In Medias

I'm back in civilization again.... and after only two days out of it, I really noticed it. I go from one place without email to another one without email!! I'm in this tiny little village where the power goes off for half a day, there are stray dogs everywhere, and I can't speak the language, there's no phone, internet or any shops whatsoever... it sounds too familiar!! We've come to the closest town, Medias for the afternoon mainly for the others to let family know that we're alive!

We had our first "dig" today.... I'm the oldest one in the group...all young North American uni students... a very strange sensation for me, as I'm usually the youngest. The head guy is hilarious... he talks proudly of selling his Canadian passport for $2000 in France, getting court marshalled for swearing at higher ranks in the army, sleeping on park benches, smuggling knives through US customs, etc, etc!!!

The weather's been miserable and I haven't got enough clothes... it's like NZ in mid winter. Hopefully the sun will come out!

Anyway, troops are moving on, so will write more later.

In Bucuresti

Well, have arrived in Bucharest, finally... it took stops in Bangkok and Vienna to get here, but I'm here now. What a shock and difference from elsewhere! I feel like I've jumped back in time. I think the biggest contrast was because I came from the orderly Vienna. Romania has so far to go in order to catch up to the rest of Europe. I wonder how much further along the new EU members are in comparison!

What's different... here things are still obviously recovering from communism. Things have a shabby appearance, and signs for shops still look as if they were erected yesterday. Things are dirty and run down. I love all the cobblestone streets that are left, but they are obviously left, and not deliberately. Trams and busses are rickety, people's fashion is just not up with the trends (still tight, boob showingly scandalous at times), and women's makeup is still very overdone and way too 80s and pink! I'm very surprised at the amount of English that's spoken in random places (why am I so arrogant as to expect it, require it, need it, seek it?). I went to the main square, where, elsewhere in Europe there would be souvenir shops and street cafes. Here, there were certainly people, but it was disorganized and more of a place of passing through, than hanging out and enjoying being social. To be fair, there was a huge festival (with lots of beer and meat on sticks), and many were heading down to that.

Get nothing wrong, I don't disagree with the statement that Bucharest is just awaiting a mass exodus of travellers from across Europe, but it's still not really ready for them. My own archaeology leader advises us not to pass through the "awful" Bucharest airport (I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was---these people need to go to Baku or Yangon!!), and the busses and trams were positively alien in terms of how difficult they were.

Let me give you an example: I spent half an hour standing in the puddle of water that was dripping off my trousers (which it had soaked up from the splashes of water of passing cars, not to mention getting rained on with no jacket, umbrella or convenient tram-stop shelter), waiting for the tram that took forever, only to be unable to pay for it (silly clicking machines don't work), and then told that it didn't work (I'm assuming) by random Romanian guys laughing at me for even trying. I got out at what I assumed was my stop (only the observant who had walked the route before would have had any idea that it was the right place as there were no a) signs, b) street lights, c)indications of it being a tram stop, even!) only to try and cross the road (remember, no street lights, so cars are very likely to run me over!) and get hooked up on ginormous puddles and almost run over, while slimly escaping being turned into a drowned rat by the cars speeding and the said ginormous puddles. Then I turn around and seconds after the very-long-in-coming-tram, the tram-I-waited-forever-for-in-the-rain-tram that had dropped me off, another tram passes by. Talk about annoying timing!

Okay, time to sign off... I'm getting evil looks from the other hostelites... that hermaphrodite (random!) sitting over there seems to want on this gloriously fast connected (and free) machine.

From Vienna

Copy of post from Beloit Blog:

So I'm here in Vienna and now I can be just a tourist instead of having to worry about all the little details... those finally appear to be out of the way. Got the visa, got a place to stay, am ready for Romania. Now Vienna... let me just put you in the right mind frame: I arrived and it was 10 degrees centigrade (that's probably 40 or so) and this is meant to be SUMMER... me coming from 100+. So I'm wearing every single piece of warm clothing I brought with me and still shivering. Dreary cloudy weather just doesn't do much to make me appreciate the palaces and my photographs of the sites look much less interesting!

