Players

Players enter the stage.

Speak their lines or silent.

Perform their actions and leave the stage through a door in the back.

The door leads to a garden.

The garden leads into...

Smile. We will help you practice.

See the Beauty and Cruelty without hope or fear.

The Middle Way - detachment and wisdom.

Our perceptions are empty.

Suffering is an illusion.

Passion and process.

It existed somewhere between an object and a concept.

learn in burma

Give us the fifty daze M-F 5:30 a.m. short van trip to CAE, the private school in Mandalay where you helped 10th graders become more human with humor and curiosity. July - October 2015.

One class from 6-7, another from 7-8.

Four male teachers left starlight and climbed into the van. Three were morose. Too early.

Their dialogue mentioned sleep disorders, international menus and the quality of their shits.

One Black guy muttered about Kuala Lumpur fast food choices while cursing mosquitos and smashing them on windows.

The others talked about teaching adventures in China.

Exciting.

Yeah, I’m going to miss them like you miss a rock in your shoe.

I understand your student-teachers rearranged desks into groups to facilitate sharing. You played jazz, blues and classical music. They drew and colored their dream in creative notebooks. Daily.

Yes. Head – hand – heart.

I reminded them their creative notebooks would sustain them for years, long after the textbooks gather dust. Long after they vomited material to pass a test. Get marks.

Give me specifics.

My room was the only team-building configuration. The other teachers maintained rigid rows of wooden benches where students hearing a dull lecture stared at the back of someone’s head.

The Black guy mumbled. They replaced him with a dour scholar from Papa New Genie.

One British teacher lectured from the book and played cartoons.

A drawling American teacher projected The Star Spangled Banner lyrics on a screen and had the class recite words.

You’re kidding me. I wish I was.

You could hear the parrots…”Oh say can you see…”

Our team-groups shared ideas prior to discussing diverse topics improving their speaking confidence.

In his final class Southern Comfort had them singing “Jingle Bells.”

Boughs of folly. Oh yeah.

My geniuses played a round-robin chess tournament the final two days. Great fun.

They’d practiced chess every Thursday and Friday for a month. They focused on tactics, strategy, activating pieces off the back row, castling, attacking through the center.

They developed critical thinking skills, planning and logic, problem solving, accepting responsibility for their decisions, respecting their opponent and sharing ideas with friends.

Life skills 101.

Burma Brothers Grim

Since July, representing an English language company in Mandalay, he facilitated English and Creativity with Grades 1 & 2 every afternoon at a private school in the rural countryside.

Two Burmese brothers owned the new school with 500 students from G1-11. The Brothers Grim - this ain’t no fairy tale.

The last five months were joyful then…

In the last week of Now I Remember, (seven days past) while Grade 2 was drawing and coloring houses, dragons, dinosaurs, sun, trees, flowers, river, fish, boats, rainbows, people and dreams – pain, suffering and stupidity said hello.

100 Grade 11 male and female students gathered in a semi-circle on the cement patio outside the primary classroom. They faced steps and ornate golden script atop the cheap grandiose building:

Developing Youth, Character and Future Leaders Through Fear and Intimidation.

A stack of papers with all the names waited on a desk.

Headmaster brother in a white shirt and purple patterned Longyi, held a 4’ bamboo stick.

His voice echoed into hearts and minds - you failed the exam. You will receive your punishment.

Taking a paper from the stack he called out a name. A girl stepped forward, climbing two steps with her back to the crowd.

He measured the bamboo stick against her buttocks, coiled and unleashed the blow. Whack!

Her face stiffened. He coiled. Whack!

A small tear graced her left eye.

She rejoined her classmates.

99 passive students waited to feel sharp stinging lashes.

Primary assistant teachers oscillated between helping students and watching the angry headmaster swing his bamboo stick.

Name after name.

Chattering with friends, children colored a large red heart floating over a blue river.

Brother #2 entered the classroom.

Why is he beating the students, said the foreign teacher?

They failed the exam. Whack!

Parents want us to punish their children. They see we are doing our job. Whack!

It’s part of our culture. Whack!

Maybe we’ll change it in two or three years. Whack!

The foreign teacher and thirty children practiced meditation.

Breathe in and out.

Inhale suffering and exhale love.

Mindful awareness.

Mindful seeing.

Mindful attention.

Mindful presence.

Calm abiding.

He hugged each child. We created a loving environment.

You are a beautiful rainbow and a genius.

I love you.

Our time together is finished.

You are in my heart.

alive is a miracle

Alive is a miracle.

Smile. Hunt with a camera.

Words are dancing airplanes winging southwest with orange balloon morning and hungover Mekong tourists.

Word weave shuttles. Fire. Spirit. Fog, river, a boat, current, mystery wills, orange glow coasting past a flow. A bell.

Japanese sensitivities in a cloud break.

Mekong sings new puzzling futures, passing, pulsating, wearing an umbrella to protect statues for eye glazed travel books gripped by design opticians with lost favorable vacant eyed distrust and disquiet.

The DISQUIET of chopsticks probing teeth smiling tremendous labor unrest as a character,

A wisp of porcelain skin finalities gently lowers her eyes sublime gesture.

Writing down bi-lingual laughter (a sling was the first human vehicle) a mother sang, cradling her infant from eye candy distractions.

Fleeting retinas shield eyes real eyes realize real lies.

Accelerate around a corner of a dream with a lotus blossom.

Yangon, Myanmar