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Humanitarian Mission @ Myanmar
(3 to 10 December 2011 or 3 to 14 December 2011)

A Reflection by our Firefly Junior, Phionna Teo on the recent Myanmar 2011 Firefly Mission

Mingalabar! It was yet another fruitful and inspiring trip to the Land of Gold, Myanmar and to say I enjoyed it is an understatement. Every year, Firefly Mission organises an annual expedition of 12 days to Myanmar to assist in the building of a favourable environment for basic health and education for the less fortunate with a burning spirit of sincerity, compassion and love. This was my second trip to Myanmar and although the places we visited were more or less the same, the takeaways I had differ from last year’s.

So, on the 3rd of December, at 6.30 in the morning, a group of 64 passionate volunteers gathered at Changi Airport and embarked to Myanmar with excitement and anticipation. Most of us caught some valuable rest on the flight, while the others continued their adventures in dreamland even on the bus. Our tour guide for this trip is Sis Shally, who is enriched with experience and wisdom, accompanied by a young lady by the name of Moon.

Before checking in to Sedona Hotel Yangon, we visited two places, a home for the aged and a nunnery. The Nzingone Home for the Aged was a deja vu to me since we visited that place last year, but this year it was more crowded as a fund-raising funfair was held. As usual, we gave out a towel and a bottle of axe brand oil to each elderly, and the youths greeted their elders with their ever-cheery “Mingalarbar!” and put their rusty Burmese language skills to the test.

The stay at the nunnery was a short one, the nuns chanted the metta sutta for us, we offered some Dana, and the nuns in return prepared some fruits and rice balls for us to enjoy. There, we learned a new phrase, “A-mayt, a-mayt, a-mayt” which was “to give, to give, to give [merits]”. Later, we visited the Shwedagon Pagoda, which has a rich history and background. Some highlights were the story of how the pagoda was built, the jewel that changes colour when you change your viewing spot and the history behind the giant bell. One interesting thing we noticed was that a group of volunteers born on a Saturday made a pact that they would come to the pagoda every Saturday to sweep the place. Finally, after taking a group photo, we headed back to our hotel, but no-the day wasn’t just yet done. We were required to pack some items like rulers, notebooks, erasers and pencils and sort them out according to the number of students in every school we are visiting.


The next day, we visited the Zamburathana School and Sunrise Home-where orphans from Cyclone Nargis were offered educational opportunities. It was nice to be back again, seeing many familiar faces, and feeling touched that they all remembered us. Like usual, we distributed sweets, stationeries to the kids and in return the kids gave us their beautiful drawings. There, we sang a Burmese nursery rhyme (“Yaong Zong Bo Lo”) at Sunrise Home and were pleasantly surprised by the kids’ enthusiasm when the Bhante asked the kids what type of meat they wanted him to buy with the money donated by FFM. As we were on a tight schedule, we had to part reluctantly and proceed to our next stop-Naga Cave Monastery. At Naga Cave Monastery, we prayed and gave Dana to over 1200 monks and nuns. There was some miscommunication so instead of donating staple food we gave out some snacks and stationeries. The monks and nuns were not supposed to acknowledge our Dana, but there was a young nun who whispered a heartwarming thank you under her breath.

Arriving at the zootel (zoo plus hotel J) at around 6, we took our dinner while enjoying cultural performances put up by the locals. The youths performed a tad too, and we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly though it was embarrassing. Bunked in in triplets and all settled down, we took a quick shower and the youths met up to discuss about our cultural performance that we are required to put up at Shwegyin. After an hour and a half of brainstorming and rehearsing, we went back to our rooms and rested.

On day 3, we visited the Bilin School and Hospital and Taungxun Monastic School. The condition at Bilin Hospital has improved greatly and fortunately, there were much lesser patients there compared to last year. As usual, the kids at Bilin School welcomed us with their traditional dance and cuisine. There, we interacted with the kids, played “hit-the-balloon” with them and took many photos with them for remembrance. I saw a familiar face from last year and his name is Shim Mee Woon. We were extremely delighted and touched to know that he actually remembered some of us from last year.

At the Taungxun Monastic School, we visited some of the classrooms and gave out balloons and stationeries. We also attempted to teach them a bit of English after which we sang local nursery rhymes and performed the hokey pokey for them. After all that hustle and bustle, the exhausted crew returned to the zootel and slept. However, the ever-enthusiastic firefly juniors had a secret rendezvous to practice our performance for Shwegyin, after which we retreated back to our nest and fell into deep slumber.

For the fourth day, we visited Shifu Hill Orphanage before proceeding to Golden Rock. The children at Shifu Hill were so adorable! I remember this little boy from last year called Sujuchu! He’s a little taller now and what really touched my heart was that he actually remembered a little dance we taught him last year. It was extremely heartwarming! I had a lot of fun there, seeing familiar faces, speaking in Korean (you’ll be surprised to know that some kids there are huge Korean drama fans) and screaming Namingochitet (I love you in Burmese)! We did the Hockey Pockey with them, played balloons with them, gave them hugs and high-fives before we bade farewell.

Then, we took our bus to the foot of Golden Rock and took a 40 minutes exhilarating lorry ride up the hill after slathering layers and layers of sunblock. The lorry ride was so fun because I managed to sit at the side and could enjoy the natural breeze and picturesque scenery. When we reached a check-point, we played lorry-bomb and ended up challenging each other with songs and cheers. After that, we walked up in a tiring 1 and a half hours journey and finally reached the peak after much panting and coke.

