view of shwedagon pagoda from the exterior
monks and money
a kid in a bowtie (!) posing with the generator, burma's only source of legal power
street view of men in longyis (skirt-type garments)
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
tackling burma
i've had a great deal of anxiety thinking about how to present my story of burma while properly maintaining the complexity, integrity, and beauty of the country. she is so dynamic that words just don't suffice. so with that said, since a word is indeed worth a thousand pictures, i present to you The Word: Burma...and approximately a thousand pictures (56 to be exact).
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reading my favorite paper (IHT) in my favorite pub (50th st)
having posek with cousin fred in a typical burmese tea shop
after running the hash as a newbie
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
fabulous comeuppance pt. 2
i'm not ready to tackle the story of my time in burma yet, so i'll skip to the pseudo present:
*i left, or rather escaped, from burma in september of this year. i returned home to visit with my mother, family, friends and fergi the pomeranian in nashville, tn and reconnect to the home that once was. after the first week of being there i was officially offered the job with clear path international (www.cpi.org), so knew that my time in the states was dated. so i spent lots of time talking, laughing and watching dancing with the stars with mom, visiting my aunts and cousins in atlanta playing table tennis and playstation, catching up on my nearly two years without microbrews, and fighting jetlag. it was a phenomenal.
*then i was back to asia. i stopped through bangkok to visit my boyfriend peter for a few days, getting reacquainted with the thai lifestyle. after a couple of days, i jetsetted to vientiane, laos, my new home. i'd never been to laos before, but was told by many friends i knew from thailand who'd gone there before that the only reason to go was to get a new visa for thailand. i can't speak for the rest of laos, but vientiane (the capital, where i now call home base) has brought me to levels of boredom and near depression previously thought unfathomable. for those of you who know me well, you know that i'm fairly adaptable. i rarely complain about my condition and am usually able to make the best out of any situation, no matter how grave. but laos has/is doing me in. granted, i've only been there for a month, but in that month i've had little work (starting an NGO in a new place is slow tedious work in the beginning); no family; no internet; and most importantly/shockingly, no friends. and if you don't have work, family, internet and friends - what's the purpose of living? there is none. so the answer to alleviating my sorrows in vientiane is, simply, to not be in vientiane. travel. travel as much as i can. travel so much that i'm so tired of traveling that i welcome the work-family-internet-friend blackhole that is vientiane. with that said, i know that other parts of laos are far more intriguing than vientiane, so i do plan to spend a fair amount of time doing other regions justice. so with that, here's my plan for the next couple of months:
Dec 4-16: Cambodia (Phnom Penh, Kep, Kampot, Sihanoukville, Battambang, Kamrieng)
Dec 16-22: Vientiane
Dec 22-25: Chiang Mai
Dec 25-Jan 2: Cambodia
Jan 2-12: Vientiane
Jan 12-Feb 5: Thailand and Burma
Feb 5-14: Traipsing with a friend throughout Who-Knows-Where-Land, SE Asia
*but in during my last month of solitary confinement, there has been an oyster. a mighty, pearly one at that. i've had time to reflect on where my path has lead and realize that, now that i'm now officially working in the field of international development, i've found my calling. and i've also realized that my self-deprecating tendencies of second guessing my own abilities needs to stop. so with that, i've enrolled in a harvard economics distance program with the hopes of passing this level and enrolling full time into the kennedy school or london school of economics (or school of oriental and asian studies) masters in public policy/administration in international development program within the next two years.
*i'm currently on my first leg of my work site visit/anti-death boredom trip - in phnom penh, cambodia. this, i've decided, is my favorite city in the world. there's literally no other place where i'm constantly having my heart broken (4 year old prostitutes; remnants of contemporary genocide at every corner), nor my heart ignited (random street people wanting to shake your hand because of you believe in the prosperity of their country; 80 year old blind blues singers who survived the war by making music that even the killing forces couldn't resist). i've never had such amazing food in my life. and i've never been so sick after eating food that had apparently been contaminated with insects (i only found this out because when i ran to the bathroom after the initial onset of symptoms what came out in the toilet was chocked full of small bugs). my heart rests here. and here: Cambodia Living Arts
*i left, or rather escaped, from burma in september of this year. i returned home to visit with my mother, family, friends and fergi the pomeranian in nashville, tn and reconnect to the home that once was. after the first week of being there i was officially offered the job with clear path international (www.cpi.org), so knew that my time in the states was dated. so i spent lots of time talking, laughing and watching dancing with the stars with mom, visiting my aunts and cousins in atlanta playing table tennis and playstation, catching up on my nearly two years without microbrews, and fighting jetlag. it was a phenomenal.
