My First Week on the Job

I began work on Monday. I was a little nervous going into it - the first day of work is always nerve-wracking but adding a language barrier and a new idea of culturally appropriate office behavior makes it even more so. Thankfully, I work with a group of incredibly kind women. I'm beginning to understand more about what will be expected of me - editing English documents and helping with funding proposals; teaching English to the two interns in the office; developing and maintaining the NGO's social media outlets, including the website. Most of my colleagues speak very good English and they have a strong grasp on technical terminology related to human rights and politics. However, writing seems to be more difficult, so that's where I come in. It's nice to know that my knowledge of the English language, something which I've always taken for granted, could be an asset to this organization.

On Friday afternoon, I led my first "getting to know you" English lesson with the interns. They are only one and two years younger than me, so it feels odd for me to be instructing them, but they are truly the best students I could ask for! They both speak Burmese and as well as their ethnic languages (I feel like they should be teaching me something!) and their desire to learn English really moves me. They are focused, respectful and try so hard to come up with correct pronunciation and spelling. When I asked them what careers they hoped to pursue, one told me she wanted to do social work and the other said she wanted to go into politics. It makes me smile when I think that these two girls, both my age more or less, who grew up in refugee camps on the border (one has only completed a year of formal schooling) are determined to learn as much as they can out here and then go back into Burma to help their communities. I've never taught English before, so it's a little rocky and I need to help them with grammar, which I'm finding really difficult to break down and categorize in a manner that I could teach it. If anyone has any experience in this, I would love your suggestions!

Getting to and from work is an interesting process as well. I walk to Talat Warorot (a huge market - picture the vendors in Chinatown, San Francisco times a thousand...and Thai) and get on a yellow songthaew. The cars all line up single file, each line following a different route, you choose your destination and hop in the back of the first car. Once the car is full, the driver takes off and you buzz when you want to get off. It's about a 20 minute ride for me and then once I get off (and dash across the highway) I walk about five more minutes to my office. To get home, I stand out on the rode and flag down a yellow songthaew when I see one, which takes me back to Warorot.

Dried crickets, just one of the many treats at Warorot!

Warorot is amazing. It's situated right along the Ping River and is made up of two huge warehouse buildings with hundreds of stalls and stores both inside and out. It's an array of sights, sounds and smells as you move from the busy street, congested with motorbikes and songthaews, to the clothing vendors (where I cannot for the life of me find a pair of jeans that fit because apparently I'm a giant), to food vendors with barbeque meats, stirfries and exotic fruit (and Washington State apples!) I've walked through the meat and seafood part once, but I don't know that I'll ever go back because the aroma was quite overwhelming.

I have many more pictures - including some I took today during a hike up to Wat Doi Suthep. I'll post them on the "Pictures" page!