First class

I taught the first class in the Old Testament Narrative course today, to third year students. We are still very tired, we did not allow enough jet-lag recovery time into our schedule, nor did we remember clearly enough how tiring it is to live and work somewhere where you are like a new born in your understanding of how things work – well not quite, wash places with a water scoop we had encountered in Congo, so some things are not quite new!

However, perhaps because Narrative is a really good choice for intercultural teaching, the class seemed to go well despite my tiredness and headache, and the huge gap in culture and my ignorance of Karen life, thought and ways. It also went well despite our rather different English accents and their having to work in a foreign tongue!

I hope they learned some ideas about narrative:

• narration implies a narrator
• narrative is more than chronicle
  • it links the facts or events it describes
  • and so gives them meaning
• narrative is widespread in the Bible – which contains little “instruction manual” material but lots of stories!

We also talked about stories, they told me several Karen stories. (One of which the Rabbit [Hare?] and the Tortoise I had already met! Some stories are surprisingly international.)

Another was told with an interesting variation, the famous (at least in Baptist circles) story of the Golden Book the telling went (allowing for simplification and memory lapse due to tiredness) like this:

A father once had three sons, Karen the oldest, Burmese and English (the youngest brother). One day he gave each son a book. To Karen he gave a golden book, to Burmese a leather book, and I can’t [That is the teller could not.] remember what the book he gave to the youngest son was made from. The youngest son stole the golden book, and the Karen who was left with the other book ignored it and it was walked on by chickens. The Karen to this day use writing that looks like chicken scratches, but one day the youngest brother will return the stolen Golden Book.

The version I had heard before was much like this from Keyes, Charles F. The Golden Peninsula: Culture and Adaptation in Mainland Southeast Asia. University of HawaiiPress, 1995, 52.

In a related myth, Y’wa is said to have given books to his various children, sometimes said to number seven, who are the ancestors of the major ethnic groups in the world known to the Karen. This gift of a book was, of course, the gift of literacy. The Karen, however, are negligent with the book given to them and it is eaten by animals or, in some versions, consumed in the fires built by the Karen in the course of tilling their fields. Y’wa offers the Karen the consolation that at some future date, “foreign brothers” will bring the gift of literacy—in the form of a golden book—back to them.

Interesting differences! I wonder what readers of this blog make of them!!?

[Quotation thanks to Google Books, the library here is not rich enough for that sort of research!]

First class today

I start teaching today Old Testament Narrative, and Barbara will also be taking a class on human development (though she starts tomorrow), Sarah will probably help a long term volunteer lawyer (now English teacher) so we should all be busy today please pray for us, especially that despite our being like new-borns in our understanding of the culture and people we will be able to meet them and let them meet us and together learn more of the Lord and of his working in the world!

View from my Office and arrival at KKBBSC

I promised Lingamish that I’d post “the view from my office”, here’s a first installment:

I’ll also tell you about our journey and arrival here, I’ll finish with the holiday part of our Sri Lanka visit later…

Thoroughly jet lagged, after London – Dubai, Dubai – Bangkok, meeting Sarah and taxi to our hotel, we then undertook three days of shopping, tourism and shopping. We actually bought only a few things, most of our luggage is essentials like clothes and sleeping bags. One thing we did buy was mosquito nets (though since the pests are so well-controlled in much of Thailand they were not easy to find)! On Saturday we went to the bus station – it is a strange experience to be within a kilometre of a huge central bus station (actually the Northern and Northeastern only but there is so much bus traffic in Thailand that this one alone has busss arriving and leaving in an almost seamless queue!) yet still not know how to get directions – steering wheel mimes and broom broom noises accompanied by what we thought was its name did not help!

There we enquired about buses to Mae Sot: three choices VIP, 1st Class and 2nd class. Each costs less than 10 dollars for a trip of over 400Kms, so perhaps we can be VIPs!? Sorry, you can’t book today, please return tomorrow. The overnight buses go from about 9pm so we get there before 7 to be in plenty of time. Sorry, 1st class is full, there is one seat in VIP, but I can get you three seats together in 2nd class. Thais who travel must spend lots of time at bus stations as a Tuktuk would cost a good fraction of the total price to go anwhere elese and back after buying your ticket in the morning

Even second class is airconditioned, and the seats if quite firm recline. With our neck pillows, sleeping bags (we are heading for the hills at night in an airconditioned bus and water bottles we are all set. Just a four hour wait since the second class leaves at 23:10PM We couldn’t find three seats near each other and near where we could stack the baggage (three people for a couple of months in three climates, so we join the squatters on the floor.

When we find the correct bus, and get loaded, we leave on the dot of 23:10PM and discover that Thai roads are superb, and this bus driver is very good. We begin to hope for a decent sleep. This is better than a plane! Except we stop several times to timestamp or pick up passengers. In the middle of the night we are glad to stop for toilets. We sleep pretty well between stops, till… climbing into the hills not long before first light the bus runs out of power, half the passengers get out, and walk. Since the explanation was in Thai we did not realise what was happening, till too late to join in Or perhaps given how sore and (I later discover) swollen my ankles are perhaps

At the top of that hill they catch up, and reembark. However after a few relatively uneventful, and carefully nursed by our driver, descents and ascents, on a steep downhill a smell of burning that grows stronger, till fumes drive half the passengers to the front of the bus. We stop. We evacuate the bus. The brakes are on fire!

Quite a lot of passengers flag down passing utes, and get lifts. With the bus thus lightened we set off gingerly for Mae Sot.

Dr Simon is still waiting for us when we arrive! After breakfast and some shopping, including sacks of oranges to reward the kids who are doing work on the paths and steps in preparation for the Jubilee, we head north to the camp. It is great to be welcomed by friendly faces when arriving in a strange place, especially when you understand nothing, and do not speak the language.

Distance Theology and Karen Refugees

Stephen (of Greenflame) sent me the URL of an article by Terry Veling of the ACU School of Theology: “A Reflection on Karen Refugee Students on the Thai-Burma Border” it is an account of teaching Karen refugees a practical theology paper by distance learning, with a tutor who visited for three weeks. ACU are apparently offering courses by distance in the camps. The article was not only interesting for its insights into the plight of the Karen in and outside Burma, but also in modelling a different approach from that taken by the Kaw Thoo Lei Karen Baptist Bible School and College.

Photo of KKBBSC graduation ceremony from KarenConnection

The ACU have opted to offer the best of Western theological teaching, and an Internationally recognised qualification, by distance in the camps, enriched by visits from tutors. KKBBSC seems to be a home-grown Karen initiative,

[9 Feb 08 - Following the helpful comment by Sam, below, I realise that I expressed what followed badly, I wrote: "taught (as I currently understand it) mainly by Nagas from NE India." I should have written something like:]

the teaching provided by the Karen leaders of the college is supplemented (as I currently understand it) mainly by Nagas from NE India.

Since the Naga people have culture and history that is more similar to the Karen this is likely to lead to a more contextually appropriate theology, but it probably therefore lacks some of the rigour of Western education and gives a qualification that will not be as recognised if the student is resettled to a Western country.

Clearly there are advantages to both approaches. It will be interesting to compare them more when we have been to KKBBSC and also to reflect if there are ways we can assist Saw Simon and the others to achieve the best results without betraying their huge achievements!