Myanmar musings

It�s been a bit of a hectic week, or at least it feels like it! Last week was my B day week�the worst. I have my heavier day three times, and it sucks. Plus I had an assignment due on Friday, which I finished and submitted, only to discover it was actually due on Saturday, and didn�t have to stay up all Thursday night to finish it.

On Friday, there was a mega monsoon storm here. It was like that crazy one we had last April. At around 1pm, we all had a note delivered to our classrooms saying that students could leave when their rides came. A key to chaos, if you ask me: either dismiss them or not. So I tried to have half a lesson, but then let the students go in disgust. The elementary school had a foot of water. At least this time they had sandbags ready, but it still seeped in. The guards were catching fish on the soccer field!!!! I�ll upload some pictures soon. So we headed out, taking a long route home, thankfully in a big bus! Hayley had a birthday get together, but everything was flooded so many didn�t go. On Thein Byu Road, where the restaurant was, it was flooded. Taxi just barged through! The new American embassy had a little do to open it�s Marine Bar as well, so headed to that afterwards. A humongous tree fell down right in front of their property and knocked out the lights for the whole area. Isn�t it silly that an embassy built in the tropics doesn�t even have covered walkways to get around it? And of course we had to check our umbrella at the gate!! Driving home was insane�the top of Kaba Aye Pagoda road had around 3 feet of water. We were in a big SUV, and it came up to the bonnet of the car. When we went through we created a tidal wave, which slammed into the trucks (and poor passengers) of stranded cars and trucks. Everything shut down!!

Meanwhile, last week there were protests across Myanmar� You�ve probably heard about it on the news as this is the most action that�s happened in a long time! It started small and has progressively grown throughout the week. On one hand I feel hopeful that this will bring the much-needed change, and on the other I feel pessimistic that it will all either fizzle out or draw the violent and suppressive action that it has before.

The monks were incredible�long lines sweeping down the road. People were cheering and chanting in the most hopeful, peaceful, yet excited manner. It was an honor to witness. The rain kept coming down all weekend, but this hasn�t stopped any of it. There was supposedly a 15 minute prayer vigil last night at 8pm, but we couldn�t see any of it when we looked outside.

A lot of my students are absent today because they're saying the military is going to react today. University Avenue (ASSK's house) was double barricaded with about 150 special forces/riot police standing outside all of yesterday and this morning. Apparently whoever let the protesters in to see her shouldn't have. Also saw around 15 army trucks with troops sitting by the side of the road on my way to work today. Trouble brewing! As yet, YIEC has no emergency contingency plan, though George tells me that the BC will close if any violence occurs.

Today I came in and there was sunshine in my classroom, and it felt like a long while since I�d seen it. It�s been such a wet past week, and weekend, that the sunshine is quite welcome. Hope perhaps?

Busy times

I realised today how long its been since I posted on this blog and decided I should say something, even if its only an excuse as to why I haven't posted. Basically, in the last 4 weeks I've been to Ngwe Saung beach for a long weekend, been to Bangkok for a visa, completed 3 assignments (yes, almost one a week, so lots of long nights), and taught. So that's why. Anyway, still living it up in Myanmar, and loving the new house. The inverter broke and there were some low voltage days where I had to discover how to use the booster. Otherwise, no big deal! Oh, and we had a house guest!

Anyway, just saying hi and I'm still alive! :)

You know you're in a Yangon taxi when...

The driver opens his window for air... and the rain splashes you
One window is shards of glass taped together with cello-tape
There is only one window
The window doesn't open
The window doesn't close
The window handle is gone
The window handle is shared (sitting conveniently between the two front seats)
The car next door goes through a rather large puddle and you get soaked

You sit down and your pants get soaked
You sit down and you're lopsided
You sit down and feel a piece of wood underneath you
You sit down and the spring pokes you

There are ants climbing up the wall
There is no wall--it's just the bare metal car frame
... and said car frame is so rusty it looks like it has sat outside unused for 6 months... or has gone through a war or two
You can see the ground rush past through the enormous hole in the floor
You can see the road through the door
The door is held closed with a little wire hook
There are holes in the ceiling
The front seat is propped up on a piece of wood... and held to the car by a piece of chicken wire
You've been bitten by at least five mosquitoes
You've squashed one of those mosquitoes and it's full of blood (your blood)

It whirrs
It mumbles
It moans
It rumbles
It shudders
It grumbles
It squeaks
It creaks
It goes no faster than 30km/hr

There are red spit splatters all over seat/wall/door
There is an enormous puddle of water on the floor
There should be an enormous puddle of water on the flooor but it has leaked out through the enormous hole...

