JSMK - Getting Here

Once upon a time, when we were living in Longview in our cute, white, clean, carpeted, vintage 1920s apartment with such wonderful things as a bathtub, and a memory-foam mattress topper, and a solid headboard you could lean against, and a crockpot and kitchen aid mixer and a blender, Gabe and I used to dream about going to other parts of the world. We would say things while we were sitting on our bouch (the bed-couch that served both purposes in our living room) eating chocolate watching episodes of 19 Kids and Counting, like, "This is great, but wouldn't it be fun if we could be traveling together right now?"

I was reminded of that while I was 3 hours in to a journey that required me to cling to a "bench" jury-rigged onto the front of a tractor as I descended the third or fourth mountain at what seemed a 45 degree angle. My back was bruised in a strip across my shoulder blades from the bar of the passenger bench, and the flesh at the back of my knees felt like they'd been beaten from jostling over the board that was nailed to the front of the bench to help insure riders didn't slide off the front and plummet over a cliff or get crushed by the tractor wheels.

That was also the moment I realized something that should have been way more apparent to a farm girl such as myself: tractors don't make comfortable carriages. And when I said I wanted to be traveling somewhere with Gabe, the very last thing in my mind was that such travels would include traversing the 3000 foot tall hills of Burma on farm equipment.

How did we get to that scene? What on earth are we doing? Good question.

No, this was not an "India gone bad" retreat back to Thailand via whatever mode available. We actually planned this trip separate from India. India, by the way, ended well and we came back from that jaunt with some good discussion happening between us as we look toward the future.

But I'm talking about Burma now. Backtracking about a month and a half, I was at a girls' night making Valentine's with some of the gals I've met in Chiang Mai, and I was talking to this interesting young lady named Benita. Benita and her husband work for the Free Burma Rangers - an organization that seeks to bring hope to the oppressed tribal people of Burma (it's official name is now Myanmar, but the tribal groups apparently reject that name because although it was changed to that in an attempt to symbolically unify the country, it contains sounds or letters that aren't in the tribal dialect of some of the people groups, if I understand correctly). FBR, as the organization calls itself, desires to see justice established by equipping volunteers from the tribes in ranger tactics - such a jungle survival and navigation and surveillance and medical skills - so they can, in turn, aid and assist their people when they are attacked by the Burmese military and document abuse for the purpose of publicizing to the global community.

As part of FBR's work, they have a training camp where they run an annual new-ranger's training boot-camp-type-event for 3 months, and they also have a one-year medical school for the Rangers that desire to become medics.

Benita explained that FBR likes to have native-English speakers at JSMK (there's a lot of acronyms in this social pocket - this one stands for Jungle School of Medicine Kawtoolie. This is understandable as many of the US volunteers are former military folks). Usually there are doctors or nurses that go out to the jungle school for short stints to teach the classes, but the months of March and April they didn't have any foreigners there. She asked if Gabe and I would be willing to go to teach English, math, and maybe some basic anatomy (right now the students are at the beginning of their one-year medical training, so they are completing a 2-month "foundations" study). We couldn't go in March because we were still teaching English at Bawrirak Suksa and we had our India trip planned, but we offered to go as soon as we got back from India.

So the tractor was one of the many phases of transportation we did this week getting from India to Chiang Mai to the very rural jungle camp.

In fact, we thought we'd have to hike the final 25km (yes, over those 3,000 foot elevation hills... Carrying our 20lb backpacks....), so the tractor was an unexpected blessing. And by unexpected blessing, I really mean a total act of sweet mercy from God because, let me tell you, daily PiYo workouts are wonderful for toning and strengthening, but let me make this abundantly clear: PiYo for 2 months is not sufficient preparation for hiking in the Burmese hot season over hills that are more than half a mile high with 20 lbs of weight strapped to your back. I don't know what we were thinking, but that is the voice of experience telling you there.

We did hike the final 5km or so, and that took us almost 2 hours. On the final hill (really, it was about the only hill we had to use our own muscle power) I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I kept telling myself, "Don't look up, just take one more step. Good job. Now take one more. Keep your eyes on the trail. Don't look up. Nice, even breaths. Don't look up." Going down that hill on the other side was almost worse, of course, since my legs were shaking so bad it was like balancing on jello. But the one time I had a foot slide out from under me, I was able to catch myself with my opposite hand by leaning backwards in a PiYo flip (so I guess that PiYo did come in handy for something!).

The sight of the thatched-roof, 2-story wood hut that is to be our home for this month looked like a luxurious palace when we reached our destination, though!