*then i was back to asia. i stopped through bangkok to visit my boyfriend peter for a few days, getting reacquainted with the thai lifestyle. after a couple of days, i jetsetted to vientiane, laos, my new home. i'd never been to laos before, but was told by many friends i knew from thailand who'd gone there before that the only reason to go was to get a new visa for thailand. i can't speak for the rest of laos, but vientiane (the capital, where i now call home base) has brought me to levels of boredom and near depression previously thought unfathomable. for those of you who know me well, you know that i'm fairly adaptable. i rarely complain about my condition and am usually able to make the best out of any situation, no matter how grave. but laos has/is doing me in. granted, i've only been there for a month, but in that month i've had little work (starting an NGO in a new place is slow tedious work in the beginning); no family; no internet; and most importantly/shockingly, no friends. and if you don't have work, family, internet and friends - what's the purpose of living? there is none. so the answer to alleviating my sorrows in vientiane is, simply, to not be in vientiane. travel. travel as much as i can. travel so much that i'm so tired of traveling that i welcome the work-family-internet-friend blackhole that is vientiane. with that said, i know that other parts of laos are far more intriguing than vientiane, so i do plan to spend a fair amount of time doing other regions justice. so with that, here's my plan for the next couple of months:
Dec 4-16: Cambodia (Phnom Penh, Kep, Kampot, Sihanoukville, Battambang, Kamrieng)
Dec 16-22: Vientiane
Dec 22-25: Chiang Mai
Dec 25-Jan 2: Cambodia
Jan 2-12: Vientiane
Jan 12-Feb 5: Thailand and Burma
Feb 5-14: Traipsing with a friend throughout Who-Knows-Where-Land, SE Asia
*but in during my last month of solitary confinement, there has been an oyster. a mighty, pearly one at that. i've had time to reflect on where my path has lead and realize that, now that i'm now officially working in the field of international development, i've found my calling. and i've also realized that my self-deprecating tendencies of second guessing my own abilities needs to stop. so with that, i've enrolled in a harvard economics distance program with the hopes of passing this level and enrolling full time into the kennedy school or london school of economics (or school of oriental and asian studies) masters in public policy/administration in international development program within the next two years.
*i'm currently on my first leg of my work site visit/anti-death boredom trip - in phnom penh, cambodia. this, i've decided, is my favorite city in the world. there's literally no other place where i'm constantly having my heart broken (4 year old prostitutes; remnants of contemporary genocide at every corner), nor my heart ignited (random street people wanting to shake your hand because of you believe in the prosperity of their country; 80 year old blind blues singers who survived the war by making music that even the killing forces couldn't resist). i've never had such amazing food in my life. and i've never been so sick after eating food that had apparently been contaminated with insects (i only found this out because when i ran to the bathroom after the initial onset of symptoms what came out in the toilet was chocked full of small bugs). my heart rests here. and here: Cambodia Living Arts
yes, that's a picture of tree roots that looks like a person's bare ass
yes, that's a picture of the most beautiful child in cambodia standing in front of angkor wat
yes, that's a picture of skulls exhumed from mass graves following the khmer rouge genocide
and yes, that's a picture of a plate of rice shaped like a teddy bear
fabulous comeuppance
a retrospective glance at life since my last update:
*i stayed in chiang mai, thailand until march 2010 teaching english and working for a burmese education non-profit organization. after having been there for more than 18 months, i started to feel like i was losing sight of my purpose. i'd originally gone to thailand in an effort to figure out what the hell i wanted to do with my life - teach english? health professional? anthropologist? masters student?!?! i met many amazing people, made loads of beautiful friends, ate some incredible food, was blown away by larger-than-life landscapes...but at the end of the day, i was not any closer to realizing my destiny than i was when i first stepped off the plane in 2008.
i'd decided it might be time for me to return to the U.S. - not totally a failure, but with a sense of defeat that i wasn't quite comfortable with. then something amazing happened. a group that i was volunteering with asked me if i would come to their office, because they wanted to introduce me to a couple of people. they would often ask me to come by to meet their songwriter friends to help them edit their songs that they wanted to perform in english; or teach their friends who wanted to open a restaurant catering to tourists how to make western food. so figuring this was another one of those scenarios, i gladly threw on a pair of cut-off shorts and a halter top, hopped on my motorbike and headed over to the office.
when i arrived, i was greeted by two american women, who were introduced to me as the leadership team of clear
path international, an international ngo that supports victims of landmines. they were the primary funders of this organization that i was volunteering with and had asked the group if they knew anyone who would like to help them out with some of their projects in se asia. apparently i fit the bill, but as they scanned me up and down - with my backpacker attire and empty-handed (no CV, or even a pen), i feared they had doubts. but then again, so did i. of course i wouldn't want to interview and be considered for a job that would keep me in asia. i'd already failed at developing a strategic plan for myself, and had wasted two years of my life in the process. screw you guys, i'm going home. or so i thought.
over the next few hours i spent chatting with these brilliant, compassionate women i was won over by their stories and hopes for the organization. i found myself then praying that they would accept me into their ranks. ah, but money. they didn't have a budget to fund my position, so told me that they would try to secure some grant money to bring me on, but in the time being just to hang out
a little while and just wait. yea, sure. i live in freaking asia, how many times had i heard that before? from tuk tuk drivers telling me that their vehicle was tired and i needed to just wait a little while...4 hours later we're still stuck in the middle of the jungle with hungry, fanged beasts scurrying around our feet. or the restaurant owner telling me that my dish will be out soon, just wait a little while. 2 hours later i'm passed out in the floor in a near diabetic fit. hellz no, i don't wait for anyone in asia anymore. but they persisted, and 7 months later, i received an email informing me that they'd received funding for my position, and they wanted me to start working immediately. so with that, i bid thailand and all my gorgeous memories farewell, for the time being. holla!
*during that 7 month period after thailand i lived in burma, an experience i'll cover in subsequent blogs. i'm realizing i'm a much better blogger when i write about the events retrospectively, after i've had time to reflect and see how things were actually pieced together through the end.
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