OUR ORPHANAGE PROJECT IN MYANMAR IS FUNDED BY THE DONATIONS WE RECEIVE DIRECTLY.
100% OF THE DONATIONS ARE BROUGHT DIRECTLY TO THE ORPHANAGE WHEN WE (MARY-PAT & RAOUL) GO ON OUR ANNUAL TRIP TO VISIT THEM IN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
PLEASE CONTACT US DIRECTLY IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A CONTRIBUTION, NO AMOUNT IS TOO SMALL :-)
WE WOULD ALSO BE DELIGHTED TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT HAVE.
Today is already 2020 as I endeavour to remember all about our last trip to visit our kids at Pylone Chantha.
This year we were joined by Raoul’s brother so we also included visits to other areas we had not returned to for 25 years. It had not changed much. This meant a colourful 20 hour bus journey to reach the orphanage.
This was our 10th year visiting and it felt a bit like returning home, as we were greeted by those wonderful warm smiles and hugs. After so many visits, we grow to understand and know each other better and it becomes a deeper experience.
Some of the younger children were in hospital when we arrived as they had come down with high fevers. This gave us the opportunity to visit the local hospital. It was grim & basic with dogs wandering around the wards and we saw no staff anywhere. In fact the older girls from the orphanage were taking turns to stay with the ill children night and day to take care of feeding & bathing them and making sure they were not getting worse. They bounced back and returned to the orphanage a few days later.
This year the rainy season had been exceptionally severe and many areas were flooded. It was enlightening to see that at the orphanage although they have so little themselves, they wanted to help out the destitute villages and so one day we accompanied them after school to one of the flooded areas to donate sacks of rice.
This year the Sayadaw (Abbot in charge) had taken in some older boys to live. He explained that they came from poor villages and in order to learn a trade in the town they needed a place to stay to start out. It was nice to interact with young adults and they were so curious about us as they had never before had an oportunity to speak or interact with a foreigner.
As the children progress in school, some of them, (the ones that have an interest in academics) are now attending extra study classes in the evenings. Officially schooling is free in Myanmar. This translates to a very low standard of teaching. So once a child reaches the age of 12 or so, in order to progress they must do classes at night. This is an area we are giving priority to. And we so very proud that the oldest girl is now at university studying law.
Over the last year, we decided to really put our minds to studying the Myanmar language through daily audio learning. If you happened to pop into Hibernia Restaurant ourside of dining hours, you would have heard our Burmese language lessons in the backround. Unfortunately it is a terribly difficult language to master and the lessons that are available are not great. But nevertheless, it made a difference and greatly enhanced our connection with the kids this year. It also inspired them to make greater efforts to use their English skills.
It has been fantastic that with the help of our donors we have been able to achieve so much. The children are healthy, they can all go to school and some of teenagers can go to the evening classes. Our main concern now is the deteriorating situation of their building. We have dreams of being able to raise funds to do some urgently needed repairs and want to start with the boys bathrooms. Here are a few photos of the present ones.
We have our fingers crossed that we can return to Myanmar in September.
We hope that this letter finds you all in good health. We understand that many have other urgent needs duing these challenging times. We keep you all in our hearts and prayers.
With lots of love,
Mary Pat & Raoul