Now we're on Day 2 of being at JSMK - Gabe rigged up hammocks for us to sleep in (a gesture for which I'm very thankful for, having seen 3 rats in the past 24 hours that also seem to inhabit our living space). To be fair and give due credit here, Gabe has actually hung the hammocks twice - last night's after-dark hanging resulted in a long night of feeling akin to bananas with our feet and head about a meter higher than our sagging mid sections, so today he attempted to fix that inconvenient detail. We are diligently applying bug repellant and trying to get a lay of the land. So far today has not included any tractors or hiking beyond climbing the stairs to our living quarters, and for that, I'm particularly thankful!


- Dani

Kolkata Check-In

We're currently visiting our awesome friends in Kolkata - we got to briefly see them in Chiang Mai last summer when they came through the city for a conference, and we thought it would be fun to make the jump over to India while we're here in SE Asia to spend a little time with them before we leave this part of the world.

On my last trip to India (6 years ago or so) I came and worked at Mother Teresa's Mission House. I remember it as a blur of traffic and rain and heat and languages and bright colors and smells and dirt and people. The emotional impact was similarly confusing and tangled! I went home with head lice, malaria symptoms, and a bag full of questions about how God could be good when so much hardship existed in the world and who someone became and the life they lived seemed to dependent on circumstances and one's place of birth.

Of course, if you know the story of how Gabe and I fell in love, you know that it was the "India Aftermath" for me (and a similar "Mozambique Aftermath" for him about the same time) that led to us processing our experiences in these different countries with each other and then realizing in the processing just how much we appreciated having someone around to talk through and explain the mix of emotions and thoughts.

Fast forwarding to present time.... On this trip, I braced myself for a similar repeat of my last time here, but I should have known better because rarely does God seem to walk you through two identical situations!

I think this time around, I've been able to see the people of this region separate from the environment. Maybe that's because the pace of this trip has been a little more relaxed. Rather than heading out many days to go to the Mother House and catch a bus to my duty assignment and spending four hours washing clothes and visiting with other volunteers from around the world, we've spent time just being with our friends in their home, playing with their kids, and sitting around their table or in their living room talking, and really trying to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of the subculture they live in and the people around them.

The honking is still there, the women still wear beautifully vibrant colors, and it's still warm, of course, but there's a little more time to sit and talk with the "Auntie" that comes to help clean the house and cook and watch the kids when our friends are needing to focus on the language class in their home or running their business. She loves to embroider, and she was telling me how much she's enjoyed embroidering saris. She worked in the home of a consular employee in America for a year, but when he was relocated to Dehli, she asked to come back to Kolkata. Her knee was hurting yesterday, so I asked if I could pray for her. That lead to an interesting conversation about her experience with Catholic and Evangelical organizations here in the city, and the significance of this weekend with today being Good Friday.

Earlier this week I joined my friend, Stephanie, on a visit to take a surprise birthday cake to a young woman in her community of friends. We sat on a mat on the floor eating a delicious pile of rice and meat and spices with our fingers, laughing at the children of the house, and visiting about birthday traditions and food and family members and fashion. Stephanie prayed for her friend before we left with many hugs exchanged at the door.

Every morning our friends run a little language class in their family room for two of their interns and another couple that is new to the city. Stephanie helps pace the class and plan it and then co-teaches with a local native-language teacher. The teacher brings little food treats for our friends youngest daughter each morning, and it's so fun to watch the toddler spot "Auntie" coming in the door and abandon whatever she's doing and beeline over to sit with Auntie on the couch and eat her morning snack. I love seeing how the toddler and the language teacher relate to each other and participate in this morning ritual. Gabe and I got to sat in on the language class one morning and it as fun to also see Auntie teach these adults using many of the same techniques we used in our ESL class at Bawrirak Suksa - apparently beginning-language learning is similar across the world! Lots of using pictures and pointing 😊

Language class happens for 2 hours each morning, and the language learners lock themselves in the family room while the kids have the run of the house under the watchful eye of the Indian house help. We've been able to play Uno, teach the older ones (8 and 6 years old respectively) a simplified version of Qwirkle, talked about Star Wars, built train track complexes, visited the roof, and clean up after the two toddlers. The couple that is doing language learning adopted their son from Eastern Europe. He has multiple developmental delays - possibly due to his time at the orphanage and being under-stimulated or possibly genetically related. It's been sweet to see how the house helpers respond to his needs and seek to encourage him and contribute to his continued developmental progress.

In the afternoons we've been able to run to the market with Paul, visit The Loyal Workshopoffice and production house (if you're looking to invest in a quality leather accessory like a purse or messenger bag or wallet, check them out! Their work is awesome - both on an ethical level and quality level!) walk to a coffee shop, make fresh salsa, and Gabe visited their business office with Paul.

