My friend in the cage

Most people do not know any refugees.  Because we have spent so much time in the border town in Thailand, we know many. I want to tell you about a woman that Sandy and I love and what it is like to be a refugee.

I can not say her name because she still has relatives in Burma and fears that somehow she could jeopardize their safety by even mentioning her name.  This may seem paranoid to you and I, but as children we did not witness the heads of local factory workers the government cut off and put on fence posts to intimidate local people.  We did not have our family torn apart because our brother wanted democracy and participated in protests.  We did not have a sister interrogated for hours and threatened because she may have inadvertently talked with reporters in a store.  We are lucky.

My friend lives in the border area of Thailand and has very limited rights there.  Because she cannot legally own property, she has had "friends" put vehicles and property in their name so she could run a small business.  Ultimately, they took the vehicles and the property and there is no recourse.  She knows if she is physically attacked, the police will turn a blind eye to many things because she is from Burma.

I think the worst thing is that she is in a virtual cage.  She is limited to living in a small extremely rural part of Thailand.  To the Thai governments credit, they do provide a semi-safe haven for refugees there. Nonetheless, she can not leave.  There are many police checkpoints to be sure she does not.  

I wish everyone knew my friend. I wish they could know a person who finds people with no hope due to health problems and gives them hope and helps them be cured.  I wish they could know someone who has so little, but is eager to give what she has to others. I wish they could watch her drive a motorbike like a trolley car...stopping to pick up and drop off her friends she sees walking on the streets. I wish they could meet someone who sacrifices so much to care for her mother.  

When we say goodbye to her we always end up saying we love each other and crying.  I think it must be terrible looking out from the cage as we go free, but it is not a lot of fun look in the cage and seeing someone you love trapped.

Water Project

I have been working with a good friend of mine for the last few months on a water project inside  Burma.  This is a bit illegal (strange that helping others is illegal, but it is), so it has been a bit of a challenge.

Yesterday we had a meeting at the site.  Burma has many states and some, like the Mon state, have some autonomy from the central government.  We had gotten permission from the Mon state to enter Burma, but the central government will not give permission, so we had to hid a bit while being transported. I was not really nervous, but I knew that there could be a bit of a problem if one of the many Burmese soldiers stopped the car. 

We got to the temple where we will drill a well.  The driller has a good reputation, the other man neither my friend or I knew.  I was (am) a bit nervous about him since he was wearing a real gold Rolex on his wrist.  The meeting went ok.  

We decided to go with my friend to the well that serves the rest of the area.  It is already over capacity, no way to add to the capacity.  The man who manager is trustworthy, and he gave us a lot of good advice.  Our initial idea was to run a few taps with meters and have the local people put there money together to pay the monthly cost.  Turns out that the Burmese government will apply a tax which would essentially double the rate. Nobody wants to enrich the government, so we settled on a flat monthly charge much like the other service has.

I think that it is probably best to have the community gather money and if they raise a sufficient amount, we will contribute the remainder.  This is not just to keep the cost down, but more importantly to have a sense of ownership in the community.  People usually do not destroy things that they paid for (at least in theory).  

Hopefully, they will raise the money they need to and work can begin in April.  Kind of exciting.

Second Home

We lived in Sangklaburi, Thailand for a year and have visited it on many other occasions.  We love the slow pace, the friendliness of the people, our friends, and the children of Baan Unrak.

I really did not know how much I missed it until we were preparing to come.  Would people remember me?  Would the kids remember me?  Would things be the same?

We called Baan Unrak to let them know we were on our way and I ended up talking to some of the kids.  A couple said, "Do you remember me?"  Little do they know that we have shown their pictures to everyone and told everyone about them.  Either way, it was a relief to know that we were still remembered.

We got here, and there are some changes.  More foreigners working with NGO's, a couple of new markets and a 7/11 (is that progress?).  It has been great strolling the streets and chatting with friends.  It is strange, but we really do feel like it is a second home.  I guess as long as we live in Asia, we will keep coming here.

The best of humanity

For those who are looking for the best in humanity, let me introduce "Ying". She is a 12 year old girl who lives at Baan Unrak Children's home.  The other night we took her with a bunch of kids to a festival in town.  All the kids got a bit of money to buy something for themselves.

