"They are all Liars!"

I love how relatively innocent kids are here...with one big exception: excuses to get out of school.

There were dozens of kids in the office on Friday. One particularly cheerful boy turned to me and said, "Do you see all these students?  They are all liars".  The students need to get permission to leave school on a weekend.  Being that final exams are coming soon and the students are expected to be studying all the time, the teachers are hesitant to approve this. Apparently a lot of kids had emergencies this weekend and wanted to go home (and watch Korea in the World Cup!).

I would have doubted the kids were lying until a few days ago when I learned how some students get extra free time. They say they are sick and want to go to another town's hospital for treatment.  Much of the time they are faking so they can slip away and have some free time to play.  The teachers are on to them, so the students have to be very clever. A couple of girls explained their 5 part process for faking:

Step 1: sleep in class.  Your face will look drowsy for the teachers.

Step 2: put make-up on your lips.  This will make you look more pale.

Step 3:get a cup, put water in it and a couple of coins (this will apparently make it a bit nasty).        Open your eyes and put the nasty water in there to make them good and red.

Step 4 Put hot water in your ear to throw off the thermometer.  You must be careful on the temperature and timing since some kids have gotten caught for having extremely high temperatures.

Step 5 Go to the teacher with your best sad face. 

Voila! You have your permission to take the bus and have lunch with your friend who has done a similar version of the scam.

Almost killed again-Korean driving is *#!

We just got back from our nightly walk and we almost got killed, again.  Dude takes a turn too wide, jumps the curb and runs up the sidewalk where we were walking and misses Sandy by a foot. Total crap.

A month ago a friend was jogging on the sidewalk and an idiot decides to drive down the sidewalk to park his car (an all too common event).  He does not see my friend and almost hits him from behind.

Last year a colleague was driving me to work.  We were stopped at a red light and all the sudden he yells and drives into the middle of the intersection. A second later a woman zooms by us at 6o miles an hour. She did not even slow down for the stoplight that we were stopped at.  My colleague turned to me and said, "I just saved your life"  and he did.

I hate the drivers here.  They are by far the worst I have seen anywhere.  You can not go on a simple trip in your car without several idiots doing something that would make you scream in a rationale world.

This is not just an observation by a raving lunatic (I tend to get that way when my wife almost gets killed).  It was the topic of a speech given by a student who has been in four serious car accidents. It also the observation of the OECD which says that Korea is the most dangerous country for pedestrians.  

There is so much going right with this country, but the driving is not one of them. 

Soccer Diplomacy

There are lots of stories in the news about groups of South Koreans fans, as many 600 fans, gathering to cheer for the North.  Even the South Korean President, Lee Myung-Bak, said    "It is too bad that the North Koreans lost. They should have won," 

In addition, the North Korean media (which of course is closely controlled) reports that the North Koreans are cheering the South team.

Is there a change in the mood here.  Nah...same old crap.  North Korea declared, a no sail zone to prepare to fire some missiles and also declared the US owes them $75 trillion (yes trillion) dollars. According to their news agency:

$US26.1 trillion arising from US "atrocities" which left more than 5 million North Koreans dead, wounded, kidnapped or missing.

The agency also claims 60 years of US sanctions have caused a loss of $US13.7 trillion by 2005, while property losses were estimated at $US16.7 trillion.

Thankfully they did not charge us for the affect of the sanctions after the 2006 nuclear test...quite nice of them.

Kim Jong Il is a Genius

As a follow up to his much ballyhooed invention of the hamburger, Kim Jong Midget has developed a phone not visible to the naked eye.  According to this article, he gives "regular tactical advice" to the coach of the North Korean Team via his special phone.

That explains how the North Koreans gave their fans (supposedly Chinese actors) a surprisingly good match against the Brazilians.

Update
Portugal 7 North Korea 0 The phone must have been broken last night.

Bronx Boys are Sissies

Nothing marks the difference between Korean schools and American ones as clearly as this story from a TV station out of New York. 

Claim: Bronx Students Forced To Clean School Toilets

"Department of Education officials are investigating after students at a Bronx school claimed they were forced to clean toilets as a punishment.

Some students at In-Tech Academy in Kingsbridge say they were assigned janitorial duties as part of their detention as recently as last week.

"After school the principal came in with the inspector lady and she was like 'Oh, everyone has to pitch in and clean the toilets and stuff.' So we was cleaning them and we had to clean around them and nasty, it was just mad nasty," said one student.

"Like that's not cool, like making kids clean toilets like that's not how that should go," said another student.

The DOE says if the allegations are true, appropriate action will be taken."

Kids in detention having to clean the toilets is news worthy? Is this what our country has come to?  Kids here do it everyday. I am not sure it is the best use of their school time, but they do learn a bit about responsibility (I think). Given how well spoken these kids are (and stuff), I would call this job training and move on.

Planting Season

They have begun lining up the rice shoots and planting it through out all the valleys around here. Soon the fields will seem so lush, full of the bright green shoots of rice and the chirpping sounds of frogs. I love this time of year.

The Story Of The Burma Water Project

A few years ago, friends of the family, Hank and Janice, asked me to find a water project to support. Later, two more friends of the family, Hugh and Gabrielle, offered to help also.  A year ago, a friend in Thailand/Burma told me about a water project that she wanted to do.  She had gotten a pump donated and needed money for drilling and supplies.  It seemed like it was meant to be.