This weekend we're planning to head to a flower market for a photo-taking walk early in the morning. Paul has promised that we'll have great images to send out in our quarterly newsletter next week. I think dying Easter eggs might be on the agenda as well, which will be fun to do with the kids!

Among all these activities and outings and projects, though, we've most enjoyed the chance to share space and conversations. They've asked us some thought-provoking questions and provided insight and perspective into living and working overseas through their experience, and we've been able to pick their brains on various topics which has helped (and I think will continue to help!) as we progress through this Vision Season.

So far, India has seemed a lot more manageable than the last time I came through here!


- Dani

Check Lists and Reviews

It feels like we have a lot of lists to check these days - and often times, as soon as we get items crossed OFF our list, we'll add more things to our to-dos, and as a result, I feel like I live in a perpetual state of accomplishing a lot... and needing to accomplish more!

This week, though, with the end of the school term, means we're coming down toward the cut off point for a lot of items on our "do while we're in Chiang Mai" list.

Today we got a lot accomplished!

This morning we graded and added scores from our grade books.  I finished Grade 2's final tallying, but we still have a little to do with Grade 1 and Grade 3 next week.

We also bought our tickets fly home from New Zealand in December.  This is the last of our international airline purchases (well, except for how getting from France to Dublin in order to catch our flight to Honiara, but we might try to do a bus/train/ferry option with that anyhow).  The good news? It was $600 cheaper than my estimated budget.  Thank you, Jesus!

So, this blogpost is serving two purposes - to record our check list accomplishments, but probably more importantly, to contribute to the online community of information about how to travel and live overseas - specifically in Chiang Mai right now.

First review: www.skyscanner.com  This website has been my best friend as I research for our various flights.  Skyscanner has three amazing features we love:  

First, you can search from a starting point to "Everywhere" (without specifying a destination).  You'll get a list of possible destinations sorted by descending price.  That was how we found our rock-bottom prices from Bangkok to Venice.  We knew we wanted to get to Greece, but we also knew that it might actually cost us less to fly into Germany or France or something like that on a sale deal, and then catch a small, budget-airline flight a day or two later closer to where we wanted to go.  As it ended up, the cheapest price to ANYwhere in Europe from Bangkok was going to Venice - which happened to be only one country over from Greece ;)

Second, you can also search using a departure point and a destination city, but look at the whole month of prices at once.  This helped us as we planned for getting from Athens to Marseille, for example, but wanting to get the cheapest possible flights within about a 2-week time zone.  

Third, Skyscanner has a map feature - it's similar to the "Everywhere" feature, but rather than a lift of destinations, you can see a map of the world with prices listed next to cities - so we could see that flying to Nador, Morocco, was significantly cheaper than flying into Melilla, Spain - even though they're basically right next door to each other.  

All in all, Skyscanner.com has been an awesome resource for us to use as we've planned our trip.

Second review: today we went to the dentist for our 6-month cleaning.  Last fall, we went to a dental clinic that a friend had told us about and, although it wasn't super expensive (I think less than $30 for both of us), it was a little bit of a freaky experience - the dentist spoke a little English, but not a ton, and I'd told her I wanted my teeth cleaned, but the very first thing she did was start up a machine that sounded an awful lot like a drill!  Now, I have to say, I've really had very pleasant experiences with dentists - I've never had a tooth pulled or a root canal or anything like that, just cleanings and the occasional cavity to fill or sand blast - and because of that, I LIKE my teeth!  When that dentist started in on "drilling" near my gums, I about came out of that seat!

We decided to not go back there.  Instead, we went to a commonly referenced English-speaking-friendly clinic called Grace Dental.  (Also recommended by friends)  The website is a little cheesy, I'll admit, but the care we received seemed top notch!  First, they actually used the pick/cleaning things that I'm used to seeing at a dental cleaning, not a weird, high-pitched drill!  Second, the dentist that cleaned my teeth spoke excellent English, as did the receptionist when I called 2 weeks ago to get an appointment set up.  And third, even though it is slightly more expensive than the very Thai place we went last time, it wasn't that much more so!  We ended up paying less than $40 for both of us to have a 50-minute cleaning.  Am I happy? Yes.

Third review: another thing on our to-do list was getting boosters on a couple vaccines.  We are required to have some basic vaccines for our DTS, including Tetanus and Typhoid.  Gabe's tetanus is due to expire in January 2017, and I figured while we were here in Thailand, we might as well try to get that taken care of - presumably at a fraction of the cost, since we don't have "insurance" per se in the USA, we have a Christian "bill pay" cooperative - but they don't cover vaccinations.  We also both needed Typhoid - and frankly, since we're heading out into the jungle of Burma for a month in a few weeks, I figured we should get those NOW rather than wait until the day before we leave SE Asia!

