Florence's summer teaching and living with Burmese refugee students at the Parami Learning Centre in
Mae Sot/Mae Pa as Global Art Exhibit's 2009 Thailand Summer Intern.
Do you know how with some people, you can pretty much perfectly pinpoint the moment that you two become friends?
Meet Kyaw Myint.He is one of the office staff, does not speak English very much, and is quite awesome.One night last week, I ran out of bug repellant (I had been using OFF! DEEP WOODS!, which meant that I smelled like poison and I still got mosquito bites all over the place), so I asked ML and Jasmine if they would be going to the market at some point the next day.ML tells me to go with Htwee Nge that night, as she is always looking for an excuse to get out of the house anyway.We end up at the local Tesco with A-Pu (Htwee Nge’s father), and after some poking around, I found a nice bug-repellant lotion that smelled like flowers, versus a second flower-smelling one that cost slightly more.
Upon returning home, Kyaw Myint helped me close the gate behind the truck.My student Kyaw Eh was also outside, and asked something vague along the lines of “what did you buy, teacher?” to which I replied, “Chin gai de.Seya-mat ngoo chin de.”Kyaw Myint laughs at this, and repeats “Ngoo chin de! Hahahah!”
With that simple phrase, a couple of mosquito bites and my desire to cry, we were suddenly friends.Joy!
The bug-repellant lotion has about the same effectiveness as the poison spray, meaning that I am averaging 3 to 4 new bites per day.In the beginning, I was bandaging the bites so I wouldn’t scratch.I ran out of band-aids rather quickly.
Florence is a third-year university student pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Neurobiology at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. In December, after weeks of scouring volunteer opportunities, she found the Global Art Exhibit and fell in love with its fusion of art, humanitarian work, and ambition to enhance global education. As a summer intern for the Global Art Exhibit, she was assigned to Thailand for 7 weeks and Hong Kong for 3. Thanks to the generosity of the Fung Foundation Scholarship, she is able to volunteer her time (not to mention pay for airfare!). She is currently in Mae Sot, Thailand teaching science classes in English to Burmese refugee students (most of the Karen ethnic minority), and is boarding at the school campus along with the principal's family, the office staff, the female boarding students, and some other teachers.
Florence is having the time of her life.
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