To be happy, I must try.

In some ways, it's been a rough couple of weeks.

The violence all over the world really shook me.  The inevitable increase in xenophobia that resulted made it even worse.  I've been to a whole lot of places, and I've found lovely, caring, smiling people everywhere.  I wanted to convince the rest of the world to think the same, but it seemed no amount of arguing with misguided people on Facebook seemed to make a difference.  Shocking.

Then there's the isolation.  I knew moving here would be isolating, but I did it anyway, despite being the textbook definition of an extrovert.  So it's no big surprise that I have had many lonely moments.  It's not being alone that is a problem in and of itself; it's the amount of thinking I'm able to do.  I suppose in some ways it's good, but I also have a way of getting too deep into my own head.

A 75 year old self-proclaimed "hermit and spinster" asked me this weekend if I was also a spinster.  I laughed and said, "yeah, I guess I am!"  It was hilarious at the time.  Then I had too much time to think about it.  Dear lord, am I a spinster?!  No, of course not.  Not yet, at least, right?  When I told my mom about the dear old lady who asked me that, at some point in the story my laughter turned to tears.  Apparently too much time to think isn't always a good thing.  

Today the librarian at my school, who I didn't know spoke a word of English, asked me a question I've been asked countless times throughout my stay here: "Are you happy?"  I smiled and said yes, the same way I do every time someone here asks me that.  There's no way I would be able to describe the complexity of my feelings, even with someone who is fluent in English.  Hell, I don't think I even understand the complexity of my feelings, so to try to describe them to someone who speaks very little English would be impossible.  So I smile and say "Yes, very happy," every time.  And I'm not lying; I am, in many ways, very happy here.

The librarian went on, thinking very deliberately about every word, "If you are not happy here..." he paused to think, and continued, "...you must try."

There's something very cool about the ways complex concepts can must be simplified between people who don't share a common language.  If someone in the States noticed I was feeling a bit down and said, "You must try," I'd think they were a jerk.  It's not exactly a supportive thing to say to someone who isn't happy with their life.  But he wasn't a jerk, at all.  Just the opposite.  He's right.  If I'm not happy, I should try harder to be happy.  

There's not a whole lot I can literally do to be happier.  Not knowing the language is frustrating, so I should try harder to learn more Burmese.  Other than that, I should be trying to shift my attitude.  I should try harder to fully embrace the culture that I came here to experience, starting now. 

First, I'm going to be grateful for all the experiences I'm having here.  For about one full and glorious hour after school, there's daylight.  I take my motorbike for a cruise nearly every day, and bask in the sunshine and freedom and adventure I feel when I do so.

 

The various stages of mohingar, which I am happy to say I now know how to cook!

This past weekend, I expressed an interest in learning how to cook Myanmar foods, so two different homes were opened to me.  Saturday night I went to my principal's house, where she lives with her mother, her "hermit and spinster" aunt, her brother and his wife and their children.  They taught me how to make Myanmar's national dish: mohingar.  It's pronounced Moe (like the Stooge) Hing (rhymes with Ying, like Ying and Yang) Ga (like the first syllable of gullible).  I've been eating it for years, and now I finally know how to make it.  I also learned how to make a delicious salad out of the vines of a pumpkin plant, a tasty and healthy Shan soup, how to preserve duck eggs, and what to do with them when they're ready.  I doubt any of my American friends would eat them, but I found them fascinating and surprisingly edible.

Preserved duck egg, covered in salt, ash, and lime juice

On Sunday morning, we ate the mohingar that we had made the night before, and then my friend and I went to the market in search of the ingredients for my next culinary adventure.  First, we stopped to visit the friends of my colleague.  On the way, she told me, "my friends are your friends," and I knew she was genuine.  I was welcomed into their home and offered the sweetest coffee I'd ever had.  As I sat there sipping it, watching the LED lights flash around their Buddha shrine and resisting the urge to take a photograph of their 91 year old grandmother who was warming her hands on a small coal stove, I realized I was being offered a glimpse of Burmese culture that very few people get to experience.  In that moment, I was grateful, and I was happy.

