Life in Burma

Reflections on Burma -The Illusion of Separation

The illusion of separation has been constant in my awareness since arriving in Myanmar, this most underdeveloped country of all of SE Asia. Each day I grow more and more appreciative that while the circumstances of my life are clearly very different from the day to day life that most Burmese live, still at the core we are fundamentally the same. Our differences are primarily cultural. Yet I have had the significant advantage of health, education and wealth. These create a difference but need not create a distance.

That said, we are all fundamentally the same. The pleasure, pain, suffering, and joy that we experience are the human condition made manifest. Even given the number of seeming differences in the circumstances of our lives, we are not separate. We are all one and the same in our humanity. The separation we create in our consciousness is but an illusion. I now see Burma (Myanmar) through this lens.

I am the woman washing clothes in the murky waters of the mud rushing river.

I am the infant sleeping in the marketplace next to my mother's array of vegetables for sale.

I am the vendor squatting on a brick in the mud and slime of the meat market, selling pieces of raw chicken in the heat of the morning.

I am the young boy looking wide-eyed into the windows of cars hoping to sell his jasmine flower necklaces to the drivers to dangle from their car mirror or for an offering to the Buddha.

I am the adolescent mother with a nursing babe at her breast asking for a handout as she weaves her way from car to car through the traffic-jammed intersection, hoping to curry the sympathy of those more fortunate.

I am the barefoot ox cart driver bumping along the deeply rutted, red-earthen roads with a load of manure to be spread for fertilizer in the fields.

I am the young woman, face delicately painted with thanaka, jammed into a crowded bus, going off to work in the heat, with tin tiffin pail of lunch prepared early in the morning.

I am the rice farmer at the back of a wooden plow prodding the oxen to till the fields to prepare for another planting.

I am the old woman bent over in the rice paddy sewing rice in the muddy water.

I am the monk sitting before the Buddha sonorously chanting prayers at 5 am for peace and mankind.

I am the novice monk clanging my cymbal, alerting almsgivers of my daily need to fill my bowl.

I am the temple tout trying to peddle my wares to the tourists, hoping their eyes glance upon something of interest to give me lucky money.

I am the work-worn woman hoeing the potato fields, supported in my sweat-filled labor by the songs of my neighbors who toil with me.

I am the bus driver with steely nerves, entrusted with the passage of travelers on roads rutted, rocky and treacherous, with a vehicle that lurches between gears, on threadbare tires, delivering my passengers and their baggage, goats, and chickens to their destination.

I am the smiling taxi driver lost in finding the destination that these foreigners wish to go to, but anxious to please nonetheless.

I am the busy waiter patiently serving noddle soup to foreigners in the guest house. They all ask the same questions.

I am the old woman sitting on a wooden platform, bones aching, eyesight blurred, observing the daily cycle of life unfold in her multi-generational family’s bamboo hut.

I am the young girl at the temple seeking a small kyat offering for a plastic bag the foreigner will use for the requisite removal of shoes before entering the temple.

I am the gleeful boy aglow with joy, blowing a plastic whistle the foreigner gave me.

I am the new father, betel red encrusting my toothy smile, holding my infant son up to be admired.

I am the monk eating my one meal of the day provided by the almsgivers who know that my prayers will further their divine standing.

I am the fisherman rowing with my foot and leg wrapped around the wooden oar on my shallow teak boat hoping for a good catch today.

I am the young woman sitting with dozens of others sweating in the 105 degree sauna-like conditions of a dark room, plastic shielding out any moisture, pounding gold leaf to wafer thinness for temple offerings, hour upon hour, for $1/day.

I am the entrepreneur guide who has learned enough tourist English to show the foreigners all the temples, Buddhas and attractions of this richly diverse country.

I am the tender in charge of the huge snake kept in the temple where worshipers come to pray.

I am the young artist carving a stone Buddha in the dust and heat, my hammer and chisel delicately creating the peacefulness and serenity of his enlightened face.

I am the supplicant kneeling in the temple before the Buddha, making an offering while silently praying that I can feed my family.

I am the Buddha sitting serenely in the temple, accepting the obeisance of the faithful, a conduit for their prayers and hopes.

