my trip to burma and the green lake

I only seem to be able to upload only one picture at a time. So, painstakingly, I did it. Here is a little view of what I've been up to:

Way back in January, we "took" (I tagged along) six Tibetans from a village in Deqin to Luquan (uplands of Yunnan) and Xishuanbanna (down south) for field visits - so that they could see other project sites. It was an amazing trip, and I went through a slight depression after they went home. This picture is of us in Burma, where we crossed the border for about ten minutes. Hmmm.. gives me some ideas for planning my next trip..

This is a more recent photo! I've been at the migrant center for only a week, but I'm going to become a pretty committed volunteer. They took me to the community the children live in, and they're going to be starting an oral history project there pretty soon. Many of these kids will hang out at the center after school and on weekends. It is Kunming's first migrant center, and opened only in February! My original project proposal was on rural-to-urban migration from the rural perspective, so I'd say that for me, finding this place was perfect. It's just that it changes my research focus... a lot...

Last Saturday, we took the kids on a field trip to the Green Lake (we only passed by, briefly) and then Yunnan University. I don't want to write too much about this center yet because, depending on who sees this (as in, the one person who reads this in the United States) - actually, the problem is more if I publish it -, anything negative I write about the children's conditions or their lives could put pressure on the government to actually shut the center down. Well, anyway, these children are wonderful.