I had initially thought we'd go to Ram Hospital, but after reading some reviews, I was feeling hesitant.  I stumbled across the name of a clinic in the area over by Grace Dental: CM Mediclinic and even though it looked relatively new and didn't have a ton of reviews, I thought, "Let's just give this a try."  We didn't call ahead - we just planned to drop-in after we finished at the dentist.

Now, to be fair, it was a little confusing to get to just because it's off the beaten path (fortunately, it's very close to one of our favorite post-church-on-Sunday lunch spots, so we had an idea of where we were going), but nothing that having a good map and a little extra time planned didn't take care of.  It's a small, two-staff-person place, only open in the afternoons on weekdays and then all day Saturday, but it was a great experience!  The gentleman that greeted us was a chap from England, and we had a lovely talk with him.  He was able to give us the prices of our vaccinations up front so we could decide if we wanted to get them there or go elsewhere.  The woman who actually administered our shots was very kind, explaining what brand she was using and why, and honestly, it was one of the gentlest shots I've ever had!

We were in an our in about 20 minutes, and that included a fair amount of visiting.  The total cost for both of us to get a Typhoid vaccination and Gabe to get a Tetanus/Diphtheria: under $75.  

After that, we went and got one last Mexican-food dinner at The Salsa Kitchen, a seriously unique and fun take on Mexican food.

Lastly, we stopped at Boots, a pharmacy chain, and picked up a 40-day supply of Doxycycline for an antimalarial while we're out in Burma for $35.  Sometimes I just love how convenient Thailand is!  No call to the travel advice nurse, no $50 charge for a consultation, no special trip to your healthcare provider's in-house pharmacy... Just go to the store, tell them what you want, ask for any advice that you need, and purchase the product!

Now we're home to do a PiYo workout (and since I'm posting links and reviews anyhow, we're doing Chalene Johnson's Beachbody series that a friend back home super generously gifted to us last fall!) so I'll sign off.  But now you have my recommendations for flight planning, dental cleaning in Chiang Mai, vaccination location, Mexican food, and a workout plan ;)

Final week

Our internet isn't working at our house (again... still...) so internet-ing happens at school or at a coffee shop, and with a long list of Internet tasks (fill out travel insurance application, check on flight info, email so-and-so) blogging hasn't been the highest on the priority list. I apologize. We'll (and by that, I really mean I because I'm not even sure Gabe knows the password to get into blogger!) try to do better!

This is our last week of classes. In truth,we give all our finals on Thursday, so we really only have 3 days of review-intense classes. We're feeling mixed emotions, which I'll try to articulate:

Sadness - we're sad to be leaving these precious kids. They are SUCH fun - they're cute and smart and funny and vibrant and joyful. I think my heart is mourning saying goodbye to them a bit!

Happiness - it has been such an honor to walk through 39 weeks of teaching with these students. I always knew I'd fall in love with them, because I asked God to give me a special love for them and I knew he would, but I never expected to feel so loved BY the kids. I've lost my patience, I've raise my voice, I've made the students do extra work or taken away privileges, and throughout it all, even amid little ups and downs, they show me they love me - gifts of just-picked weeds, hugs, greetings in the morning, shy smiles, quickly granting forgiveness when I apologize and ask for it... I don't think I'd realized just how BIG these kids' hearts are. I am happy to have been loved so well by these little ones.

Anticipation - we have a "quiet" week planned here in Thailand after we finish finals to pack up, get our classroom in order, say our goodbyes, and then we start a series of travels,  staying and working with ministries and visiting people for the next 4 months where our longest time in one location will be a month. Basically, we'll be living out of our backpacks and experiencing some amazing things and spending time with wonderful people. I'm excited (and, for parts, a little nervous) about it!

Satisfaction - I think it is without the wrong kind of pride that I can say I'm satisfied with what we've done this year here teaching. We haven't done a perfect job, but we have earnestly sought to teach well, love well, share Jesus with these kids, and be a blessing to the ministry here by trying to help build into and invest in the English program here through developing detailed daily lessons plans , creating re-useable materials for future teachers to use, developing an "orientation document," and seeking to help the administrators with feedback about what is working well and ideas for how to make the experience of teaching here better for teachers in the future. There's a lot I would continue to build on and develop if I was here longer, but I don't think there's anything major I would change about how we've been teaching.

It's hard to believe we're almost finished - especially when I think back to the beginning of the year and remember how I thought it would never end! - but it is. And our hearts are full of precious memories and joy from this year. In the words of Paul in his letter to the Philippians, this little school, and the people in it, "have a special place in my heart."