A guided tour of my life here (part two) via some of things I've heard during my two weeks...

"Sing Us a Song!"

The dreaded first words of a smiling teacher as I sit down, trembling, in front of 100 excited little 'uns from Yaung Ni Oo's KG (Kindergarten) A, KG B (russian mafia) and 1st Standard. Hot, sweaty and knackared from the mandatory tour of every classroom earlier in the day ('tour' meaning I show up at the beginning of a lesson expecting to merely humbly introduce myself and am actually left to entertain the assembled masses for the full lesson), I take a little internal sob. But the youthful public is waiting, no time for self pity here. So the cobwebs and dust were wiped off the braincell marked 'Good Old Homely Childhood Songs' and the contents examined. Okay, no time, let's run with the first... ''Wheels on the Bus'. Wait... have they seen a bus? Do they know what one looks like? Best stick to Old Macdonald. But hark! Do they know animal sounds other than woofs and clucks? Hrumph! Ah, how about 'Daddy's Taking us to the Zoo Tomorrow?' Whatever, the decision had to be taken now, restlessness was upon them. I opt for the bus one, the kids listen, they're with me, and together we're gone.... jumping, hopping, skipping, stamping, stomping on those bamboo floors we rampage our bus through imaginary worlds... and one song floats into another, it just doesn't matter... do it with expression (the wilder the better), do it lound (or contrast it with tiny tiny pitterpatter quietness), do it rude/bad/wiv-da-attichood and the classroom is rocking. Those kids (and teachers) were vogue-a-licious that day. Their own songs, performances and stories were an absolute treat too. Two boys joined arms at the shoulder, swayed together and belted out some unknown wonder up at the front: theirs were the stars; it was unmissable.

"We want to improve"

A line repeated to me by Ko Hla Htay (headteacher) on regular occassion. He believes the teaching methods are often prehistoric, the curriculum outdated and the resources poor. My take - and ultimate bottom line for the existence of Yaung Ni Oo - is that the teachers and he, as little educated and world unware as he might claim them to be - are as great as the children are in their commitment - showing up day in day out to provide something for the students: and something's got to be better than nothing. My take (part two) is that of course this doesn't mean the school shouldn't always be looking for the spaces in which it can improve despite its circumstances. Teacher training seems to be seen here as something that (1) is done outside of the school, (2) is done by organisations not individuals and (3) results in a certificate. A mini-objective of mine over the year is to get those teachers who do have completed some of this sort of training to take the plunge and help teach their skills to those who haven't - a simple equation but one which looks as if it's been lost in the hopeful skyward pleas for more of the (expensive, inefficient) same.

"How old are you? / Are you married or do you have a lover? / What is your religion?"

The most common everyday questions by a country mile. The first is asked because age is of general interest here - it's a perfectly acceptable question to inquire about. And with age comes reverence from others. So far everyone has thought I am younger than I am (the beard growing began that day...). It explains why everyone keeps sitting on me and spitting in my direction.

The second because literally everyone of marital age is just that - married. So for a border-bound-ben dreaming of love, the unimagined and the bringing home a little family of his own (hey, with me here for 10 months is just about possible) as he descended through the fog into the mysteries of a new Asia with full 'how wonderful life is while your in the works' panpipe symphonic accompaniament, this was a bit of a slap in the face. The remedy? Work hard, play (chess) hard, and focus on what I can control. And if I do have time, set up that lonely hearts group I've been desperately thinking about all this time.

The third - because everyone here is either religious or 'has' a religion, and here its either Buddist (the traditional religion of the pre-colonial ruling Kings of Burma) or Christian (thanks go to missionaries) - on the whole the two seem to live side by side fairly well, and there's celebration by the school's students of festivals from both (on Crimbo day I get to go to a refugee camp fete - yey!). On a wider scale there are problems through, with many of the many groups on the border facing internal religious wranglings or break-ups, the worst case where the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army split from the Karen National Union and promptly sided with the Burmese Military.

"(You) give me a photo."

Everyone asks this. Just a minor grammatical error (neglecting to ask a question and instructing me to perform the desired action via the imperative), but one which I am at pains to act out drammatically each time it is said to ensure its potential impoliteness and consequences are understood and the mistake avoided in future. Shouldn't have burned the photo in front of their eyes though, it was too much. But in every seriousness (if that is English, didn't want to use all - it's in my word bad books at the moment after all. Oh for goodness sake, there it is again.), pictures are like gold here - I think of the abundance of memories I hold onto through my stacks of the things and contrast: here people may have very few or even no photos, but those in existence are kept like treasure, each a permanent mark of memory, of existence within the dust.

