Now, being a first time teacher comes with many challenges. Learning how to lesson plan, engage students, and create a supportive educational space is quite the feat for any novice teacher. Combine that with being a first time teacher in a developing country in a continent you have never been to and it becomes incredibly daunting, although a challenge we are excited for! Well, if that was not enough, mix the coronavirus into things and that is where we are currently. First time, online Zoom teachers interacting with students over a thirteen and half hour time change. Thank the heavens that Cal Poly is our alma mater because we are definitely Learning by Doing on this first stop of our adventure.
It has been a long and complicated journey to get to where we are today. Of course, back in December, the coronavirus was not on anyones minds, so we had every intention of flying over to Asia for the beginning of the school year. In mid-February sitting in Grandma and Papa’s cabin, we booked flights for July twenty-third to fly from San Francisco International Airport, making a stop in Taipei, Taiwan, and then landing in Bangkok, Thailand. We then booked another short flight, just an hour and a half, from Bangkok in to Mandalay, Myanmar. Almost right after booking our flights, we were sent an Arrival Guide from our school, letting us know of all of the essentials we would need to bring, including things that we couldn’t get there like peanut butter and taco seasoning, as well as the information needed to buy our sim cards to turn our phones international and find the school personnel who would drive us from the airport to the school, where our two-bedroom two-bathroom appartement would be waiting for us. It all sounded a bit like a dream, but one that was just barely out of reach, only a five-month time span in our way.
Well, a five-month time span and a global pandemic.
Around March fourteenth, a date that will stick in everyone’s minds for the rest of time, we had no idea that the declared pandemic would last this long. Like everybody else, we made plans for the next month, not the next six. As the months of quarantine passed by seemingly unbothered, we were informed by our school that Myanmar had closed its borders, but were planning on opening again by the end of June. Graduation passed, as well as moving out of both of our college houses, and we still held high hopes. Nearing the end of June, however, the Myanmar government announced that they would be extending the border closing until the end of July, forcing us to cancel the flights we had booked mere months before. At the time, we were upset about the delay, but had every intention to book a flight at the beginning of August. The date was then pushed again until August fifteenth, and then August thirty-first. At this point, we do not know when the country will open its borders to commercial flights, but this is where things get very interesting.
Around mid-July, the head of our school reached out to us about the concept of relief flights. At the time, we had no idea what this would entail, and the subject is still relatively foreign to us, but thus far, this is what we know:
For most countries, although their borders are closed to commercial flights and passengers, they are still operating a few flights deemed relief flights, where essential works are given permission to fly into the country from their Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To put in an application, you simply send in some documents to the local embassy (the only one for Myanmar in the United States is in DC) and hope for the best. The embassy then submits your paperwork to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at that point you just wait for their approval. When we first submitted this paperwork, we were told that if we were given approval, our relief flight could take place within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Considering we are still in the United States, this short turn around did not take place. As of now, the Minstry of Foreign Affairs is relectutant to allow anyone from the United States (and a few other countries) into Myanmar because of the incredibly high numbers of coronavirus cases that are continuing to rise and fall in a seemingly unending loop. Our school has tried to utilise every connection they have to the embassies and the Minstry of Foreign Affairs to get us and the other fifty teachers who are still abroad approval but to no avail. Our head of school was even approved by the board to charter a private plane to fly the teachers in, but, again, we could not get approval from the Ministry.
So, at this point, all we can do is wait. Nearing the end of each month we keep our eyes on flights to see if they will keep running for the next month, and cross our fingers. For now, we are living between the two of our houses, spending about two weeks at each before hopping back to the other, and teaching virtually. Now, even though we are residing in our childhood homes, we can promise you that teaching students in another continent has been the start of its own adventure. You can see how each of us have been doing on our pages, but for now, thank you for reading!
And keep us in your thoughts and prayers for the borders to open soon. We hope for an email from the embassy every single day.
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