Day-to-day life in Myanmar

[josephbloggs]

4 hours ago, simon43 said:

Friday is a part-time teaching day for me, and I planned to pop home after the morning lessons.  However the young, pretty female teachers (they all seem to be like that in Myanmar!) had other ideas.

 

"Teacher Simon, we want to make a movie with you" they chorused!

 

Well, that sounds more fun,and I was ready to strip off my kit and lube up the rusty banana when they explained "The school is making a promo video for our winter sports festival, and the other foreign teachers have nominated you to be the presenter of this promo video".

 

My first thought was that the appearance of the oldest teacher in the whole school to promote a sports video was not a good idea.  However, after briefly considering the apparent health (or lack of it) of my fellow foreign teachers, I decided that I was maybe the better candidate.

 

So myself and 3 lovely young Burmese teachers squeezed onto 2 motor bikes and rode the short distance to the Mandalar Thiri sports stadium to make our movie.  30 or so grade 2 students arrived shortly by bus and they busied themselves in running around the sports hall and generally acting like errant cats, whilst the gym teachers tried to herd them.

 

I was given a sheet of paper with the various phrases and sentences to read out.  We didn't have any professional recording equipment, so one teacher videoed me with her mobile phone and I spoke my lines into my own phone voice recorder, to ensure an adequate sound level.  Videos and audio clips will be spliced together by the highly-skilled post-production facility (that means the computer teacher...).

 

Well, I have to say that the Burmese teachers were suitably 'wowed' by my professional presentation.  Little did they know that they were face-to-face with none other than 'Barry Lancaster', a famous radio DJ from Radio Delmare, from the days of the offshore pirate radio stations in the 1970's!  (Actually I spent most of my stint on that ship being seasick, but I need to keep the illusion going).

 

We completed the promo video by the kids all jumping in the air to a raucous scream.

 

So, the winter sports event will be on the last day of this month.  That gives me plenty of time to 'plot' my revenge on my fellow foreign teachers!

 

Addendum: For anyone interested in my 'radio' career, here are links to information about Radio Delmare:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Delmare

https://www.dxarchive.com/offshore_radio_delmare_english_service.html

 

 

 

Simon, I have only been to Myanmar once and that was a quick trip for work so I have nothing meaningful to contribute here. I just wanted to thank you for your posts - I really enjoy reading them and you are doing a lot of good for a lot of people. Please keep them coming.

It's also reassuring to know there is a corner of this forum which is worthwhile and positive.