We ate lunch at the hotel but the food was rather unhygienic as there were a lot of flies and we did not dare to touch most of the dishes. After that, we checked into the hotel and adjourned to our rooms. The youth later gathered at a room to play cards and hang out till it was time to go up to the Golden Rock to watch the sunset. Footwear wasn’t allowed in the shrine but the floor was so dirty and was filled with dead bugs! As girls were not allowed to touch the golden rock due to superstitious reasons, we stayed at the viewing panel and took pictures. After which we went to the marketplace and played a few rounds of “polar bear” before we went back for dinner and a dharma-sharing session where everyone would have to share about their experiences in Myanmar so far. It was very interesting to hear about how everyone felt about the trip so far and most of their experiences were positive, including mine.


The fifth day marks the start of my emotional rollercoaster. When we first arrived in the Shwegyin Youth Development Centre, the children warmly welcomed us with their smiles and offered to help with our baggage. The females stayed at a new building that Firefly Mission ground-broke last year. After settling down, Firefly Juniors enthusiastically ran down to play and interact with the kids. There were some familiar faces here and there, but nevertheless we poured our hearts out and put in 200% in interacting with them. We started off with the game of eagle catch chicks, before moving the game to high-intensified rounds of volleyball. The kids there are so good in their volleyball skills, not to mention soccer and badminton as well. Later, we headed for dinner, where we sat next to the children and talked to them. I managed to interact with one of the teachers that spoke fluent English and she told me that all the kids here were extremely delighted that they were offered educational opportunities and enjoyed school a lot-another contrast with Singaporean kids, who should I say dread school.

On our 2nd day in Shwegyin, we did a ground-breaking cement-passing ceremony for their new workshop. It was quite fun because I stood beside two children and played with them while passing the cement. One of them was called Aung Thu, while the other was Anguleh. They were both adorable and funny. After the ceremony, we played with more of the kids, and even though our skills were lousy and we were pulling our team down, they didn’t mind at all, but rather they encouraged us to keep playing. Four boys by the name of Na Lei, Minimat, ChikTet and Kozin were playing with us. They were extremely kind and friendly and offered to hold hands whenever we go. That’s when I realized that what these kids want aren’t materialistic goods; neither do they crave for vanity nor fame. All they request is that you share a bit of your love with them and show affection for them.


A teacher at Shwegyin made rings for some of us. It was only when we were told that it was made of elephant hair did we get a shock. The beautifully and dedicatedly woven handmade ring was supposed to bring good luck-I guess that’s what we all got from being able to have fun with the kids. The children also taught us new games like their rock-paper-scissors (but in the form of ghost, gun and human) and coconut. Despite the language barrier, I felt that we were able to connect with the kids and understand them at a deeper level. We also visited another monastic school in Shwegyin Township and went to each and every classroom to entertain the kids with our silly chicken dance and local nursery rhyme. After we came back, all of us proceeded to the girls’ dormitory where the children at Shwegyin introduced themselves with their name, grade and what they want to be when they grow up. Most of them wanted to be doctors, teachers, engineers, soldiers, performers and some even wanted to be monks! How cute! After the session, the kids proceeded to the field to play and we tagged along, playing balloons, volleyball and soccer with them. Since we knew it was our last day playing with them, we really let our hearts out and made the fullest of it all.

At night, we had a campfire, where we sat around the fire in a circle and released fireworks and Chinese lanterns. We also played duck duck goose, catching, London Bridge is falling down and more. We had so much fun that we only retired at around 11pm. The next day was the day we dreaded the most-leaving Shwegyin. After we packed all our bags and consumed breakfast, we bade farewell to the children there. Not long after, it became a crying ceremony when children from both sides started to weep, realizing that we could only see each other a year later. We hugged and high-fived and the kids even sang Boundless Love for all of us. Reluctantly, we went up our tour bus and waved a final goodbye to our kids there and headed to Mandalay.

On our way to Mandalay, we stopped by a local monastic school-another firefly mission project. We had lunch there (kindly prepared by the school), and we visited their English computer laboratory, where they conduct English Holiday Classes for local students. At Mandalay, we visited many places and we also took a lorry up to a pagoda on top of Mandalay Hill to view the sunset from an altitude. Furthermore, we visited the ancient palace of Mandalay, and it was the only original wooden royal palace to have survived the bombing during World War II. I remember how we groggily climbed up the watchtower and viewed the panaroma of the entire palace.

On the way from Mandalay to Bagan, we stopped by at Yathar village. The village was rather deep in so we had to take a bullock cart-truly a once in a lifetime experience, at least for me. Even though dust filled the air and the ox’s mucus fell on my friend’s thigh, we were really touched to know that the entire village came out to welcome us as though we were celebrities. After having lunch that the villagers had kindly prepared for us, we gave out stationeries, sweets, balloon dogs, swords and flowers to the students of the Yathar Village School. As we were running out of balloons, I was rapidly blowing them until I was touched by the kind acts of the villagers there-each of them took a balloon and started to blow them for me, and when other villagers tried to take the balloons away they protected it and passed it to me quickly. It was really heartwarming and touched my heart deeply. After that, the friendly villagers led us to the temple, where we gave Dana to the Sangha. We left on an open-roofed truck and admired the beautiful and natural scenery on the way out. Then we took a 4-5 hour bus ride to Bagan and settled into our hotel rooms.