Inle Lake and then back in Yangon

May 27, 2009

Tonite we are back in Yangon after over a month of travels in Myanmar (Burma). I am pleased we came and experienced this diverse country with all its many ecosystems, strong friendly people, amazing culture and belief system, but glad to be going to a more restful place like Thailand as a reentry to the West. The fetid squalor of the city in Yangon is magnified by the mud pooled streets from the start of the rainy season and the contrast to the beauty of Inle Lake where we have spent the last 4 days in a lake village surrounded by mountains and hill tribes.

Here one notices the black mold and mildew growth that covers every surface of every building that has not been built or painted in the last year ( which is 95% of them). The stark contrast of rural simplicity and its earthen cleanliness of the bamboo huts, mud and earthen villages, clear air and distant views is so different from the diesel fumes, the trash-strewn streets, open sewers, and betel spit sidewalks of the city. It is hard to believe the conditions the majority of people in this city live in, many making a tarp squatting next to a brick wall home until the government decides to move them. I looked down a dark narrow alley between buildings where one person could barely pass and saw an old woman sitting back in the dark recesses having claimed this space as a home. The people all seem industrious but relaxed and move with no frantic distinction between hours of the day.....it all flows the same.

The countryside is largely unchanged as the centuries have passed with the exception of a few more roads for travel and the introduction of pipes for clean water in most places. There is the sporadic appearance of electricity outside of the towns and village life seems to go on as it has for centuries tied to the seasons. Chinese goods have made their inroads though and cheap, colorful and abundant plastic and mass-produced product available in shops in the towns next to the open-air vegetable markets that have existed forever. Plastic goods and polyester blankets, many garish blankets that provide warmth and colorful flower patterns to ward off the chill of the all to brief cool season at higher elevations.

We are back at the Motherland 2 Guesthouse, now for our 3rd time. We went to Inya lake here, the lake that separates Aun San Suu Kyi from her people when she was under her house arrest. Now she is on trial and held in Insein prison ( appropriately pronounced "insane") defending herself on the charge of the invasion of an American who broke the conditions of her house arrest two weeks prior to completing her house arrest. Many people mostly Westerners believe like I do that the intruder was a set up of the military government anxious to keep her withheld from her freedom. This woman is an inspiration not only to her people but to the world in her stalwart commitment to democracy and to her people against a totalitarian militaristic state. They are determined to keep her silent in next year's election so the future does not bode well for democracy.

Myanmar people studiously avoid any discussion with Westerners about" the lady" that could possibly be overheard by regime informants because of fear of government reprisal to them, their families and businesses. Most reasonably well-spoken English speaking Burmese will suddenly feign misunderstanding to avoid having to discuss her. The world may give Myanmar's government a slap on the hand but nothing even this tourist and economic embargo will change as this government is a puppet to China's desire for its' natural resources which are being mined and logged avariciously, largely for the benefit of the government and not its people.

At Inya Lake there are steel benches just wide enough for two lovers with their umbrella, to ward off the heat or the monsoon rains, or prying eyes, to sit and cuddle in semi-public privacy. The bench each couple is sitting on has a large advertisement on the back for Procare which I can only assume to be prophylactics. The heat radiates off the water in the middle of the day and we do not stay too long feeling a little out of place in this young "Lover's Lane". We are off to our last Myanmar lunch at a place that many Burmese go for authentic Burmese food. The monsoon clouds are rolling in so we expect another afternoon of heavy showers and time hanging out at the Motherland before we leave tomorrow.

So this trip has been a challenge and can best be described as "intense." Intense heat, humidity, physical, mental, cultural, economic, spiritual and travel challenges. It is much like childbirth....in that it is harrowing to go thru and it takes some time in retrospect to get some distance from the experience to want to tackle it again. It is an approach-avoidance where you suck up the squalor and have compassion for the people who are living in it not knowing any other existence. You can't begin to imagine the hot, back-breaking, labor-intensive work done by the majority of the country people and many city people but you hope that somehow balanced in it all is the simplicity and peace that is in their lives. Tourists here come and go in and out of their lens of consciousness. Most of them are welcomed and at a minimum looked on as a bit of a curiosity. I would like to think that we represent a small spark of hope of another way of life that they may have only seen on TV, seemingly as distant as the moon to many and equally as fictional as most of the movies shown, yet a spark of hope nonetheless.

The Trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake

Wow we completed a three day marathon trek over the mountains, through the rice and potato fields, balancing carefully as we crossed rice paddies and only occassionally falling in. The trek gave us a serious appreciation for what travel has been like for centuries without the advantage of motorized vehicles. Deeply rutted red dirt roads that easily turn to slip sliding away mud fields when it rains which is every afternoon. The ruts are from the ox carts and a few horse carts and the path ( of least resistance) that both people and the cows have taken for centuries across the fields and forests. We spent the first nite in the upstairs of a village home thankful to get off our feet from 16 km of hiking. Food was good and the trek guide Jimmy who has been doing this for 17 years stays with families who appreciate the extra source of income he brings. This mountain top family establishment was all contained in its self sufficency. There were orchards of mango, papaya, banana and plum. Gardens with tomatoes, chilis, onions and garlic.....fields sewn in rice and potatoes. The watern cistern had been rigged up with a pipe that allowed a flow for a makeshift shower, much appreciated to get the grime of the dust off. Most of the villages have a piped source of water. The 2nd day was the real marathon day of 20 km over varied tilled, early growth and ready to be harvested terrain, mountainsides covered with tea plantations, potato fields, bamboo forests, rice paddies, women and children working in the fields taking respite under nearby bhoddi trees. We arrived at our destination for the 2nd nite, a monastery which was quitelovely and truly picturesque, just as the afternoon rain broke out. The rain was much appreciated from the deep teak porch of the monastery as we drank tea and soothed our blistered feet. We were competing for # of blisters/ person.....I could not compete because all I had was 2 lost toenails. The monastery is run by 2 adult monks taking care of 10 orphans, monks who are cared for and schooled in this mountain seclusion. It is a very well ordered place, simple and clean. We of course were put to sleep by the allocated 1 hour of satelitte TV at 9pm that drew the surrounding children before all electricity went down at 10 pm. We were awoken by the sonorous chanting of all the monks at 5 am, a really nice way to be awoken even though it is early. The mosquito nets had worked well and the blankets were well used byt comfy, so hard to haul ourselves out for the final push to Inle Lake for the balance of our 57 Km trek. After breakfast of tea, fruit, guacamole served on white bread, ( for some reason they believe all Westerners prefer this tasteless, nuritionless white bread). Then we were off for the final 4 hours down to Inle Lake from the mountain.

This is when we started calling Jimmie "rush guide" his perjorative term for the other guide who had brought in 7 other trekkers the nite before. Jimmie was like a horse that knew he was heading home to the stable and thus set a relentless pace all morning. We took no breaks and hiked 4 hours through mud slick, oc cart, rutted path across fields and villages and finally, blessedly down to the souther end of Inle Lake. Were immediately picked up one of their long boats which was nicely set up with short lawn chairs and umbrellas to take us the 45 minutes across the lake to the town on the north of the lake Nguaschwe where we will stay for 2 more days.

This lake community is the center of true hydroponic gardening. They locals take the mud from the lake bed and bamboo stake it into rows that they plant tomatoes on literally in the shores of the lake so that the tomatoes roots are standing in lake water. This gardening procedure is very labor intensive as are most things here as the men dive down into the lake and scoop up buckets full of this mud sledge and place it into their shallow teak boats until the boat is about submerged and then they take off to their gardens by rowing with one leg and foot on the oar. This boats are so shallow you are amazed at the amount of weight they carry. The same boats pick up the produce and take it to Nguaschwe the town that then is the center for trucking tons of tomatoes all over Myanmar and north to China. This is their main crop here in the valley but the mountain tribes all come in here to trade their produce of rice, potatoes, vegetables and tea so no one is lacking because the market exchange is pretty strong.

It is lovely here and the town/village is quite spread out. Rob and I are congratulating ourselves for making the trek which was a tough one but certainly one that was worth the effort. Again we were the only Boomers with a small group of 20 somethings....including Erik, a young French and Norwegian male travelers. The people, the terrain, the countryside, the mountains and the memories we collected of this most amazing people and country will be with us indefinitely.