Our house

So an interesting thing that happened when I got back... maybe I mentioned that we were having some problems when we first moved in. Things breaking... water problems, etc. Anyway, our landlady, being concerned, went to see her monk. She told us that the reason why we were having issues with our house was because the monk had said "something is out of place". Turns out that my Buddha statues should not be on the lower shelf and should face a certain direction. Interesting... I wonder what "element" in my life is so out of whack that I lose data, lose suitcases, lose textbooks, among all the other issues!! Will have to search for it no doubt! :)

Back in Yangon

Well, I've been largely silent on this blog for the last little while... not that I haven't had anything to say, but I'm been too busy doing things to write about it. I've been on three continents, working 2 jobs, etc, etc! Whenever I got near a computer, I also got a little bit depressed because my wonderful external hard drive died. Even though I had the best high-tech classroom at my summer school, the computer had surges and killed my hard drive... a week later it died too!

The hard drive never recovered but I did end up paying Best Buy $160 to back up the data on it... it took a lot of stress, missing my files, rewriting my lessons and around 5 tries (driving each time to the next town over, Amherst. The first time they only copied the stuff I told them was the priority, the second time they missed two folders together worth 15GB, the 3rd and 4th time the power went out in the middle due to a lightning storm, and the 5th time was the night before I flew out of the country, and it still had 50% to go at closing time so a friend and I (my fabulous, patient TA!) sat and watched their big screen tv while it finished). As it was, I didn't get the last DVDs done. To give you an idea of how small a town it was: it was the biggest backup they'd ever done (80GB), and I really stressed the poor workers. What a joke, but at least I got it back. I am now going to scourge Asian to find a fantastic guy to fix it :)

Yangon is the same as ever. All my clothes and shoes went mouldy. I probably should've thrown them away, but instead painstakingly washed and resorted all. I wish someone would organize another one of those boot/trunk sales because I need to sell stuff--both mine and Kate's! (Kate passed through on her way back to Australia, and heads off to Finland next month). It's been raining for ages, and must say I'll be glad when October rolls around and it stops altogether!

As for school, the typical happened... my psychology textbooks won't arrive for another two months. Of course, I expected this and worried about preparation, buying all this stuff in the states, but fate didn't want that. The suitcase that I put all the heaviest stuff into (thus the psych texts) was inconveniently left behind in the car that dropped me off at the airport. I'm still trying to track it down! Also left my uni books in there too... ooops. Haven't even gone online to check up on what's happneing this semester either. I will not stress!!

I'm certainly being tested however, for other than losing suitcase, losing hard drive, losing psych texts, my calling card decided not to work and my fees are due next week. Credit card seems to be having lots of trouble! I also had a new one sent to me in the states, but they sent it to Queenstown instead. My free mouse for my new computer also never arrived! :(

On the positive side, I had a fantastic time at my friend Sarah's wedding in Tacoma. Got to Seattle and to the hotel in the nick of time. It was disappointing that many people from Beloit didn't come... you guys are bums and should call Sarah and apologize!!!!!! We missed you Christy, but completely understand! The wedding was quite lovely. She's part Native American and had a special blanket sharing ceremony which was fascinating and touching. The wedding was held in the Tacoma zoo which was very unusual. The couple had pictures with the female tiger behind--what a neat idea! Afterwards, headed back to the hotel and caught a shuttle just in the nick of time again to go to the airport. Had to pay $350 for my seat (I'dwaitlisted it but never gotten a place), but concluded it was worth it compared to stress, hotels, etc, etc. Long flight home, got changed airline in Taipei due to delays. EVA air is a great airline!

Well, I've been rambling heaps--can you tell I'm trying to procrastinate from my work? I've got to teach a psych class tomorrow with no resources. Yikes. Must go!

Women rule in Colombia!

