To Pyay

Our first stop on our dusty 220kms journey today was to a village school where donations of school supplies were being made.  The village, well off the main road, comprised mainly palm leaf houses, some barely had side walls. The poverty was plain to see. What made it stand out, however, was how immaculate it all was.  Not one piece of plastic, or other rubbish, could be seen lying around.  The dusty ground around the tiny compounds was well swept and all was neat and orderly.

The school consisted of two long concrete buildings, each with three different grades inside. The unpartitioned concrete buildingswere supplemented by one palm leaf building with a tin roof but open sided, with two grades in. There are around 200 pupils.  I was so impressed by what I saw.  The Head Teacher is doing a marvellous job. There are no facilities at the school, the only resource a blackboard, but the children's few exercise books were filled with work of an excellent standard.  By grade three the children were writing full, quite complicated sentences, in perfect English and were making their own little dictionaries of English on one side and Burmeses on the other.  The children were quite delightful and thrilled to see us.  I gave an impromptu English class and then took my group to have some fun on our car.  

A football match was played; a mixed bag of rallyists of all ages and fitness levels and small boys playing in bare feet, who, of course, trounced our team.  Our doc, John, was seriously concerned that his ministrations would be needed and was standing on the touch line with a defibrillator and a  portable stretcher! It was all terrific fun.  The children were all presented with an individual bag of school supplies; a little pile of exercise books, pens and pencils, rulers etc.  all bought in Burma.  It was a wonderful experience.  A really great visit that touched us all.

None of us can believe that this truly great rally is almost at an end.  Tomorrow we have an early start to cover the 240 kms to reach the Commonwealth War Cemetery, on the outskirts of Yangon, where we have to wait for the escort into the city that the police are insisting on.