Place: A vegetable garden somewhere in Phayartaung

This garden is owned by a monastery where students attend school. Students, often ones with no or broken homes, come attend the school and live at the monastery.

Peter, a tenth grader here (10th is their last grade), showed us around and answered all of our random questions about their lives. We bonded over singing Taylor Swift songs. He’s planning on going to university to study English, and leveraging those skills to become a tour guide one day. Being a tour guide is a highly respected / well paid profession here. Many people study geography or history or English in aspiration of such.

The skirts that the kids in the distance are wearing is called a longyi. It’s a traditional garb in Myanmar, most of the locals, both men and women, wear them. We bought some and can definitely see the appeal! Very freeing to get the air circulating down there, and quite comfortable. If you need more mobility, you just wrap it up above your knees, which they did whenever they played sports.

Food: Watermelon

Fresh from the field! All the fruits that were harvested were tiny compared to ones you’d find in North America, but I guess that’s the price you pay for fresh, non-GMO, organic produce.

All the food they served us were made directly from ingredients they grew. The students take turns doing chores like working in the gardens and cooking for everyone else. We got to help out with serving breakfast one morning. 5 people cooked together to serve 1000 people! They had to get up at 2am to make the food in time for the morning prayers.