"Tell us about your family / Tell us your experiences / What is the government like in your country?"

The three most common questions asked of me when I set students in 9th and 10th Standards the task of coming up with the 5 best questions to ask this giant weirdo new teacher (they had to do this in pairs, then groups, then as a class, so had a good old education-worthy debate while doing it). The results are insightful. First, family is blooming important here. As you'd probably guess, families are extremely close with perhaps four generations often living together - and it's become even more important because of what they've experienced together and the perilous position they continue to find themselves in. To students whose access to the West is stories of hollywood films told by their older brothers or sisters, I was at pains to point out that all was not perfectly rosy with it's 2.4 child family.

The second was asked again and again. Again its about input, wanting to just know things, learn about places, get a taste of the other (something I am of course casually able to do, my presence at the camp confirming this): a reply was tricky, but we managed to limit to a fairly basic animated description of the places I'd travelled to using the map I'd brought along, feveroushily gazed upon by the students liberated all at once from their (bamboo) school benches.

And the last needs no introduction considering things over the river from here (Burma and Burmese troops are situated just over Manerplaw mountain, as featured many a benpic) - the students are extremely interested in politics and the politics of democracy and fairness. Every student is themselves touched directly by politics - most in some familial way and often fatally so - and this motivates them to work extremely hard to expand their possible tomorrows: giving the boys have more boxes to tick than the usual soldier, the girls the option of mother and then some. Of course the tragedy, played out across the world, is that there are wider forces at play controlling the destinies of these children. Yet hardwork can prepare them better to respond to and take advantage of these unknown tomorrows and unknown opportunities laid down by the doings of others.

"Would you like to eat with us?"

Usually the teachers eat their meals separately from the students - the same food cooked by the particular kidcookers on the rota that particular week (with the odd special ocassion addition of a teacher-only treat cooked to order) but eaten up on the veranda. This is part of the general respect-oriented order of doing things around here but after about a week of it I began to hunger to see how others did things, what the sounds emanating up from mealtimes in the 'sa po' (canteen) were like to experience, how mealtimes go in different places with different people. As it happens that evening a particularly brave student made it up to our hut when Hlay Htay wasn't about and invited me to eat with the perfectly delivered (and practiced) line above. I was off like a shot, beaming. A brilliant mini-explosion of bodies, plates, giant kegs of water, krackling fires, steaming rice, large pots of curry greeted my first step into their dinnertime world. It's efficient (different rotarised groups for cooking, washing up, cleaning etc, each student responsible for their own plate), fast (dinner is served at 5.30, it's getting dark, and study begins at 6), and was bloomin' enjoyable (smiles and my satisfied nods abounded amongst the food grapplings of a hundred fingers, I hear many a student try out his English (the boys outnumber the girls 5 to 1), receive polite intivtations to 'please come eat' at this fine establishment every day, and the for what it's worth the food is hot and good).

No words needed

That experience and countless others daily tell me I need to spend more time in this world of the camp - the students are a place of energy, of questioning, of welcome, of interest and of hunger for more. I was shown the the amazing (like, holy kehmooshul!) caves to the back of the dorms by a load of the older boys who work in them by candlelight in every night. I will resolve to go join them as much as I can to study on my own, happy in the knowledge that I am sharing this with others (usually I work alone in my hut), and hopefully they'll get something from me being in there too. On the day I arrived at the camp I went on a tour of their three boys dorms and one girl dorm and was met with smiles, laughter and lots of hand shaking... Being in no small part a bit of a heffer I had to ensure I didn't come across as some kind of giraffe-necked dinosaur but knowing just a bit of Burmese really did help break down some barriers. It made me feel great - I was straddling the moon in fact: suddenly Ben had come to life, the camp was here and I had arrived in Thailand! Anything different is greeted with wild enthusiasm here - their general lack of exposure to newness, to difference, other places, other cultures, other worlds sees them jump headlong for anything that represents this (however small that is). They learn science from an English textbook and have never conducted an experiment in their educational lives; they study geography largely without maps of anything other than Burma. The world atlas kindly donated to the Party as a raffle prize but rescued by me and brought out here selflessly (that's the way it happened, right?) has gone down an absolute storm here with all the students - it is ooodles and oooodles of input - it's just a shame it can but be spread so thinly. As it happens Yaung Ni Oo doesn't have a library here after all, so hopefully this book can mark the first of a new collection.

