Day 2: Separation Anxiety

GlobeMed began hump day excited for day two of the trip; note: excited and tired are not mutually exclusive. After bidding a far-too-soon farewell to our beds, we convened at our new favorite breakfast joint, Nature’s Way, and uncontrollably devoured the local cuisine. Soon afterwards, we boarded our favorite – and only – taxi driver’s vehicle and took off for our destinations. Although we, the GROW trip, love each other very much (or so I’d like to believe), we had to part ways.

Adam, Kristina, and Neelima slipped off the taxi and entered the intern house for a day of English lessons. Having shortly assessed the interns’ comprehension levels the previous day, the entire GROW trip group worked together the prior night to formulate a cursory course of action. However, teaching English isn’t nearly as easy as it appears.

The twelve interns, eight women and four men, ranged from politician to nurse to unemployed, aged 20 to 42. The interns’ experiences with English varied from a week to several years. Many of them were not afforded proper educations in the lacking Burmese education system. Nevertheless, all of them had left their homes for a similar goal: learn English and other skills in order to return to their homes and better their communities.

“Asian Soul” Adam (bequeathed by Mai), Kristina, and Neelima began teaching the entire group of interns, asking for answers to simple introductory questions along the lines of “How are you?” and “What is your name?”. Three of the men cruised through the exercises; other girls struggled to speak, oppressed by their unfamiliarity and lack of confidence with the English language. In order to ease this situation, the interns were divided into three groups of four, each spearheaded by both an English teacher and a more advanced Kachin student. This helped the less comfortable interns by providing them with the best available translators. In addition, the teachers introduced a game known as “Mata Moscas”, Spanish for ‘kill flies’, in which two competitors will attempt to first slap a picture of a vocabulary word when directed by the callout. The interns showed their competitive nature as well as their rapid improvement! To culminate the early hours, the twelve interns cooked lunch for our Three Musketeers, providing food such as a “greenish mango dipped in chili powder” that quelled and satiated the “Asian Soul” and brought tears to the eyes of God.

In the afternoon, the three teachers took an alternative approach to tackle the English dilemma. They introduced the musical approach, playing the timeless classic “Call Me Maybe” in an attempt to bring mainstream America to Asia. Although the interns struggled to grasp the meaning of deep lyrics (“here’s my number”) or simply understand the words altogether, after a run down from top to bottom of significant lyrics by the teachers, the students showed remarkable progress, often surprising the teachers with their in depth knowledge of American society. Finally, the teachers showed the film “Despicable Me” with subtitles, in which a similar progress unfolded and students tried to isolate specific words. Overall, a very tiring yet rewarding day!

A good five minute drive away, Nina and Harrison (that’s me!) spent time at KWAT headquarters with Mai, our new best friend forever. We were in charge of the Activity Report, which is, as previously mentioned, a summary of KWAT’s significant activities over the time period from 2007-2012. Essentially, it entails the organization of a vast amount of often poorly translated materials into a succinct and well-documented report. Nina and Harrison spent the vast majority of the day slaving away with their laptops out and fingers steadily racing. However, this process turned amazingly rewarding; KWAT’s documents, while maze-like, provided a wealth of information that taught us great amounts about the seven programs of KWAT (Anti-trafficking, capacity building, documentation and research, health programs, income generation, migrant workers, and political empowerment) and, in particular, information about the interns such as their geopolitical situations and their cultural tendencies. Later on, we enjoyed yet another fantastic lunch consisting of Thai-Burmese cuisines!

At the end of our respective workdays, GlobeMed at Dartmouth GROW reunited. There were hugs and tears. There was drama. We’re once again reunited.

– Harrison