I can't make up my mind whether the women in Colombia are liberated or oppressed. In so many ways it amazes me just how free they are (and how free I feel here), and yet the machismo is still here, and there are times when the women seem like they're completely dominated by men.

How are they dominated?

• Almost all women wear makeup all the time, and thick mascara is the norm, even when doing things like diving.
• High heeled shoes, all the time, everywhere, as pointy and stilleto as you can possibly find
• Thongs... my ordinary knickers feel very wide...
• Most women, especially in the city, are a man's typical dream of sexy with long glossy hair, sexy bodies, etc
• Plastic surgery is the norm... women even get their bums enhanced.
• The Medellin art museum scattered throughout powerful photos of women abused

How are they liberated?

• At the coast, especially Cartagena, they let it ALL hang out. Flab rolls (and rolls) hanging out, giving a new definition to midriff
• Women wear the skankiest clothing everywhere, all the time. Anywhere else, they would be labelled as prostitutes
• Their mannerisms show just how much power and strength the women have. The voices you hear are not men, but women demanding equal rights
• The men are gentlemen, treated with respect. So many lovely men have been courteous and plesant. There are no leers, jeers, whistles or other noise
• The Salsa dancing is a sensual dance where the women can take charge just as much as the men
• The mood, the vibe, the appearance of equality.

Who knows which is more true... I really need to ask a Colombian woman what she thinks.

Colombia so far!!

So I am sitting on a freezing porch in the middle of coffee country in a charming little village called Salento. My Spanish is pocito pocito, but a lot more than when I arrived. Have had a fantastic first few days. Sadly, the first two were finishing my yucky assignments. Still have half a one to finish, but am not going to stress about it.

Arrived late on Tuesday night, and didn´t even leave the appartment that day... just sat on the internet and mucked around. H&S have a fancy appartment in the Northern part of town, and I saw a fantastic little supermarket just around the corner. The next night H&S took me out for drinks, dinner at Kathmandu (doesn´t every city have a restaurant called that?), then a beer at the English pub around the corner. I was charmed by Bogota's efficiency and modernity---but I hadn't been downtown yet! On Friday I ventured out to the Montserrate church on a hill. Caught a teleferica (gondola) to the top and of course it was covered in mist so couldn't see the magnificent view of Bogota.

Friday night was the night out. Fantastic dinner at a meat place--everywhere here is a meat place!! Hayley tried some udder--it was a bit like fatty sausage, but she says she'll have shuddering visions of it every time she looks at a cow! I had chicken! We then went to this great restaurant where everyone began to dance in between the tables. With our bottle of rum and cokes a plenty, we danced the night away--what fantastic music it is!!!

Saturday, rather hung over, H & I went to see the Salt Mines in a nearby town. Lovely little village on the rolling green hills (the greenness and coolness here amazes me!). The Salt Cathedral is an enormous modern structure under ground that we toured, before returning somewhere closer for "lunch". Another raging happy exciting place--dancing aplenty and festivities. Latin Americans really know how to party! And wow can they dance!

Today I took the bus from Bogota to Armenia to Salento. We must have gone through around 20 checkpoints, but never stopped. The ruddy-faced young soldiers are everywhere, though a couple who are motorbiking around the world said that when they were stopped all they wanted was money, so perhaps they're not so "safe" after all. The people in hostels really are fantastic. I swear there must be at least 10 nationalities here... all ages, and all interesting stories.

I wonder if these villages called Montenegro, Armenia and Circasia are called so because the people from there came here? Second puzzling question I had today... do horses get altitude sickness, and what would the symptoms be?

Anyway, to bed and warmth for me. 6.30am start tomorrow for a trip to see the highest altitude palm trees in the world, supposedly. Apologies that this is so general, I'm more tired than I thought! More later, and pictures to come!

Natalya is everywhere this summer 2007 and would love to see any and all who can see her!!

Dates:

Colombia - May 28-June 18
Miami - June 18
Madison (Chicago) - June 19-June 21 (6am departure-anyone for breakfast?)
South Hadley, Massachussets - June 21-Aug 4 will try to make it to Boston during this time somewhere! Come and visit me!!!!
Seattle - Aug 4 (Yay Sarah J!)
Aug 5 - back to Myanmar for last year. Come and visit a beautiful country with lovely people!

