Our Families Are Doing Well

Jill Coughlin continues to be a part of the Lam and Ah Mee families' lives. Here was an update that she sent on Easter:

"I went to the wedding today of one of ZarZar's sister, and I took this picture of Tha Zin and TinSay. TinSay was excited to show me that she had lost a bottom tooth.

I am inspired by how well their community has expanded to include people who have been here many years and relative newcomers. I am also honored to be included. If only I could speak better Burmese! I would like to be able to string several sentences together. I mostly seem to know odd words but have definitely mastered days of the week and 6:30. I go everywhere at 6:30 and even Ron and Zack know what "chaut gnaw ye quay" means when I say it.

ZarZar's sister, Jummarbe, married NoSa's cousin, ArLi. They will now live in the second bedroom in NoSa's apartment. HaRon (who we bought Christmas gifts for) lived there until he married another of NoSa's cousins and got a different apartment. I spend a lot of time with HaRon and his English is really getting good. When they take English classes and then have someone to speak with outside the class, it seems to help.

I also went to visit the Ah Mee family tonight. They looked well and happy. The girls' English is coming along. I brought some books that a co-worker donated for them and they recognized Spongebob Squarepants right away, although Mya Min Way told me she didn't like him so much because he was a boy. I brought them a tv converter box for the DTV switch. After some time we got it hooked up and working and while scrolling through the stations, we came to one on Thailand and its elephants. This particularly interested Ah Gate so they all enjoyed watching the show.

I tell you, the tv converter box is my biggest challenge in trying to get people to understand. It just doesn't make sense to people when I say that in June the television will stop working if you don't have a box and without it right now you have an "A" in the corner. I don't want them to throw their tv sets away thinking they don't work anymore!