Local teachers head for Myanmar
<p>Evan and Gretchen Miller with their two children, Lawrence, 10 months, and Louisa, who is almost 3. The family is heading out on a big adventure to teach children in Myanmar for at least two years, maybe more.</p>
Evan and Gretchen Miller, of Columbia Falls, have a nice house overlooking the Flathead River. Evan is a special education teacher at Ruder Elementary School. Gretchen teaches middle school English in Kalispell. They have two small children, a 10-month-old boy, Lawrence, who they affectionately call Wren, and a charming little girl, Louisa, 3.
The family will soon say good-bye to Columbia Falls and travel to Myanmar. The Millers will teach school in the tropical country wedged between India, China and Thailand for at least the next two years, maybe longer. Evan is the son of Ron and Dr. Joan Miller of Columbia Falls.
Good-bye grizzly bears, hello snakes, spiders and monkeys — and the occasional cyclone.
“We’ve always talked about teaching internationally,” Evan said last week.
But the couple was starting to settle into a Montana routine. If they waited much longer, their two young children would be in school and the opportunity to travel would be diminished.
“We started to feel the pressure of it never happening,” Evan said. “There’s no reason to go other than we want to.”
The couple has family ties in Myanmar. Gretchen’s sister Jessica and her husband Nick Kolentse already teach there and have lived in the country a few years.
The Millers both applied for jobs at the International School of Myanmar and were interviewed via Skype. They were both offered jobs a few days later. Evan will teach third grade, and Gretchen will team teach eighth-grade language arts with Nick. They’ll live in Yangon.
The school will pay their travel expenses. The salaries are slightly lower than what they make now, but the cost of living in Myanmar is much lower — in fact, they can afford to have a nanny to watch the children while they work and still be able to save money. They’ll also get two months off in summer so they can travel home.
Formerly known as Burma, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar has seen plenty of political strife over the past few years. The Central Intelligence Agency notes the country’s military rulers look the other way when it comes to drugs and other illicit trade. Myanmar is a source of human trafficking for forced labor and the sex trade to other countries and is the world’s third largest producer of opium.
In the past year, however, the military rulers have eased their grip on the country, allowing more freedom of the press and releasing political prisoners — most notably Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, who recently won a seat in parliament during bi-elections there.
The Millers aren’t too worried. Evan reads news about Myanmar every day in the New York Times and on the Web.
And even though friends have sent links to Web sites noting the political uncertainty and the various snakes and spiders and other creatures that live there, the couple is unfazed.
“There’s a risk of instability,” Evan said, “But it won’t deter us from going.”
The Millers will leave in July.