mich bisher aber alle. Auf unseren Reisen lernte ich auch einige Leute in meinem Alter kennen, mit denen ich seitdem über Facebook und Co. Kontakt halte. Einer dieser Freunde (aus Mandalay) erzählte mir dann einmal, dass an seiner Schule auch hin und wieder Volunteers Englisch unterrichten und fragte, ob das denn nicht auch was für mich wäre. Im ersten Moment winkte ich lachend ab, aber gleichzeitig setzte sich in mir der Wunsch  fest, doch an diesem Projekt mitzuwirken. Denn dabei könnte ich sowohl mit meinen Englisch-Kenntnissen helfen, als auch besser in Kultur und Alltag eintauchen, als es mir in einem Urlaub möglich wäre. Tja, was soll ich sagen, die Idee ließ mich nicht mehr los – nach einigen Nachdenk-Spaziergängen, Planungen und meinem Schulabschluss – wird dieser Traum nun tatsächlich Wirklichkeit! Mitte September geht’s von Österreich nach Mandalay in Myanmar, wo ich an der PDO (Phaung Daw Oo) Schule mithelfen und Englisch unterrichten werde.

In diesem Blog werde ich über meine Zeit dort berichten und wünsche euch viel Spaß beim Lesen! ;-)