Ying was very judicious in her spending, I did not know why until she found a little necklace that you could have inscribed.  She is a young girl and young girls like jewellery...no problem.  I looked at the necklace after she was finished and it said, "Tatiana".  I said, "Your name is not Tatiana."  She said "My sponsor has sent me many gifts and I have never been able to give her one".

I guess I am sentimental, but when a kid who has next to nothing has an opportunity to buy something for herself and decides she should spend it on others, it really touched me.  I am sure her sponsor will appreciate the gift.  As for me, I told Ying, "You gave me the best gift of the night by doing that".  I thought it was a nice sentiment, but she thought I said, "You gave me the basket of the night by doing that".  After the confusion was resolved, she held my hand a bit tighter and we went on our way.

"Sit and Smile" Best Name Ever

I was in the market and saw some toilet paper with the best name ever, "Sit and Smile".

Petting Tigers

Some friends of ours joined us on the Thailand leg of our vacation.  We went to the "Tiger Temple". Some of the small cats were free to roam and be petted.

The big tigers are exercised like crazy and then fed, so they end of being like big hug toys.  You have an opportunity to have pictures taken while petting the tigers.  For those with a bit more courage and a few bucks, you can actually have a tiger rest his head on your lap while the picture is taken.

A few of the medium sized cats still had some energy left, so we were kept a short distance from them.

Communal water, making merit

Part of being a good Buddhist is doing good for others, called making merit.  Even everyday people can do this with simple tasks.  

My favourite is the communal water system.  Everywhere you go, you see clay pots filled with drinking water to relieve travellers from the oppressive heat.  The pots are unfinished clay, so they perspire a bit.  This allows for evaporation which makes the pots, and hence the water, a bit cool. The pots are filled on a daily basis by people making merit.

"Where you from?" to the extreme

One of the funniest things that happened to us occurred when we walked by the police station.  A truck with bars over the windows chock full of prisoners was backing out of the jail.  People could barely move, but somehow they got their hands between the bars and began waving and yelling, "hello" and, "Where you from?".

People love to engage with foreigners and it seems that the impending doom of going to prison was not going to prevent people from making new friends.

Memories of Burma

A few pictures of daily life from our trip.

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Funny Sign

I have to give the airport an "A" for effort with their bathroom door sign, but their execution leaves something to be desired.

Collapsing Burmese Toilets

Toilets in small villages are generally small concrete slabs with a small hole over a nearly full pit with bamboo supports for a light weight roof.

One morning I finished squatting and as I began to stand and pull up my shorts, I found out the hard way that I was over the weight limit of the concrete slab: It collapsed.  Luckily, the pit was nearly full and I did not fall into a deep pit (bad visualization alert).  The concrete, which was conveniently not reinforced, broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, I kept my balance.

Unluckily, the roof rested on poles which rested on the concrete .  Soon the roof rested on me. Less lucky, the roof caught on my sweater.  Even more unlucky, my pants were still around my knees. Completing the bad luck tri-fecta, a group of children came running to see what happened. 

I quickly got my pants up, the roof off and, to prove what an idiot I have become, could not wait to tell Sandy and Camille that the toilet collapsed on me.

Trekking

We went to Inle lake area  because a wonderful, funny  friend of ours, Camille, was there and we really wanted to spend time with her.  She suggested trekking for three days. 

The real attraction was hiking through and staying in small villages. At night, we slept with local families in their homes which were quiet nice by Burma standards, but did not have electricity or running water. Some of the families were really interested in talking with us, so got to learn a good bit about their lives.

The weather was remarkably cool (nearly freezing one night) so we just tried to stay under the blankets.

 Our guides prepared meals over open fires inside the house.  There was no ventilation for the smoke, so we had to eat and sleep in remarkably smoky environment.

While hiking through farming villages, we found that nearly every family had animals.  Ox carts were the principal means of transportation and water buffaloes were common sights working in the fields and cooling off in the streams.

Bagan

I must be honest, I had never heard of Bagan prior to contemplating my trip to Burma. This is really remarkable since it is an equal to Anchor Wat by nearly any measure.