I then went to the home of Daw Khin Aye Hlaing for my second cooking lesson.  In the west, we'd call her a minimalist.  In fact, we'd call most people here minimalists.  Her home is very simple.  There is not much furniture, just one wooden chair, two beds, a couple of tables, and some cushions to sit on.  We made chicken, something called Mon Yin Saw, and the most delicious prawns I think I've ever had.  We ate with our hands, and spoke in very simplified English about our lives.  Once again, simplifying the English language had a way of taking the complexities out of things, and breaking them down to the essentials.  At 65, she is single, lives away from her family, and is sometimes lonely.  She said, "People ask me, 'why you no marry?'"  I could certainly relate, so I said, "me too!"  She continued, "I am only one, but I am ok.  Only one is peaceful.  I am peace and quiet.  I read and I study the Buddha.  Only one is peaceful."  And indeed it was.  Her home on the hill was quiet and had a serenity in its simplicity.  She might be considered a spinster, but she has many people in her life who love her and look after her.  So do I.  She has found peace.  So will I.  Yet another reason to be grateful, and happy.

Buying chicken at the market

This weekend I will have Thursday and Friday off, but certainly not because it's Thanksgiving.  Coincidentally, it's the November full moon.  I was really looking forward to having the weekend to spend traveling.  I had an image of doing what I always used to do when I worked at the International School of Myanmar: I was going to take off Wednesday night and go exploring until Sunday.  Well it turns out there's a festival here on Thursday that everyone really wants me to be here for.  Then I have to work for a couple of hours on Saturday.  If I wasn't taking my librarian's advice and trying to be happy, I'd be annoyed.  But I am going to take his advice.  I'm going to embrace this weekend.  I'm going to attend the festival, where I'm sure I'll be treated like a celebrity and fed far too much, which is every bit as alienating and wonderful as it sounds.  I'm going to focus on the wonderful, because if I want to be happy here, I must try.

I'm also going to take his life lesson with me when I go.  From now on, when I want to be happy, I will try.  And when I try to be happy, when I focus on the things I am grateful for, and open my heart to the beauty, lessons, and love the world has to offer, I will be happy.

I'm okay, and that's good.

Transitions are always challenging, for anyone.  The bigger the transition, the bigger the rollercoaster of emotions that go along with it.  And I'm in the middle of a whopper of a transition, so my emotions are all over the place.

Yesterday I went for a run.  It felt amazing to be out on the street with the sun setting just behind the hills.  Then I realized that the poor girl who has been put in charge of keeping tabs on me was running after me in her traditional Burmese clothing and cheap sandals.  So I gave up on the run and came back to my apartment and cried.  I felt so frustrated and lonely and trapped.

When all the students were back in class and I had pulled myself together, I went for another run.  This time I behaved myself and stayed on campus, running back and forth on the football field, and up and down the stairs.  I had a little "Rocky" moment running up the stairs.  I felt resilient and refreshed.

I took my first hot bath in years, and I felt relaxed and content.  And I felt proud that I was able to feel relaxed and content in a place that is so vastly different from home, and everywhere else I've ever known.

This morning I was lying in bed, reveling in the fact that, because it was Saturday, I didn't have to start work until 10:30.  I heard, "teacher?" and went to the door to find the same girl who had chased me down the street.  She was delivering my breakfast, which was nice, but next to the door was the biggest huntsman spider I've ever seen.  Just for the record, I've seen a fair few large spiders in Australia and throughout Southeast Asia, and I'm not one to exaggerate.  It was the size of my hand.  Then all of a sudden it wasn't by my door any more.  I looked everywhere, and finally saw its legs sticking out from behind the towel that was hanging on my wall.  I'm not afraid of spiders, but I don't necessarily want them snuggling up with me either.  While I scrambled to find a glass that would be big enough to trap it in, it scurried (shockingly quickly) out of reach.  At a loss for anything else to do, I sat and drank the coffee that had been delivered, and watched it.  I got the impression that it didn't really want to be here, and I think we were both relieved when it found a space in the ceiling to escape through.

