Mandalay

Hi. My name is Timothy Mouse. I am a wanderer. I wander and wonder. Like Alice, I try to think of six impossible things before breakfast.

I was in Mandalay four years ago at a private school playing in the Montessori program.

The kids taught me to say I am a miracle.

Street photography was sublime.

The management wasn’t professional so I left after ten weeks. Probation is a two-way street. A friend who stayed for two years said they bled teachers after my departure.  

Dr. Scary and Mrs. Marbles were a strange dysfunctional couple. 

I really enjoyed Burma. The people are gentle, kind and smiling.

I had the chance to return with a language company in Yangon. It was fantastic combination of helping others develop vocabulary, critical thinking, facilitate teaching skills, laughter and do street photography experiments.

Everything I do is an experiment.

The CEO was mean and selfish. He lost the lease on one building where we had classrooms so I was downsized with three other teachers after five months.

I was grateful for the opportunity.

I returned to Seems Ripe, Cambodia doing a volunteer English project in a dusty rural reality for two months with low-income families.

I independently published a new book of black and white images called Street 21, about Yangon. O joy.

I published two short literary works – My Name is Tam, erotica from Vietnam and A Little BS from living and facilitating heart-mind in Laos. All the works are on the side bar.

Hungry, I scoured potential sources in Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Comabodia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Laos.

It’s a wonderful life part 42.

In June, 2015 I accepted an offer to return to Mandalay and here I is. Third times the charm said Lucky Mouse. The food is spicy. The rainy season is here, said clouds. They know me by now.

I speak perfect broken English.

As a Turkish lawyer said in The Language Company, I know my English is not grammatically perfect but I know it’s fluent. Yeah baby.

It’s an English language company. Teachers. Someone with a pulse.

Similar to TLC with more engagement diversity.

My classes begin with 9th graders at an expensive private school 6-7 and 7-8 a.m. Courage to speak and vocabulary while having fun in a non-threatening environment. Draw your dream.

Next are anxious college prep seniors. I came from Cambodia on an elephant. Really, said one sharp girl. Yes, really. His name is Packy and he’s in the secret garden having lunch.

They wait in a fancy air-con room on the fifth floor near the broken elevator for university entrance results so they can apply to a school and become a doctor or engineer or real human. They are the future. We focus on speaking fluency. Take a risk, kids.

Afternoons are with Primary 1 & 2 at a rural private school forty-four minutes out of town from 1-3.

Reminds me of the primal experience outside Shuangliu, China in 2005 – trees, farmland, rivers, birds, wildlife and subsistence living.

Kids there easily said, “Let me try!”

It’s the first time any have had a native speaker. Open your head, heart and mouth. Draw your dream. Write what you don’t know. 

Say please and thank you. Practice good manners. Share. Be kind.

Say I need help. Three little important English words.

The assistant primary teachers and admin are supportive and understand my small character development.  

Young learners teach me songs. We hold hands, share hugs, dance, sing and play games using the alphabet, animals, and colors. Storytelling imagination. We practice cursive writing. The hand is directly connected to the heart.

We meditate on our breath. Posture.

I act my age.

It’s the same Asian educational story - young ones have no fear. O joy.

Older ones have been tyrannized into passivity. It’s a cultural/educational reality. Big ears no mouth authoritarian social conditioning. A few have the courage to ask questions. Group work allows people to speak freely.

The culture taught them to respect other people’s integrity. Silence is the norm. Silence is the loudest noise in the universe. 

As Einstein said, "Learning is an experience. Everything else is just information."

I respect their situation. Students are emerging from imaginary shells and discarding social context masks with a new sense of love, responsibility, leadership ability, polite manners, teamwork and courage.

They experiment in creative notebooks. I bring objects to sterile classrooms – a yellow leaf, an apple, a feather, rocks, plants, and bouquets of yellow and white daisies.

Smell this.

Draw this and write your feelings.

Your creative notebook will be with you long after textbooks gather dust. It’s your best friend.

Share with your pod people.

It’s a joy to be a small part of their process. Let’s have an adventure.

The 9^th graders live in a hostel, sixteen to a room. Sexes don’t mingle, when I shift them to team tables with each other they freeze initially. Patience is my teacher. Say hello. Ask questions about name, family, food. Spark it.

Next week I expose them to Emotional Nourishment. Share hugs. Hold hands. Dance like nobody’s looking.

THE WORKERS

Let’s go.

One day the 12^th graders walked down five flights of stairs to sit out of the broiling sun in small groups drawing, sketching, coloring and writing about the workers.

Seventeen young male and female laborers inside the front gate shoveled sand, mixed it with water, carried piles of rocks on their heads to a cement mixer, welded metal and created a new cement floor. Earth needs more floors.

Local teachers couldn’t get their heart around this essential activity. A young student from elementary said teachers nicknamed me Free Man.

Amazing Victory (his English name) a local teacher said he appreciates the students having this opportunity. He said it’s a welcome sight in their system focusing on texts, marks, exams and rote learning.

We returned to the classroom and wrote about the experience. Share details with your partner. How did you feel? What did you smell, hear, visual awareness? Where’s the real education value?

One girl drew the back of a woman in a floral designed Longyi balancing a basket of rocks on her head. Clear description. Her essence. Too shy to share with the class I did it for her.

Look at this amazing art.

Homework – go for a walk with your notebook and colors. No gadgets.

Basics. Ten teachers stay in a hotel. It’s an old funky comfortable place with a blue shimmering swimming pool and well-established interior meditative garden with palm trees, wild flowers, ponds, lotus, ferns, and green life. Birds and cats. Like China 1,000 years ago.

The smiling laundry woman wears red and orange and green tie-dyed blouses. Ebullient. She’s been here thirty-one years. Her ironing skills are immaculate as we converse. I will invite her to come to my classes and teach the kids how to apply gentle pressure to cloth. The young ones will get it.

I wear a Longyi, a form of sarong, the male national dress, every day. Delightful. Soft fabric, thread, colors. Students and teachers appreciate this. Ventilation.

Conservative morose foreign teachers strangle dreams with a tie. Tuck in your shirt. I imagine their classes border on boredom. So it goes. 

AIS prison school where I did the Montessori program for ten weeks is east of town.

I hitch into town for supplies and street photography. This location is central, easy for walking, exploring and connecting with the local community. A bike would be sufficient however it’s too fast for street work and engaging people.

The road is made by walking.

You know how much I love dust.

I enter a pharmacy near Paradise Hospital for powder anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals to add to water.

Where are you from, said the smiling man of Burmese-Indian heritage. Tibet. He got it. Tibet? I see. Yes, I walked here. Come visit again. We can talk. You can be my friend. Ok. See you later.

The camera entered a narrow lane. It passes wooden and bamboo homes with families sitting outside or indoors watching a soapy opera, men reading papers, kids playing, women bathing at a community zone. Draw water.

A plane flew overhead. Three kids sitting on a bamboo platform waved at the plane. Good-bye, ha, ha.

Thanks for your patience, a great teacher.

Truth, love and compassion.