When we went on vacation last winter, we visited her and the site, which is a Buddhist convent in Burma.  I saw the community and thought they were poor, but they could pay for a portion of the project.  I told my friend that my friends in America could help support the project, but the community should raise money first.  They finished raising what they thought they could and told us what they needed. It took a couple of weeks to get the money to them, and that is when a surprising thing happened: during the annual water festival, they raised a crap load more money.  As it turned out, the thing they needed most wasn't money, but the confidence they could pay for it.  Once they had that, they raised most of the money themselves.

This week all the work, except for the pipes to the community and a small concrete pad, were finished. The only major problem turned out to be the government (surprise!) started an effort to bring the local Mon State under tighter government control.  This has lead to an uprising and temporarily thwarted our efforts to run the water into the community.

Thanks to my friend, who I wrote about before, and the friends of the family, the community will have a safe affordable water system for years to come. Here are a few pictures of the pipe for the well, the water storage tanks, and people from the community enjoying their water.

5 Foot is average

Joel Brinkley, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, wrote an opinion piece in the Denver Post the other day about the current situation in North Korea:

"UNICEF reports almost half of North Korea's children are so malnourished they grow up stunted, both physically and mentally. The problem is irreversible and so prevalent the military had to lower its height requirement for new troops, to meet its recruiting goals. The average height for a 17-year-old boy now is 5 feet."

What makes this more interesting is the China angle.  He writes:

"Over the last several years, China has given North Korean government officials jewels and precious stones worth $4 million, perfume and cosmetics worth $4.7 million, furs valued at $3.8 million as well alcohol and tobacco products worth $44 million, all in direct violation of a 2006 United Nations Security Council sanction China voted to approve."

 China shipped 20 percent more caviar to Kim Jong-il the next year, and North Korea tested another nuclear weapon in 2009.

Caviar for the rich, starvation for the poor.  Why?  According to Brinkley and every other source I have read:

The Chinese worry about millions of refugees pouring over the border, about a new government in Pyongyang dominated by South Korea and its ally, the United States.

Those that hate America's influence in the world should look at North Korea (not to mention Iran, Myanmar) and South Korea and decide who is a better influence on the world.

The Contest

37 contestants and 70 high school students in the audience...a recipe for disaster, but somehow the speech contest turned out really well.

The kids were surprisingly good.  Almost all of them remembered their speeches (my greatest fear), they had good pronunciation and actually used gestures.  This may not sound like an accomplishment, but try doing all of this in a foreign language and you will have immense respect for them.

The biggest surprise was how good the kids in the audience were. I really expected a lot of chatting and then scolding.  Shockingly, they were generally really respectful, gave big rounds of applause, and more than a few screams for the boys.  When the contestants got off track a bit, you could feel the audience encouraging them.

The contest finished and it was time for the awards and a congratulatory BBQ. I made certificates and  I bought medals from  the US to give the winners. I was so proud of the medals, I showed them off to everyone.

I was getting ready to award the medals and there was one small problem: I lost them.  Yes I am a genius.  Thankfully, I guessed that I left them in the library.  Unfortunately, the library was closed and the keys were no where to be found.  Yes, I was quite pleased with myself.  Thankfully we found another set of keys and someone brought the medals to the awards ceremony.

I was really lucky to get all the help I got.  Colleagues helped with pushing the students, announcing the contest, and cooking and cleaning. My friends, Dan and Seiphemo, helped with judging and cooking. And of course,Sandy, who is probably the most giving woman ever, being willing to take buses and car pool for weeks on end so I could do this.

I think the contest ended up being a really difficult/good experience for the kids.  The winners were proud of course, the kids who got certificates were proud of themselves, the audience got to miss some of their class (I think they were the happiest).

I got a few compliments from the Principal, the VP and colleagues, but the best was by one of the students who is not very confident and decided to quit two days before the contest and then changed her mind.  She said to me today, "Are you going to have this contest again next year?". I said, "I don't know, maybe."  She said, "If you do, I want to join!"  Then, she gave me a high five and was on her way out the door.

Speech Contest, Picnic and Exhaustion

I am exhausted.  

As I mentioned before, I decided to have a small speech contest at my school.  I thought I would have around 10 or so.  It has ended up 36 kids. Preparing the kids for the contest entails:

• Helping them with choosing a topic and writing a speech
• Helping them with pronunciation. This may sound easy, but listening carefully to kids for hours and helping them correct their pronunciation is exhausting.
• Teaching them the mechanics of giving a good speech including using their voice, their body including gestures.  Most kids here do not use their hands much when they speak, so this is a challenge. 

It takes meeting with kids over and over, over for 2 months.  Some forget their schedule, some do not want to wake up to get to their 7am meeting.  I scold them, encourage them, teach them, I get angry with them, I feel incredible joy from them.

I desperatly want them all to do well but I know what will happen. Some  (usually the cockier kids) will forget their speeches, A couple of the less skilled kids will knock it out of the park. Others will do just fine.  

To reward the kids for there work, I am having a picnic for them, the judges and my colleagues.  Yup, a picnic for 50.  I am a complete idiot. I am making hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, chips, pasta salad, baked beans, and home made apple crisp.  It should be fun.

In some ways I am going to be thrilled for it to be over (like I said, I am exhausted), but I am really going to miss spending time one on one with the kids.