I was a little disconcerted, but it was nothing I wasn't going to be able to shake off pretty quickly and easily.  I got dressed, and went to wash my breakfast dishes.  The tray is too big to wash in my little bathroom sink, and that's my only sink, so I took my dishes to the bathtub, where I found a little scorpion.  Spiders might not bother me too much, but scorpions do.  I'm a Michigan girl, and until this morning I didn't have any experience with scorpions.  Thankfully, it was trapped in the tub, so I had time to put a shoe on and muster up some courage before I stomped the shit out of that thing.

 I don't know what I felt.  I know I was shaking.  I think I felt a funny mixture of freaked-the-fuck-out and numb.  I wasn't about to quit my courageous three month adventure after one week because of a couple of little critters, but after a couple of tough days of adjustment, I wasn't feeling very inspired to stay, either.  My apartment was my sanctuary.  It's not especially cute, but it's mine, and it's the only place where I feel (or felt) comfortable in such a strange land.


Then I went to teach the teachers.  They were incredibly welcoming and happy to work with me.  I felt valued and appreciated, and that helped to ease my anxiety after my crazy morning.

My new friend Julia and the insect repellent

This evening I stopped by the staff room, where they had a bucket of stuff burning in the room.  I asked if it was for bugs, and went on to tell them about my morning.  They seemed quite surprised about the scorpion, which made me feel better.  At least they're not an entirely common sight.  A really nice young teacher named Julia brought the bucket of burning stuff to my room, and we let it burn for awhile.  While it was burning, we got to talking.  Her English is quite good, and she gave me her number and told me I can call her any time.  I think we might be friends.  I felt relieved, and even excited, to have a friend here that I might enjoy spending time with.

Right now, I feel okay.  It's been a rollercoaster couple of days, but right now I feel okay.  There are still remnants of the frustrated, lonely, trapped feelings I had when I wasn't allowed to leave, because I'm not quite allowed to leave yet.  But I'm also still feeling resilient.  I'm still a little uneasy about the critters I encountered this morning, but that's tempered by the professional and personal connections I've made since then.

So, I'm okay.  And for me, right now, considering all the cultural changes I'm adjusting to and creepy crawly things I've encountered, okay is good.

Turning Chaperones to Tour Guides

I went to sleep last night determined to do something about the overwhelming claustrophobic feeling I got when I found out I'm not going to be allowed out on my own until after the elections. I had decided that the school is being overly cautious, and I was going to firmly insist that I at least be able to explore the local neighborhood on foot after school.

Then this morning, over an hour before I needed to be at school (and I live at school, so it doesn't exactly take me long to "get there") I heard a knock at my window and, "Miss Katie! Miss Katie! Miss Katie!"

"Yes! Just a minute!" I scrambled to throw some clothes on. Meanwhile, "Miss Katie! Miss Katie!"

By the time I got to the door I was worried something was wrong. Opening it and seeing the principal of my school didn't exactly ease my anxiety, until she asked, "You go to market?"

I had just been to the market the night before, and I didn't need anything, so I said no. She looked confused. She went on to ask again, explaining that the market is near the train station and some girls from school were going to go, and I could take her motorbike. I shrugged and said, "Ok. Sure."

So we rode through the streets filled with monks and tuk tuks and motorbikes and street dogs.  In the background, the sun was beginning to burn the morning mist off of the Shan hills, and I got to soak it all in because I didn't have my nose in a map.

It turned out the girls didn't need to go to the train station or the market.  I realized when we were on our way back to school that they had gone just to show me around.

This afternoon, my principal asked me what I wanted to do after school.  There's a hill right next to our school with some pagodas and a monastery at the top.  I told her I wanted to climb it.  I felt a bit guilty because I knew she was going to find someone who would have to climb it with me.  Then I felt annoyed about feeling guilty because I would have been more than happy to go by myself.  I would have preferred it, actually.

Instead, I had three chaperones.  They spoke to each other in Burmese the entire time, while I focused on enjoying the scenery and avoiding the mud puddles.  One thing I did not have to focus on was finding my way there.  I just tagged along and took photos.

When we got close to the monastery, I stopped to take some photos of a beautiful old banyan tree.  When I rejoined my chaperones, I realized they were enjoying themselves.  The man who had been leading the way was having a friendly conversation with a monk.  The younger woman was taking photos on her smartphone, and the older woman had her hands clasped in prayer.  We climbed to the top together, and when we got there I said one of the only Burmese words I know, "hladae," and the older woman responded, "yes, very beautiful."  In that moment I realized that I hadn't needed to feel so guilty, and then annoyed, about having them come with me.  I had encouraged them to become tourists in their own town, and they were enjoying themselves.