Outside the caves

"Do you remember your parents?"

Initially I was baffled by this question, often asked and more so the longer I stay here. I used to turn to the questioner with the requisite baffled expression selected and acted out and say 'yes, of course' (and think to myself they were a bit weird and would be best avoided from this point on. Infact sometimes I would start to walk slower if I was walking with them in a bid to shake the weirdo ones off). Anyway, it took about half an hour of bemused glances and exchanges with some teaching buddies here to work out what is meant by the speaker here is 'do you think about your parents?'. Ah! Yes, I do! With this new understanding, I tend to refrain from leaping into nearby bushes for cover when people ask it me now. If they ask nicely. Otherwise I'm all bushy.

"In Burmese culture it is respectful."

A line from the one conversation I've had with Ko Hla Htay about the amount of work the boarding students (in particular the girls) tend to do for some teachers, a service I am regularly invited to partake of. But from the off I've felt seriously uneasy about having kids wash my quite frankly disgusting vests and pants, cook my dinner on demand, carry my stuff to school, tidy my room, put up my mosquito net at night, wash my hair, and be on call to respond to my every request - on top of the workload they already have - all because it's a sign of respect. I overzealously replied to the comment "In England we consider it slavery" but it does remain one of the two or three (small) fault lines that have cropped up in my otherwise surprisingly easy adaptation to the way of life here - and by doing my own work and declining I've attempted to underscore my thanks for the students' offers. I don't like the idea of slipping down a slope of privilege, slowly becoming more and more divorced from how most people do most things around here. And somehow this degree of hierarchy doesn't seem to fit with the democracy word I keep hearing, but maybe that's simply my privileged, westernised, universalising human rights-esque take on things.

"In Burmese this is a speciality. Do not offend us by saying that."

One friend here has a habit of seriously riling me through the odd bit of cultural and language breakdown, and the fact my GB-honed irony falls as flat as a flat ____ (enter word of choice here... tyre... foot... stomach... chess) with him. As one day I'm there (foolishly, I admit) claiming I hate his beloved sardines (which I've polished off in seconds, good stuff) he reacts with near violence (the most dangerous kind) and uses similar English to the above to chastise my rudeness. I think this is the only conversation I could describe as almost an argument that I've had in the camp so far - but tragedy was thankfully avoided with his friends kindly informing him of the joke. Or my stupidity as an Englishman. Not sure which, they were speaking in Burmese. And pointing and laughing at me.

"You need to stop teaching."

I'm in mid flow of excitable animation teaching 9th Standard about the highs and lows of good old English grammar when to my right the voice of the law (headteacher again) sets out how it is. For a split second I'm thinking "He's right, I'm crap, I'd better just go. Anyway, I can still sit on a beach somewhere down in the south and roll these diary entries off, using locals as extras and claiming major camp flooding". But I'm soon made aware that there's a camp inspection by big Thai authority people today and my discovery at the camp (agreed with the local camp authorities but not those outside of the camp who are higher up the gregory pecking order - poor gregory, such abuse from such an early age) would result in immediate removal. So I've got to hot-foot it to the staff room where I will hide for the rest of the day The boy's own (that's boy's own, not boyzone) part of me is thrilled with the thought of this covert adventure and commando crawls up to the staffroom singing Love Me For A Reason. The beach can wait for one more day.

"Move!"

So the commando-crawling is over and my teaching movement is limited to the staffroom in a bid to avoid the posh authorities and remain in the camp. As I'm happily going through some pronunciation work to which the teachers are doggedly but enthusiastically responding, someone spots an important-looking vehicle somewhere in the distance on the road leading past the school... People shout "move!", I dive to my knees; teachers move in different directions and I am chaperoned, American president-stylee, to the room out the back, out of sight. My heart pumping, I am alert and ready to fight or fly. My instincts are ready (to fly but there is only bamboo to get me airborne). But hurumpah! My shoes - those intergalactic size twelves are a sure giveaway amongst Karen size fives. But - phew - it's okay, for operation Conceal The Western Pastey Totem is in full swing and I am immediately reunited with said sandals. And it is here in this small (bamboo) room that I remain for the afternoon, which ultimately passes without incident or important-looking vehicles. And then I see the children leave as usual and darkness fall and I remain in the staffroom, for while the big authorities are long gone, the Thai soldiers based at the camp have been swapped over - the ones we are friendly with (and who said I could stick around) packing off and a hardened new team arriving. So I must stay hiding at the school (15 minutes' walk away from the main camp alongside the river) for a few days until this new lot are softened up a little. Yes, the adventure had most definitely begun.