Facebook, MySpace, Bogota, and Spanish

Well, I am back in a foreign language again. This time I'm signing into Blogger in Spanish. Thankfully, no new format so I found my way reasonably easily. Yes, I am in Bogota, Colombia! Wow, it feels good to be in exciting Latin America! I made it!! It's overcast and quite cold--13 degrees or something like that. I didn't bring any warm clothes at all, so will go out and buy some later today! The same thing happened last year when I arrived into Vienna. Silly summers are not really summers yet!

I tried to join mySpace, but it's got such a silly format. I'd add things and then they'd disappear. Not to mention that it tried to make me join the Spanish language page! Ooops. I love facebook. It's easy, and there's just so much in there. Everyone, please join facebook!!! It rocks.

Hayley and Stu live in a very fancy appartment highrise by the mountains. Haven't seen much except the airport. That was tiny and very crowded. Have heard horror stories of people gassing you to control you and take your cash. Apparently I'm never to hail a taxi off the street either. Otherwise, there are large hypermarts, pizza huts, and blockbuster video so no worries there. The internet is fast and uncensored, and the electricity hasn't gone off yet, so its automatically a step up!

It was such an insanely long flight and I didn't get any work done on it, so am trying to struggle through it all now so that I can enjoy my holiday. Still have no idea where I'm going while I'm here! I flew from Yangon to Bangkok to Taipei to Seattle (lovely airport) to Chicago to Miami (not so nice airport!). I was amazed at how multicultural Miami was, however.

Landing in Bogota was exciting--even the plane ride showed evidence of the cultural change. All the air hostesses had Spanish as their first language and their mannerisms. Gone are the polite niceties of Asia, in come the bossomy, energetic, vibrant latinas, shouldering their way down the aisles with their rapid, rhythmic responses.

I have never been anywhere in the world that has made me so ashamed that I do not speak the language. In most places, tourists don't speak the language, but here, EVERYONE is Spanish speaking, and I don't blame them for expecting it. I am truly out of my element. I speak almost no Spanish at all. I remember going into a Spanish class when I'd first arrived in the Philippines in 7th grade and feeling extremely overwhelmed by the foreign sounds. I quickly transferred to French, which, with my ballet experience, at least felt moderately familiar. I would have loved to have learned Spanish, but to be honest, it isn't until more recently that I've fallen in love with the Spanish sounds. I had to learn to love the music and the salsa dance, and hear the accents and see Spain. Now I want more! I want to come and live here--perhaps Buenos Aires will be my next post? Or Peru or Chile or Costa Rica. What exciting thoughts! Wasn't my last dream to move to Europe? It will change again, no doubt. The job will be the decider!

At the Bogota airport, everyone was excited--I could immediately tell that people were returning home. So few places show that kind of vibrant returning energy. Most are passive and polite! The musical rhythmic language! Wow. I truly was the ignorant foreigner out of my world. Haven't felt like that in a while. It felt multicultural as well, with blacks, latinas, and people who could've looked just like me. Perhaps its just that I've come from Asia, but I honestly would not have been able to tell who was a native Colombian and who was not.

I love it here!

News

It's 1am on Sunday night and I have a big computer assignment due tomorrow, but I think I will send off a note to procrastinate. It certainly beats hunting the mosquitoes that keep emerging in my room (there is at least one every 5 minutes, and when I zap them, others keep coming. I just don't know where they are coming from!!)

Things have been absolutely crazy for the last few weeks, and this week will be similar. I still have 3 assignments to finish, but now I only have 4 days to do them. They will be shoddily done, but I don't really care at this stage. I leave for my holidays on Sunday. Yay holidays!! This is what I'm doing-- On Sunday I will fly for the longest time I think I have ever flown--I go from here to Bangkok to Taipei to Seattle to Chicago to Miami to Bogota, all with 3 or 4 hour layovers, and on three different tickets! I hope it goes smoothly. For my flightback in August I'm still waitlisted--have never bought a waitlisted ticket before!! I'll spend 3 lovely weeks with Hayley and Stuart tripping around Colombia, and then I'll return to the states on the 19th stopping off to see Christy and Jonah in Miami (I hope!). I wanted to stop in Central America somewhere but the tickets were insanely more expensive (despite most airlines going via there anyway!)