I had a group of high school kids (I can't get away from them) in my hostel romping around till 3am last night (I suppose I am going to have to stop being cheap and not stay in hostels if I want to avoid this, but honestly, all I do is sleep there so why shell out for more?). Now I'm sitting in an internet cafe... the people around me are all smoking (ash trays provided, which makes this feel so seedy), it took me forever to even find this place to be able to check my email. Now, this freakin keyboard keeps spitting strange letters out at me... I was used to the French one and now they give me this one... switch the z and y, move the @ and the ' and the ( and ).... just to make my life difficult. Why do people feel so strongly about moving only some things around to prove a point about individuality and nationality? Did you know that even the American and British keyboards are not the same? There's another one... I have to look everywhere for the question mark! I haven't even mentioned that hotmail, blogger, gmail and every other site I've logged into is in German (even up there it says Titel instead of Title and 'Post wiederherstellan'... I'm assuming that means 'publish post' or something. Oh, no, that would be 'Als Entwurf speichern'). And I do not speak any German. I spent half of yesterday thinking the letter ß was a B... its not, its an ss.

But the coffee here is great, the palaces amazing, and I truly love all the Schiele and Klimt, though the Viennese (Ger: Wieners) must get tired of seeing 'The Kiss' everywhere on everything. Some other cultural things I've noticed (so help me, this is what I do when I travel-- observe) Everyone seems to be dressed like Americans (coming from Asia I suppose they must), there is no walmart, tesco, carrefour or any other mass stores (Austrians don't shop that way, and instead trot off to their local store with a little wheeled bag like little old ladies), but there is Mango, H&M, Levi's, Guess, Starbucks, and other worldwide stores... they truly are conquering the world, it's quite disgusting! Now I must go off to climb Stephansdom, walk the Graben, wander the Hofburg Palace and listen to some Mozart in the Schlosspark. Have a lovely day all!

Freedom

Copy of blog post from Beloit blog:

Well, I have escaped the communication black zone, finally, and I'm free for the summer. Just so you know what I'm escaping: the internet in Myanmar has been down countrywide for the last week and a half (right when we needed to check to see if our pay was wired--conspiracy perhaps?). It really sucked! Get a picture of why I disappear without any trace for so long--that is seriously how bad it is.

Now I'm in Bangkok, hallelujiah, but then the visa bad luck begins. Apparently I have to proove to the Romanian embassy that I have $6000, and that I have 6 months of medical insurance. Both of these I have, but the proof! Ah, he threw it back at me saying, "This is just a piece of paper, why should I believe this when anyone could create it!" So I've spent the last two days stressing about being refused admittance. This is the only time I regret my kiwi passport. Went to Aruthaya today to get away from it all... got some nice temple pics which perhaps one day in this lifetime I'll get online.

But crossed fingers, tomorrow I head to Vienna (Yes, Matt and Liz I will be thinking of you the whole time!) for two days of transit and fun. The problem with this one is because of some festival, every single hostel in the city seems to be booked out. Ugh! What a crisis.

So, if everything goes my way, I will arrive in Romania on Saturday to start my archaeological dig on Sunday (and hopefully I won't have spent the night on some seedy Vienna street). Dirt awaits--what fun!

Sitting at school

Well, am sitting here in my last free period before our Thingyan (Water Festival) break. Let's talk about what's already happened today. My students casually mention that there was a BOMB at our opponent school yesterday. They make all sorts of crude jokes about how it was one our of students who was mad with his girlfriend who goes to that school. They moan about the fact that they have to be at school when the other school cancelled theirs for the day (surprise, surprise!).

So later on, as I'm telling another teacher about it, someone walks in to look out my classroom window--at the enormous cloud that is broiling just beyond the building next door. So there's a fire with smoke jumping 100 feet in the air and we are casually discussing it over cups of tea. "Hey, class, I want to give you a perfect example of poor government, when everything results in poor management..." Or perhaps, "...and when we want to know how people are evited from their homes we can just look out the window here...". This must be I think the fourth fire this year. The first was was the best though. We got evacuated for that one. And where to, you ask? To our open-air gym just down the street where we can spend a couple of hours inhaling noxious smoke and sweating our shirts off.

Downstairs I discover that our students went to a school meet at this other school yesterday afternoon. They had to come back too, because no one told us about it! The government sent 40 officicals to scan our school yesterday afternoon, but I only hear about it through gossip of students.

I wonder if my plane will take off today? I wonder if bombs have exploded across town without my knowledge. Perhaps there's another coup somewhere? Or perhaps its nothing.