"I think you have malaria."

ko Hla Htay's words (as a former medic for many years) as I confidently passed him my UK-doctor-prescribed anti malarial tablets saying "there's no way I could have Malaria" (yet I was feeling worse than someone named Mal second name Aria at Birth - I'd feel bad, and angry). For my tablets no worky work here in the eviljungle nether regions of Thailand, the Malaria is too virulent.
And things moved pretty speedily after that. I had been feeling rubbish for two days (and finding the on-me-ownsome-and-sicky pretty difficult to take, although the teachers and students had rallied round and been great, but I think the caring culture might be a little different, or at least maybe they thought a six foot two pasty peanut could take care of himself - how wrong) and was getting worse, and it wasn't helping too much being in school hiding mode at the time. After requesting me leave as soon as possible (it was Sat and I was due to leave on Monday anyhow), I retired to floor to enagage in some serious sweat- and panting...

"Har Kolee Kolah!"

The cry of the Thai rubbish men and recyclers advertising their presence to each section of the camp as their four wheel pick-up, spilling over with bags, bottles, cans and clambering children, and struggling for breath under the strain of this heady load, makes its way slowly from one end of the camp to the other. The cry is met with cheers from waiting groups who can trade their wares (plastics, metals, potentially useful items of rubbish) for one or two Thai baht to spend on some tempting snack from a nearby store. So as it happens these kids, mums and passers-by actually work as unofficial rubbish men around the camp, and along with the animal-vegetable-mineral-dust hoovers (the chickens, the dogs and the odd pig), the camp is resultantly kept meticulous where it needs to be (note: a sanitised domestos-lover may disagree). My reason for being around to witness this scene was because I was being now evacuated out of the camp due to my suspected Malaria, diagnosed as above not two hours earlier: and this was my emergency escape vehicle. The truck ride through the camp was an experience to behold - the 10th Standard student telling me "Don't worry about your disease" and then handing me some savory snacks as a goodbye gift, the kids playing tap-a-tap-tap-on-the-window and extreme face pulling with me, the will I? won't I? situation when it came to the camp exit and the Thai guards... And the ride out wasn't too bad (I just wished they'd close a window, Ben was shivering a timber in the back). But I got out of the forest with them, and we shook hands after six hours together, saying our final goodbye with the only mutually understood words we knew: "Har Kolee Kolah!"

"You Not Have Malaria"

I'm now in Mae Sariang, it's Sunday and I'm in the hospital. Blood pressure, weight, temperature, pulse all taken. Many a dispurging comment about my anti-malarials have been made. My finger has been pricked and some blood lost to a few pieces of glass. I am sat in an empty waiting area where people wait for the results of disease tests. It's empty because it's a Sunday today and it's also the Thai King's 77th Birthday today so people aren't ill. And my Thai-speaking Burmese friend informs me - feeling better today but still with an almighty headbanging ache in my head, they reckon it's just cholera - of the good news. What's a little less encouraging is that on my return here four days later I'm told they don't have any proper anti-malarials to replace my dodgy UK anti-malarials and I'll have to just ensure I apply plenty of anti-mossie chemicals to my skin daily. So be it! I'm back at Mae La Ou in three days after a trip to Chiang Mai to buy some resources for the school.

"You were singing in your sleep last night."

This was revealed to me over lunch in Mae Sariang by Secretary One of the ABSDF who has kindly allowed a sick Pho Htaung to lodge in his (revered) room... Suddenly as I bed down for the night I now feel vulnerable: the poetic, soulful harmonising of my dreaming cranial quarters exposed to grated chicken-esque vocalisations. I'm listening to some Bonnie Tyler before I go to bed tonight - if there's any singing to be done, it's gonna be about a hero whose got to be strong, got to be fast, and whose got to be fresh from the fight...

Happy singing...