Cake, puddings, sweets, turkey and trimmings? The yearly trip to church, icy chill winds and warm open fires? People with silly plastic trees inside their houses (real ones are always better says our house) and stuff hanging from the ceiling which meant they could get jiggy with whoever stood underneath? A candle-lit welcome to family and old friends, with the hidden late night busyness of adults bringing beaming smiles to children tip-toeing towards shining secret booty? A week of endless family infighting that only good seasonal TV can seemingly solve? Or maybe just a meal of fried dog and a dusty twig to hang my festive Simpsons socks on? Hmmm… just what would a Mae La Ou Christmas be like?

The first point to note is that there are two main religions in the camp - Christianity (mainly the Karen of many of the other sections) and Buddhism (some Karen and most of the folks from Section 13). The Christians not too surprisingly wholeheartedly embrace Christmas, while the Buddhists/Section 13 have a dabble so as to not feel left out and to keep the kids happy. Most of the kids and teachers of Yaung Ni Oo are Buddhist, so in a way Christmas this time around was maybe a lesser affair than if I'd been in a different section (but this is no bad thing).

In the first few days of Christmas, Mae La Ou gave to me

My diary tells me the first sign of Christmas was on 14th December - the haunting sound of distant song: beautiful, the singing made me dream of other places inside the camp: is there a more wondrous place within? Such singing, it turned out, rose from the church of Section 1, down far below our mountainside residence. Days later another mystery: patches of golden light on the dark eight-o'clock mountain opposite, accompanied again by harmonious vocals. This secret was only revealed a few days before Christmas - groups of guitar-backed carol singers (mainly children) making their way house-to-house around the camp, raising money for their schools. A candle lit on the entrance to the hut means it would welcome a visit. The spectacle of carol singing drew all the boarding students out to listen; the repertoire was short but the children beautiful (if a little mechanical) in the candlelight, and the whole scene - of a hundred children surrounding and listening intently to a small circle of children within - was magical. The Section 13 singers followed the next day, sporting carols and a Christmas rap. Being mostly Buddhist, they were the only group not to ply their trade further afield: Buddhists singing carols to Christians for money could easily be taken the wrong way.

But the very next day, I gave it away

Having both spent Christmases in developing countries, my folks both mentioned that these Christmases away from the conveyor belt are the ones that stick in the memory. This (or should I say last) year the scene was so different, the environment so wildly opposite, that although it was Christmas, it was as if it wasn't - for me as if Christmas this year just hasn't come round yet and when it does it'll happen to be Christmas 2005. Compounding this was my general teaching busyness, but what was always there was this little cheeky special feeling - because I knew it was Christmas. The school was on holiday for nine days, so everyone was about, and many of the students were busy making decorations for Yaung Ni Oo's festive celebration on Christmas morning. I was due to have a break from lessons on the 25th and 26th, so used my last lesson on Christmas eve as a chance to do something festively frilly (aided by my first Christmas card which arrived the day before) - but it is all a teeny bit sensitive… if you're teaching to a shed-load of Buddhists they might not be overly receptive to the ins and outs of the UK's dominant religious festival. Nevertheless, fun was had competing to see how many words collocate (fit) with the word 'Christmas' itself (Christmas day, Christmas pudding etc). Have a go… the class managed to get about fifteen (before they threw me down the mountain for being a suspected Christian missionary, that is). After recovering, the evening of the eve was spent not in some smoke-filled pub at the back of a queue trying to remember old school friends names but in my hut, replete with sixteen students gazing at a bootleg Spiderman DVD on one of the new computers, while I scurried together a letter to home, an exercise in embroiling oneself in the festive mood: I lay back and thought of England.

Mistletoes and Wine or Twigs and Sprite

I woke up on Christmas morn and had forgotten it was such - so I work up on morn. Strange planet.