There are about 4000 temples of varying sizes spread out over an area the size of Manhattan. It is really awe inspiring to be standing on a temple, made in the 1200's, and seeing hundreds of beautiful temples in every direction. Standing there, I thought, "damn that's a lot of temples". I also thought it is strange that a great tourist attraction can come from an obsession, building thousands of temples over a couple hundred years can not be a good use of a communities resources....just an obsession.

For all its' beauty, the area is blighted with sellers of all sorts of trinkets. They surround the larger temples and even some of the small ones. They hound you until you feel like you can not wait to get away. It is the same at Anchor Wat, but it is still too bad. Still well worth it.

One of the greatest sites I have seen.

This one is special, not because of its' size or grandeur, but because of its' age...300 AD.

Yangon

Yangon is like so many other big cities in developing countries, and also so unlike them.

It is crowded and hot, the air is not clean the sidewalks look ok until you look away and fall into an uncovered drainage ditch. People rush around like they do in every big city and the taxi cabs have taken the mandatory overcharging of tourist training.

It is really unlike other's because it is safe, there are few street dogs, and there is not much garbage on the streets.  People have an easy laugh and are generally friendly.

Another thing that makes Yangon special is the Shwe Dagon temple.  It is a very old (between 1500 and 2500 years depending on who you ask) gold encrusted temple visible from throughout the city.  It is truly spectacular and one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. 

A very pleasant way to spend a day or two.

Burma: Go or no go

I have so many Burmese friends who have told me stories of the slaughter during the Democracy movements, the massive number of political prisoners (2100+/-) and the complete repression in Burma. I went expecting to see people completly beaten down and miserable.  After spending 8 days there and talking talking with a friend who is working as an aid worker, I came away much more confused than when I started. 

The government is total crap, repressing the people while enriching the military elite. They imprision their people for expressing opposition. They block much of the internet and restrict the movement of its' people and foreign tourists.  Tourists end up seeing the best of Burma, which is pretty fabulous, and do not see the dark underside.

That said, my friend, who has worked as an aid worker in Congo and Sudan and has been exposed to much more of the country than tourists are, thinks that the government is less repressive than other regimes and has created an enviroment which at least provides safety for its' people. She does not support the government, but she says it is much less bad than others.  Another aid worker told me she has seen a noticable difference in the governments level of repression since the saffron revolution. She posed an interesting question, "Why boycott Burma when other governments are worse? It is becoming harder to justify." 

I suppose if the coming elections (the first since 1991) are somewhat free, that will be a clear sign the direction the country is taking.

Vacation

We are heading to Burma and Thailand over the next few weeks.  I am not sure how much I will be able to update the blog in Burma, but I will get back to it in Thailand.

Korea a Good Place to Live

I was looking at my blog and it seems that there are a lot of posts recently that express things that could be seen as negative about Korea.  When I am writing, I try to look for things that are funny and interesting...not so interesting to say a million times that this person or that person was remarkably helpful or kind (it happens nearly everyday), that things are safe and clean and it is a nice place to live with good healthcare.

So...when I write something that does point out some negative things about Korea, do not misread this as anything negative about my overall feelings about living here.

Drivers License Part 2

After finding out we needed a letter from the embassy to get our driver's license, we got up at 5:20 today and  paid the $170 to make the 6 hour round trip to Seoul (we had to go in person).  We paid our $60 dollars and got the letters. We made our way back to Daegu drove an hour to the Driver's License Bureau to get our licenses.  So far, so good...at least we think.

We presented our documents to the woman behind the counter, who could not speak English but was really friendly,  she looked at mine...no problems.  She looked at Sandy's...big problem.  When we went to Seoul the woman signed the letter, but forgot to emboss Sandy's.  Not embossed, no license.  If you have ever seen a cartoon where a characters head starts to enlarge and then explodes, you got a pretty good idea of Sandy's reaction.

They let Sandy complete the rest of the requirements including the physical test which had deep knee bends (this is not a joke).  The multiple choice test was 20 questions that made no sense.  The English was so bad that in a third of the questions we had no idea what they were talking about.  Another third had one or two choices that made no sense.  The final third was understandable. When I mentioned this to the proctor of the exam, she said, "yeah, all the foreigners complain about the bad English".

Somehow we both passed (barely) and I got my license.  Sandy will send her documents to the US Embassy and they will send them back to her.  Then, she make the one hour drive for her third try for the drivers license.