In the news

Recently, the UN Security Council received a proposal from certain world leaders regarding peace and the situation in Myanmar. After this, one of the government owned newspapers published an open letter. Let me copy the first two paragraphs:

“Gentlemen (Mr. Vaclav Havel and Bishop Desmond Tutu), I would like to ask you ‘Do you know that according to Political Science, deception will be rampant all over the world without Abhidhamma, which means reflections of man’s mind on material world?

To elaborate my statement, man is to view the things in the right perspective, and only then will his views be right. If one’s views are contradistinction to what things really are, it will not be in conformity with Abhidhamma, and supposing, at that time one expresses one’s views, they will be lies because the views are far away from the truth.”

Even without the English errors and other fluff and rambling, the article is such a blatant example of propaganda that it’s upsetting that it is the only thing that Myanmar people read. The whole page article went on to restate history in its terms, and it takes an extreme position of defensiveness as if they know they are wrong, but still have to validate everything they do.

There are so many tragic things about Myanmar, its politics, its people, its education, its government. I’m reading an excellent book right now called Finding George Orwell in Burma, which is basically a travelogue and history of the country using where George Orwell lived as a premise. It constantly brings thoughtful examples and anecdotes to my mind and I want to rhapsodize about each and every one. A whole generation’s general education has been lost here, and the majority of the people don’t agree with the way their own country is run, but no one (inside or out) seems to be able (or willing) to do anything about it.

On a side note, the government has just decided to move their capital out of Yangon! It’ll be somewhere up in a valley between here and Mandalay; quite strategic too, as it was the Japanese command center. A good article to read about this is from the Independent: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article325441.ece

Vagabonding al Mundo

Vagabonding al Mundo

This is the link to Cara's blog... she was with me when I recently travelled around Myanmar. She's also an amazing person, and all these posts make a fascinating read!

The beating

I saw my first beating today. It was quite scary. Most of the time here, you don't really see much of anything resembling unhappiness of the people, but today it was a current that was no longer below the surface.

In front of the FMI Center, near to the main tourist market, there was a taxi driver. A policeman was reaching in through his window and repeatedly banging his head with very hard punches. It just made me cringe. It sounds tame but it is upsetting when you see it. You just want to yell at the policeman, but doing anything here will only make things worse.

In New Zealand policemen are resepectable, nice people who are upstanding citizens of the community. Here, when I see any man in a uniform (which is quite often), I shudder and think to myself how slimy they are, and how their smiles are so much more sickening, but I'm probably being unfair. After all, not all policemen are bad people. Also, there are rapists and child-beaters and abusers in the rest of the population. I'm being judgemental and assuming, and its wrong, but here I can't help it.

Trip North

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to the middle north of Myanmar. I went to the tourist sites of Mandalay and Bagan and each was unique and special in its own way, and it was really good to get out of Yangon. Cara and I caught a Burmese festival called Thadingyat (Festival of Lights), were our bums were pinched and monks called out rude things to us… but I’ll give you the full comment on that later when I have more time.

At the Airport

As I was waiting to collect my friend from the Yangon airport, I reflected on its welcome to the country. There was a depressing dingyness, party due to the existence of only orange lights (with only half working), but also due to the cream walls (such a bad color match). The humidity soaked through to the skin and permeated the mood with patient impatience and frustration with bureaucracy and grime.

A little square arrivals hall about 75 meters across is really all that is inside the constantly-under-construction building. The electronic notice board with the arrival times had more beer sponsorship logo than information about flights (although that could be due to the total of 11 flights arriving all day). There was one set of double doors for people to exit through—and each window pane had a “fragile” sticker haphazardly clinging to the middle. Each sticker was from one of the different airlines that come to Yangon (not that many airlines do). The only other significant sign in the large high-ceilinged room is one advertising London cigarettes.

Officious men and women in uniforms meandered back and forth, all wearing badges of permission – just to get into this waiting area I had to pass by 3 people. Thankfully, as I am foreign I didn’t have to pay the requisite 5c bribe to each, though they are probably quite sour about that.

Overpriced “limo” and taxi stands were the only remotely friendly indicators for tourists in the enormous sea of people waiting behind. One older uniformed man with spectacles sat watching the door in case anyone crazy enough to run through without permission was held back.

I’m glad I came to greet my friend—not that she hasn’t experienced third world airports—it’s just such a depressing place. The new one in Mandalay makes it look like a shack!