The Brackett Foundation
enote 33 February 6, 2007
If you have problems reading this enote, click here.
Hello from Aizwal:
Liz and I are nearing the end of a very busy trip to Aizawl, Champai, and Zokhawthaw. We met with award granting committees, individual students and women’s groups from over a half dozen villages and towns spread throughout Mizoram.
We arrived a week ago Friday at the Lengpuii Airport, and were met by Thulanga, a member of the Aizawl Chin Education Committee, which helps us with assistance to high school students. It is crucial that we be met by someone who has obtained permission for us to enter Mizoram, otherwise we would not be allowed to enter this restricted area. After a few days of getting settled in this fascinating place, --including a bout at the local hospital to relieve intestinal distress--, we took the exciting journey to Champai and Zokhawthaw. We are now recognized almost everywhere we go and are treated royally, but particularly at Zokhawthaw we were treated to the finest luncheon in a small poor village that I can remember.
Mizoram live a more difficult life than the refugees in Thailand, because of
extreme poverty, and the enforced extreme competition of the school system.
With students studying generally four or five
hours
a day, and seven or eight hours a day in preparation for the big exams of
class 10 and