Back from Myanmar

Baby girl with house father

A holiday - no! (Read 40 degree humid days, hours and hours of rough road bus travel,the odd bout of diarrhoea and vomiting). Inspirational - most definitely! 
Our Voluntour trip to visit schools and an orphanage in Myanmar with ICC (International Children's Care) was amazing. The people were gentle, warm, welcoming. The countryside, lack of infrastructure, housing, poverty, has to be seen to be believed (and I have previously visited Cambodia, Vietnam, China etc.) Many, no most, people live in conditions I wouldn't camp in overnight, and yet they just seem to get on with life. Work!  We don't know the meaning of the word here. Hard, grinding physical labour is just a part of the daily struggle to eat, survive. Three dollars a day is the going wage, if you like hefting 25kg bags of rice for 10 hours at a time in the heat or if you are prepared to engrave intricate lacquerware, day in, day out, sitting on a bamboo mat.

Love that Lego!

We wish you could have seen the reaction to the Lego which we took. The kids had never seen it before - indeed, the only toys we observed were a few soccer balls. Ian, Angie, Nancy, your donations were so worthwhile and we wish you could have seen those gorgeous kids' reactions. The children's faces were a sheer joy to behold, even the big teenagers were into it.
The school requisites will be well used in classrooms of 90+ kids, grubby rooms, devoid of any form of inspirational charts, posters, teaching aids.
Some of you donated money and together with some extra of ours, we were able to buy the Children's Village's rice supply for the coming year, material to make the girls' school uniforms, (on treadle machines, no pins, tape measure) AND, best of all, a refrigerator - a first for the Village.

'Aunty Val' swimming Burmese style

We went to the beach for 4 days with the kids. They had never seen a beach before and swimming was a new experience for them, and for us, as the custom over there is to swim fully clothed - no budgie smugglers or Speedos.  Much hilarity! We lashed out and spent $50 to buy every kid and house parent an ice cream, two days in a row. It's the best $50 we've ever spent!
Having a few spare dollars left, we asked the house mothers what they needed most. Can you believe they wanted coat hangers, plastic cups, knives, chopping boards and a potato peeler? Thse are things which we would just purchase without a second thought.

Painting one of the houses

I could go on and on. However, my main reason for this post is to say a huge thank you to all of you who contributed in cash and kind. We are very grateful, as your generosity enabled us to achieve so much.Will I return? Certainly!

Children's bedroom

For those interested, we have in mind to put on a little presentation, down the track. Please watch this space if you are interested. 

Thank you all once again - Coralie Foxton, Peter Foxton, Val Quirk.