It's a sunny Monday morning, and I'm off to the Pa-Oo ethnic group orphanage for young teen boys and girls in the village of Minethout, about halfway down Lake Inle. I don't want to cycle that distance in the heat of the day, so opted to take a longtail boat from Nyaung Shwe to Minethout dock, then grab a motorcycle taxi for the 5 minute trip up to the orphanage. This all went well, and as I reached the orphanage I heard the local teacher calling out "Teacher Simon!" This orphanage already has my English vocabulary posters all displayed on the walls of the classrooms. Today was going to be science donations, and I donated a new digital microscope and sample slides, as well as a pair of powerful binoculars for star/planet gazing. Apparently, I was the first foreigner to visit them this whole year... I already knew the orphanage facilities, but had another look around and especially in the weaving room, where large weaving looms are used by the girls to weave cloth and then make items to sell in the local market. I was given a nice scarf that had been weaved by the girls :) This is a great example of a spinning wheel, made out of a bicycle wheel. With my trip to Minethout over, I headed back to Nyaung Shwe by boat. Worrying about the lack of mains electricity while teaching online yesterday (my laptop battery and 2 car batteries just had enough juice to power my computer for all the lessons), I was able to buy a 30,000 mAh power bank in Nyaung Shwe. I'm charging it up right now (yes, there is mains electricity today for the moment - but I'm sure it will be cut just before my first lesson!)
