So. I've decided to take a chance, follow my heart and move to Mandalay, Myanmar in less than a month. "Wait, what are you doing?" people keep asking me. "Where is that?", and most frequently, "Why?"
Being bicultural and growing up with a parent often reminiscing about how things were different/better/worse in the "old country", coupled with being born into that sweet spot of American upper-middle class that inherently comes with some degree of privilege, and in this case, an encouragement to see the world, my interest in travel was sparked as a tender preteen. Since I was young, I was exposed to thinking on a global scale. I knew I had family around the world, and having a daddy with loads of good stories and fond memories of his childhood and life growing up in Pakistan helped shape my worldview from early on. Of note, my paternal grandfather was actually born in Myanmar (Burma), and the same goes for two of my dad's brothers. At a recent Christmas Eve celebration, it was really cool to get the scoop on our Burmese family history. The uncles pieced together the stories they were told by my grandparents of their birth and early childhood on farmland near the Thai border.
Anyway, when I was fourteen my mom and I took the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and South Africa. There I was, a scrawny seventh grade kid in baggy overalls climbing the great pyramids, riding a spittin' camel and gazing at the Nile river from my hotel balcony. Touching, smelling and being fully immersed in ancient Egyptian culture...no middle school text book could ever enlighten me the way that experience did. Then in Johannesburg, South Africa, mom and I met our relatives for the first time. Spending time and sightseeing with them was wonderful. Our safari yielded close up encounters with mother nature's most beautiful children. I experienced a totally different world with respect to culture, class, and political climate. Our visit was just one year after apartheid ended (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-apartheid.htm) and I had never lived that kind of oppression, segregation or blatant racism. I was enthralled with the au courant and knew there was more out there, to see, to feel, visit and live.
After graduating from college in 2007 with a psychology + women studies degree in my back pocket, feeling sort of unsure what to do with 'em, I set off to Europe backpacking for nearly two months with a couple of my high school gal pals. England, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Czech Republic, and Belgium. And we did it right, too. Smiled with Mona at the louvre, hit up every Gaudi building in Bar"th"elona, wine tasted in Florence, shopped our faces off in Venice, had a real tour of Roma from real Romans, tanned topless in Nice, ALMOST ran with the bulls, partied in Prague, ate our weight in Belgian chocolate and came home with a fresh zest for life.
This picture was taken in an underground wine cellar
of a local couple in Florence who invited us over
for wine, olive oil and vinegar tasting.
We snapped this picture right in front of the famous
Moulin Rouge in the Paris district of Pigalle.
A few years later, in celebration of not pulling all of my hair out in graduate school getting my Masters in Social Work, I took a backpack trip through Central America with the best not-so-little brother on the planet. Haris and I hit up Honduras, Belize and Guatemala by plane, train, fairy, truck, and foot. Relaxing in beautiful Belize, we enjoyed fresh-caught lobster dinners at sunset every night. On the blessed island of Utila, Honduras we had tooooo much fun riding mopeds, making friends, late night swimming, eating street baleadas and embracing their oh-to-be-young mentality. Lastly, in Guatemala we enjoyed scenery like I'd never seen it- beautiful waters, scary caves and incredible snorkeling. There we ate the most phenomenal food, swung on a rope swing into the fiercest river, hiked through a real rainforest jungle, shopped in the open markets of Antigua, and climbed ancient temples of the ruins in Tikal. It was a super charged, jam-packed, totally fun, unremittingly exciting and invigorating trip in just a couple of weeks. The travel bug has officially bit.
Ancient ruins of Tikal, Guatemala.
Semuc Champey, in the highlands of
Guatemala. The clearest, freshest, most
beautifulwater and hiking I've ever seen.
I became interested in Southeast Asia in graduate school when a close classmate/friend of mine did a summer internship through our social work program in Thailand (shout-out to one of the most inspirational, well-traveled, brightest bestest chicks I know, Chi-Chi Faulk). Hearing of her adventures and internship placement in a Thai orphanage, seeing her pictures..I knew I wanted to be there. In our international social welfare course, my "bug" bite began to itch again. Carefully examining global issues in the developing world, and more importantly what was or could be done to improve overall human development was alluring to me. I became very interested in micro lending/finance http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
So after a year-long tireless process of applying to every major and non major humanitarian organization and NGO (UN/UNICEF, Oxfam, CARE, International Rescue Committee, etc) and subsequently receiving one rejection at a time, I decided to go another route. These agencies are looking for candidates with years of international work experience and fancy PhD's. I was simply out of my league. A fullbright scholarship for a post grad was a one in a million chance, and the Peace Corps was out too - the structure felt suffocating and I didn't necessarily want to be in Africa (where I heard most candidates got assigned?). Volunteering with a nonprofit would have been great too...shoot, I would gladly ditch my worldly posessions and set sail to the 3rd world clad in nothing but my selflessness, good deed doing 'tude, and a beachy sundress in a heart beat...but are you going to pay my healthy student loans every month? Teaching English became the focus of my job hunt as it would be the best way to make a little cash, and possibly get my foot in the door (or just on Asian ground) to perhaps a local NGO working in the field and with the population I'm most drawn to, the right contact or connection, or whatever else. But who knows, I just may find that teaching IS my niche and find full nourishment from this endeavor. I found my teaching gig on the infamous Dave's ESL cafe website http://www.eslcafe.com/, the Mecca for teaching English abroad jobs.
Some social workers may banish the notion of teaching English, even cast me as a sell out..some would say that instead of helping a community to learn the tools to enrich itself (the way we empower clients to help themselves), prescribing the English language is simply imposing irrelevant western standards of success on a people that never asked for it. This "linguistic imperialism" is often discriminatory in that the learning opportunity is commonly only accessible to the "rich". Many people believe that US ‘foreign aid’ funding English in underdeveloped countries should instead be diverted to funding basic literacy acquisition in local dialects and for accretion of quality educational materials in native languages. But before you crucify me, let me explain a bit about this particular project.
Aung Ko Latt (the founder of our new school) is a wealthy Burmese businessman and father. Frustrated with the poor education system (on average, children in Myanmar attend school for approximately 7 years), Mr. Latt and the Liu family (the other two financial backers) hired Dr. Gary Robson, an international educational consultant (http://it.spcollege.edu/course_info/inquiry.cfm?number=862), to help open, run and prepare a curriculum for this American archetype and curriculum based elementary school. Dr. Robson hired me and three others to help open, run and teach in this school for the upcoming March to May summer session. I will be teaching English in addition to regular preschool cirriculum with the assistance of a Burmese translation and classroom aide. After summer session the rest of the teachers will join the school, and I will be assigned a PreK through 7th grade level for the regular school year. While I'm obviously not a formal educator or credentialed teacher, Robson wanted a diverse group of teachers, all contributing a different skill set and bringing a variety of life experience to the table. One teacher has been in the Peace Corps in Mongolia working in education for the last three years. One lady is a Kindergarten teacher and musician from New York who plans to travel around India after the initial summer session. The ultimate goal is for these children to become fast tracked in western style schooling in an effort to prepare them one day for higher education in the developed world. A worthy cause? You decide. Beyond my precious time with these kiddos, I look forward to the opportunity to work with their families and within their community. Learning experience guarantee and full submersion in a new culture undoubtedly. I hope this answers the What Where and Why for now. Wish me luck, and stay in touch. I'd love for you to follow this blog and hope it can be a mutual way to stay connected.
With love and peace, Sofia