On returning to earth the quiet of Christmas morning is what struck me most - all the students and teachers had shipped out to Yaung Ni Oo (15 mins away) for the celebrations. As I can't visit there (the Thai soldiers playing piggy in the middle of our two locales forbid this), I was free to create Christmas in my mind as I sat down in my classroom to make a new display (oh my deary do how teachery does that sound?). Such 25th December contrast was shattered by one of my students' (a teacher at YNO) early return and insistence on my appearance at her hut for Christmas dinner. Begrudgingly leaving my half-finished display to one side, I joined a throng of ten or so Karen teachers from a different school about to launch into a sizable feast laid out before them on the (bamboo) floor of traditional non-Christmas Burmese food: curries, rice and noodles (in Mae La Ou I think Turkey is more a country, less a traditional 25/12 feast).

After being presented with an amazing piece of architectural Lego as a Christmas present by a fellow teacher in the afternoon, it was off to take up an invitation to the only Christmas party in town that early evening - Katie (sole other westerner/white person, married to someone from Section 13) traditionally throws it and by all accounts it is legendary: stepping into the large hut festooned with balloons, crepe paper and a bedazzling Christmas tree complete with (of all things) chocolate money, it did there and then begin to feel like Christmas. After opening my present (awesome, see 'Top of the Thailand Pops 2004'), consuming much fizzy pop and chomping my way through numerous liquorice allsorts (yey!), I'd agree with all accounts. The Section 13 all-comers (families, blokes, wives, husbands and little terrors) all, er, came - and each claimed a gift in the magical mystery present prize draw after which Katie was invited to speak on the topic of Jesus Christ and his teachings to an interested audience. Her speech was, in a nutshell, quite brilliant: JC as a social reformer challenging the hierarchy of the day with his message of treating all - especially the poor, the infirm, the abandoned outcasts - as your brothers and sisters; something which people of all faiths or none can respect.

Chastened, it was time to head to the final party of the day - Section 13's Christmas fund-raising do out on the helicopter landing zone. People sat and ate Mohinga (vermicelli in fish bean soup, traditional Burmese) and Bor Thee Jor (deep fried gourd, also an age-old Burmese favourite) for five baht a pop, sweets and drinks stalls lined the outsides of the zone while punters circulated inside, and I'd say four hundred or so children (liability to exaggerate notwithstanding) sat watching the festive (?) 'Saving Private Ryan' on the communal television - here there's no threat of rain to spoil such outdoor events (but I think it would be foolish to do the same during the rainy season, when apparently the chances of rain are higher). I enjoyed this time immensely, a good chance to meet many from section 13 who don't speak English (but who may want to) - and hence an opportunity to practice my severely limited Burmese, much to their amusement. Sadly the whole thing only raised 300 baht (about five pounds) - but the Parent Teacher Association who laid on proceedings is using it as a learning opportunity and will come back undeterred next time.

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

If Christmas is celebrated a fair bit on the Buddhist side of things, new year is much less a song and dance. On speaking of the UK's well-known new year's eve revelry, plans were hastily drawn to party in similar style. For the first time in a month and a half, I was taken by candlelight, wearing all the camouflage of a woolley hat, to another Section. My smuggler's destination: Section 1's new year's bash over at their church. This stolen visit saw Christmas really kick into life: all the camp seemed to be there - young, old, cool dudes, cold dudes, babies, toddlers, great grandmothers - and all to watch traditional singing and dancing on stage (I swear I could help with the choreography of some of their numbers), some quite appalling 'contemporary' acting (but the kids seemed to like it, too much comical hitting of each other for my liking), and the no-show of Father Christmas (replaced at the last minute by five men desperately throwing out sweets to the baying children in the crowd to prevent mass loss of heart). My concealment was about as good as you'd expect from one six foot two inch bloke with a woolley hat among a few hundred five-feet Karen: crap. Still, everyone was friendly, gave a smile in return for mine, and with cover blown there was nothing for it but to rally the clapping and join the race for the flying sweets. Leaving at about ten (mid-way through that acting), I planned to scoot back to the hut for an hour's shut eye before heading back to the landing pad for midnight where the Section 13 lot were amassing (and where all the children were again watching a movie). With my Auld Lang Syne choral preparations ringing in my ears, I fell asleep and didn't wake until the new year. A fitting contrast I feel, a homely way to end a fantastic year.

Christmas