My exam is in the middle on June 12th, and I will do it at Hayley and Stuart's school with perhaps them as my proctors! I go from there to Chicago to try on bridesmaid dresses with Amanda and have shoes dyed to match. I start work in Massachussetts on Thursday the 21st, and it will be nice to do nothing but work! :) At the end of 6 weeks, on Aug 4, I flyto Seattle, go to a wedding, then at 4am fly back to Myanmar to jump right back into work here (meanwhile, studies start up again on July 24th---thankfully a smaller load than before).

My house is wonderful, but not without pains--I knew that would happen though. We had some water leaks, and a small installation error with the washing machine--I'm so handy with a screwdriver that I fixed it myself. Yay for me. We've had 3 plumber visits and still no luck, though things have been changed in the offending toilet and the pump is working slightly less often! To be honest, if the plumber is so useless as to rig the washing machine wrong, I have my doubts about the rest of his work elsewhere! (People here often have a habit of not fixing things properly to ensure continued jobs.) We had two power cuts on Sunday evening, but only for 20 mins each... so far so good on that account.The 3 huge padlocks to get into the house are a pain, especially when I'm busting to go to the loo or if it's raining. There are odd little quirks everywhere (like a shower that doesn't drain well, the only laundry hanging space being upstairs off one of the bedrooms, and taps that aren't allowed to be fully turned off or they leak!). There are millions of geckos and frogs, some stray cats, but thankfully no snakes and no rats yet! Ants are a huge problem (they got inside the sealed glass jar the sugar was in and had a huge party!) and migrate within minutes of leaving anything unattended! The mosquitoes are AWFUL, but hopefully that will ease when rainy season ends. I went and bought the most hideous orange mosquito net yesterday because the night before was so unbearable, but slept blissfully last night.

Rainy season is here early and with full force. It rains every day in buckets and we've had at least two major storms pass over--nothing like that happened this time last year.We had a party on Saturday (in case I didn't have enough else to do). There was drunken debauchery, but I was too busy dealing with an empty water tank in the middle of a huge storm!! It turns out that we have 3 pumps...nothing is ever simple here! We have one that pumps the water in from the road to a holding tank (that must breed a million mosquitoes in an hour, not to mention bacteria and slime). We have another tank to pump from the holding tank to the high tank. We have a third pressure pump to pump from the high tank to the house because the high tank isn't high enough! Thankfully the pressure pump is automatic, but its problem would be OVERuse! The others, however, are run by a lovely little man who our landlady employs, and he fills ourtanks daily (but of course, not at 11pm on a Saturday night, even if we could get in touch with said landlady to ask her!). He even cuts our grass :). So I went outside to figure all this out (had a vague idea but no clue as to which tap went where, whether it was on or not,whether the pump would explode or not, or even where the switch to turn it on was. Found it (after slipping and sliding in mud and slime) and started filling, but of course the rains were so heavy I had no way to tell when it was full and over flowing! On the other side ofthe house an overzealous guest was throwing up all over our frontsteps--thankfully not IN the house, but still, it was under the awning where the rain would not wash it away.

Installed our clothesline today, and things are running smoothly in most areas (except mosquitoes!). We have to take our own rubbish out,which is a real pain. This means that every night after 6pm we must wander down the road in the dark through the puddles carrying our rubbish to the communal rubbish dump near the market. A big snake moseyed over the road the othernight! We get there, and no doubt our every item is thoroughly perused by those in need of an extra penny from the recycling that we are unable to engineer. We have about 40 empty beer bottles from our party that we have no idea what to do with because we have no means of transporting them anywhere. Perhaps our lovely maid will have the desire to take them somewhere tomorrow... we've offered them to her anyway! Where else in the world would people be eager to take such junk off your hands!

I am marking my exams for school at the moment (or actually, procrastinating from marking them). Yuck! But yay to no more teaching for a while. Farewell dinners, lunches, graduation and other festivities! Boo to boring assignments that pull me away from fun times. Never enough time in the day! You probably won't hear from me in a while, but will try and drop a line from Bogota.