Myanmar
Last night and often, the neighbors fight. Not just the neighbors to the left, but the neighbors to the right. And the neighbors who live diagonally across the street from us fight too. Last night was a big fight. Or at least, everyone was involved. And, in a culture that values saving face above all other things, street brawls that involve the whole neighborhood (sans the white folks who live in the only ...
Every morning John and I go for a jog together. During the first month of our tenure here, it was over 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit during both the daytime and nighttime hours, but now the air is cooler so we can survive longer runs that take us out into the countryside.
There are several indigenous tribes in Mexico and Guatemala and even in the states that run, not for personal health or ...
There are several indigenous tribes in Mexico and Guatemala and even in the states that run, not for personal health or ...
Some stories are like lotus flowers; they bloom in layers with each new set of petals adding a transformative shape to the whole. It’s hard to tell these stories, because they aren’t linear and so they require special treatment in order to overcome the tendency that human beings have toward relegating the ethereal shimmer of sacred things like a magic wand polished by hand oils and passed down through ...
I’ve given myself just enough time to write about 1000 words about Bagan and our lives at the moment. I’ll probably write more than that, but I have other things to do and I need to get on it! I try to dedicate time to learning Burmese every week. As a language that’s not regularized at all and that I’ve never ever heard before in my life, the process is going slow. I don't have a dictionary yet, for ...
This month I’m constantly reminded of county fair season and the yearly parades that I grew up with in western Nebraska. Of course, there’s the Thadingyut candle festival that takes place during the full moon in October, but in every village across New Bagan, Old Bagan, and Nyaung-U (and beyond), each neighborhood quarter holds its own private Quarter Festival to celebrate this month in its own unique way. ...
So, I have this problem. It’s a sort of an obsession or a compulsion that has to do with sick animals. If I see one, I always think that I can take it home with me, take care of it and it will heal and grow strong and be okay. The challenge of bringing a sick animal, on the brink of death, back to life is almost irresistible to me. I’ll throw a fit about walking up 777 steps to Mount Popa because of the ...
The transportation options in Bagan and in Myanmar are important. In Guanajuato, Mexico, where we’ve lived for the past 3 years, taxis and buses are available, but most of the time we walk everywhere. In Bagan, Myanmar though, the hot weather makes walking unpleasant. Climbing on an ebike and having the breeze blow through my hair is a lot nicer than walking when it’s 100 degrees outside. So we’ve all ...
Yesterday was a long day. We’d decided to try to get air conditioning installed in John’s and Naing Naing’s office space, a necessity in a country that hits over 90 degrees+ every day of the year. We’d put it off as long as we could because John and I needed a break from all the inconsistencies of our daily lives. We’d spent about a week dealing with the heat in order to avoid dealing with people. But we ...
Some stories are like lotus flowers; they bloom in layers with each new set of petals adding a transformative shape to the whole. It’s hard to tell these stories, because they aren’t linear. They’re like Indian epics--Ramayanan characters engaged in famous battles but meanwhile imagining new worlds or earnestly wishing new beings into existence that cast off on digressive journeys of their own. Over the ...
So it looks like we’ll be spending quite a lot of time in Myanmar which means that it could be helpful to learn Burmese. The language, so far, has not been totally impossible to learn, at least the 27 words or so that I know right now. It’s a tonal language, but the tones have proven to be less straightforward than those in the Mandarin language. Some Burmese language systems say that there are three tones, ...
During the first two weeks of our time here in Bagan, Myanmar, we needed to find a house to live in, furnish it, get Internet (we hoped for higher speed Internet than what was available at the hotel) locate food to cook with, and figure out how to get around the city easily in the heat. We were staying in the Crown Prince Hotel in New Bagan, which had adequate Internet services in the lobby, but we had only ...
When John and I were here in Bagan, Myanmar in January, before we knew that Lydian was going to fall in love and get married to Naing Naing, we loved it here. There was something about this place that was just really comfortable to us. It felt like a small town in Nebraska, but not a modern small town...a small town before there were color TV’s, Netflix, and a hundred plus channels in every home. A small ...
Burmese citizens can only travel to a small selection of countries visa-free. And getting a visa isn’t always easy. Often, in fact, for Burmese citizens it’s a process that involves an interview and the final determination can take months. As American citizens, Lydian, John, and I had never really considered how this fact could affect our lives. In fact, systemic political oppression like this affects a LOT ...
Meeting and falling in love with a Burmese boy was not in my plans for this trip. Totally unexpected. I didn’t think in a million years that I’d be going home a married woman. But at the same time that I’m totally shocked, it makes sense. And I’m happy about it. Very happy.
When we started this trip, I was unsure of why the hell I was even going to Southeast Asia in the first place. On ...
When we started this trip, I was unsure of why the hell I was even going to Southeast Asia in the first place. On ...