End of year party

Today was our last visit to any of the centres for this school year. Things have really wound down now, and the children spent much of the morning playing (which is what we've been trying to encourage from the start!)
This week they have been learning about the Songkran water festival, which will take place during the April break. Today they learned about the tradition of pouring water (in small amounts!) over people as a sign of respect. (A far cry from the drunken drenching of innocent passers-by with bucket-loads of water and ice cubes that characterizes the Songkran festivities on the streets of Mae Sot!) The children took turns to pour perfumed water over the hands of the teachers (myself included.)

Afterwards, they went outside to play with the water and had fun soaking each other. They had clearly all been asked to bring a change of clothes for the occasion, and soon the fence was festooned with all their little outfits and underwear drying in the sun.

We finished the morning singing all our favourite songs with the ukulele, and I began to feel rather emotional as I realised this would be the last time I would see most of them, as all but the youngest will be moving on to school in May. It took time to build their trust, especially as we would only show up at their centres for one week each month, but now after nine months of working with them they welcome us with open arms and smiling faces, eager for us to join in their games.

We have resigned ourselves to not doing very much at the centres in the month of May, as the teachers will be settling in the new children, with all the attendant tears, tantrums and toilet accidents! There could be a key role for my coordinator, though, in helping out the teachers with some useful phrases in Burmese, such as "Mummy will be coming for you soon!" At the centre that we visited this week, almost all the children enrolled for next year are migrant children, so there will be plenty of scope for support with language and communication issues.

Next week we are off to Bangkok for an annual Programme Area Review meeting for the VSO education programme. We will also spend a couple of days at a big book fair in Bangkok, to get some more resources for the centres. Later in April, Alice and I are going to spend a couple of weeks in Burma, ending up at the wedding of her coordinator. We have timed the trip to avoid Songkran in Mae Sot, but we will probably be out of the frying pan and into the fire (or out of the puddle and into the pool), as the festival is celebrated with just as much enthusiasm in Burma. Look out for some soggy photos!