Crazy Men

It was a couple of nights ago after chapel, and Thara Joko had just asked if there were any announcements. Thara Eh K'Nyaw stood up and spoke in Karen for a few minutes in a very serious tone of voice. The students were very solemn, and we wondered what the announcement was about. On the way back to our hut in the dark, Tharamu Zinmaroo clung to Hannah in semi-serious fear.
"She was saying something about a crazy man who beats women." Hannah told me.

And so we got the story from Sharon, who understands Karen pretty well. Thara Eh K'Nyaw had been warning the students of the presences of two different crazy men who had been seen near and on campus. One of them was older, and had been rumored to dislike women and children to the point of his beating on them. The other was younger, and when Thara Eh K'Nyaw saw him walking quickly along the road one day, he thought the man looked a little too big and strong to fool with by himself.

So we were warned about those men. Many of the girls were very afraid. I am not the type of person to go along with the general tide of feelings (because that is a very dangerous and irrational thing to do), so I started thinking about the likelihood of us actually meeting one of those guys.

Would they come to visit us while we were asleep that night?
 (I've imagined such a scenario happening to me since I was like eight years old)

Then I reasoned that if they did come up the stairs, I would certainly wake up, because the whole hut shakes anytime someone even rolls over in their sleep, and I have trained myself to wake up at the slightest strange noise or movement around me.

I figured they probably wouldn't come, anyway.

What if we met them in the day time as we walked across the road from one side of campus to the other?

I asked Haley if she had her tazer on her, but she didn't seem to own one. I figured adrenaline would kick in and I would figure something out really fast, if a crazy man did come after me.
I don't tend to attract attacks from crazy people, for some reason. I'm thankful for that, but I think it might make me a little too confident.


So we went to sleep that night, after praying for God's protection, and had a good sleep. No visits from crazy men.

The next day, we went to Mae Salit, as we had been planning to. Haley was looking for Burmese sarongs, and I knew where to find them, so we decided to go in by song thaew (local taxi truck).
We could have just walked there, as it's only about 5 kilometers, but we didn't want to risk meeting any crazy men. The song thaew finally came by, and we were happy we waited for it, because we ended up driving through a roadblock put up by some drunk villagers who were celebrating a Buddhist holiday. Getting by them might have been a little bit more tricky if we had been on foot.

So we got to Mae Salit all right, did our shopping, and then went to the song thaew stop to wait for the next song thaew going by. I was eating these funny-looking potato chip things, when I noticed a villager approaching. It was an older man with wild, matted grey hair, and a stringy mustache. He shuffled towards us, and I nonchalantly watched him to see if he intended to pass by or stop. He didn't look like he was quite sure what he was doing, but when he got to where we were, he turned in, and started to sit down. I was sitting right beside a post, and he would have almost had to sit on top of me, so I moved over a little to let him sit down. He smelled like beer, trash, dirt, and I don't know what else. Thankfully I don't have a sensitive nose. I also don't believe in shunning people who are socially awkward, or letting people physically push me around, so I stayed beside him and kept eating my chips as though he were just a normal person. After a few seconds, I could see out of my peripheral vision that he was leaning over and intently staring at my bag of chips.
He wanted my food! I was pretty hungry and tired, but I offered him some. He quickly took the whole bag, and stuck his black, grimy hand in it. I looked across at Hannah in suprised amusement, and she smiled, "I think we'd probably better keep walking now."
Haley stared at the man as he turned away from me and poured out most of the chips on the bench beside him. I got up, and he handed the almost empty bag back to me. We left him sitting there, greedily eating the chips from off the bench beside him. I spontaneously started singing the Scripture song from Isaiah 58:7, where it talks about dealing your bread to the hungry.

As we walked up the road, hoping a song thaew would drive by, we wondered if we had just met one of the crazy men. Eventually, we caught a ride, and got to Sunshine Orchards just before suppertime. Sharon was walking along the road getting exercise, and we told her about the man. It turned out he was the one who liked to beat women and children. She had seen him recently laying in the garbage near one of the driveways to the school property.

So I did meet the crazy man, and I even got to feed him! Yay. I like doing things like that. I wasn't scared of the guy; I've met way weirder people while canvassing. I wonder what made the guy crazy, and if there's any way to help him recover. It's probably hard to make money as a crazy person, so he probably also couldn't get food very easily either.
I have yet to meet the younger, stronger crazy man. I saw him walking beside the road one time,  babbling incoherently to himself. He pointed vigorously at us as we passed, and Mrs. Steck told me he lived in the trash dump. Poor guy.


So that was an interesting experience.

On a different note; classes have been going a little bit harder than I would like. I guess I forgot that teaching is actually hard, and needed to be reminded. Just when I think my students understand what I've taught them, they demonstrate that they really have no idea what's going on. Fifth grade is pretty willing to learn, though. I appreciate them a lot, and I'm glad they are my first class.
I feel a lot better after finishing with them every morning.

Oh my, though, the third graders....

How do you teach eleven through eighteen year old's English at the third grade level??
I'm working on cursive handwriting right now, because I don't know what else to teach them. When they finish, they get to do color by number pictures. All the things I taught them before, about singular/plurals, and countable/uncountable nouns, they said they understood, but have somehow completely forgot already. It's hard to instruct them in class, because they can't hardly understand when I speak. Some of them are too busy picking on each other to listen, others are totally zoned out, and the few who really try do not understand English very well anyway. I really simplify my speech, but they still aren't getting it. I feel bad for the eighteen year old boy who is having to do coloring, but he doesn't seem to mind. He just does a better job than the other kids.

For the most part, they are good kids; just young and restless. There is one boy in that class who is really tearing me up, though. Lar Bwe Htoo (said: La Bweh Too) is really smart, but either lazy, unmotivated to learn English, testing me, or dealing with some kind of inner trouble. He used to make trouble with his deskmates, but after I very sternly told him that I would move him if he didn't stop, he now either sleeps during class, or quietly works on something else. Most of the time he stubbornly will not participate, although he smiles and listens to me when I go over to him and tell him/advise him/ask him to copy what I've written on the board. I told him today that what we were learning (alphabetical order) was on the exam next week, and if he didn't learn it, he wouldn't pass the exam. He understood me, but when I left, kept working on drawing a picture for Burmese class.
Oh well, we'll see if he passes his exam. I won't be surprised if he does; I just wish I could get him to participate.
Lar Bwe Htoo is a handsome, spikey-haired little fourteen year old who likes to swagger around, wrestle with the other boys and tease the girls, but I've seen him sitting still in chapel with his eyes closed, his upturned face full of sadness. He's thinking about something really difficult, or carrying some kind of burden. I want him to know that I care about him, and want him to succeed.

I know he's just another one of the 7 billion hurting people on the planet, but Jesus would have died for him if he was the only one on earth. Can you pray for him, if you think about it?


  "In comparison with the value of one soul, the whole world sinks into insignificance."

-Ellen White  

{ST, January 2, 1901 par. 9}