We took a "shortcut" through the jungle on the way home, which was something I most definitely would not have done on my own.  As I climbed under vines and worried about snakes, I came to appreciate the fact that I was being shown a very local view of my new neighborhood that I would not have experienced otherwise.

So although I lost the debate over my freedom, I've decided I can still win at life in Lashio.  Instead of thinking of the people who accompany me as chaperones, I'm going to think of them as tour guides.  They're going to show me around in ways that only locals can.  I'm going to get to know the city without having to use a map, and hopefully they will enjoy our excursions as much as I do.

I'm going to add this to the long list of times that things have not gone my way when living and traveling overseas.  But, with the right attitude adjustment, sometimes there's an even better way.

Pig intestines and the blonde in the zoo

I've learned a couple interesting life lessons in the past 24 hours.

Turns out that if you smother pig intestines in a sauce made of chili, garlic, coriander, peanuts, mysterious powders, fish sauce and lime juice, they really aren't that bad. The trick is not to chew them too long. I also learned that when you discover this trick you should pace yourself, rather than trying to get rid of all the intestines on your plate, otherwise someone will give you another skewer and you'll have to repeat the whole process.

This is not at all a criticism of Shan food--just the opposite. The intestines were the only questionable thing that was cooked in the most phenomenal  hot pot I've ever had, by far. It was absolutely delicious, as are most of the other Shan foods I've tried so far. I mean, hell, I ate pig intestines and wasn't disgusted. Shan food managed to make offal less awful.

I've also developed a whole lot more empathy for animals at the zoo. This is partially because of the way everyone stares at the entirely different species that they've never seen in real life before. It's also because I can sense that the onlookers are talking about me, but I can't make out what they're saying. Many of the students, and even some of the staff, remind me of patrons at a zoo who are quite comfortable gazing at me from a distance, but then when they finally get up close, they get all nervous and don't know how to behave. Some of the students actually squeal and run away.

Unfortunately, I'm learning to relate to zoo animals in terms of captivity as well.

For those who don't know, Burma has been ruled by a military dictatorship for over 50 years. The country is supposed to be transitioning to a democracy, but it remains to be seen how much, if any, power the military will concede after the upcoming elections. If their behavior prior to the election, including increased  numbers of political prisoners, violent interruptions of peaceful protests, and even genocide, is any indication of their commitment to democracy and all the ideals that go along with it, it should be an interesting election indeed.  No one knows what the future holds for Myanmar, or how the ruling military will act in the run up to, or aftermath of, the elections.. People are nervous. Which, apparently, means that I can't leave my school unaccompanied for the next couple weeks.

I know the management of my school mean well. I know they have my best interests at heart, and will do whatever they can to make me as comfortable as possible. And I appreciate all of that.

The thing is, knowing I can't go for a walk to explore my new neighborhood just makes all the other aspects of being a specimen at the zoo that much more frustrating. I came here to discover a part of Burma that not many other people get to. I didn't sign up for life on a compound. I already feel like one of those animals that paces back and forth along the fence. Sure, they'll let me out, but only on a figurative leash with a chaperone who doesn't really speak English and doesn't understand the cultural idiosyncrasies that fascinate me, the things I want to take photos of, or the silence I crave after a day of talking and listening, but not really being understood, or comprehending.

In comparison to the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been ruined by the military's regime, I hardly have any room to complain. I'm not a malnourished and abused animal in a tiny cage. I'm very well looked after by people who really do want to keep me happy, but I still feel like I need to get out.

Time to go.

A few months ago I agreed to move to Lashio, Myanmar to teach English at a private Burmese school. I'll be their first ever foreign teacher, and I'll be teaching all ages from pre-k through the teachers.

I have to admit, I'm terrified. I'm not sure whether or not I'll be able to make any friends who speak English. I'm not sure whether I'll have hot running water, or reliable internet. Im not sure how I'm going to teach English when I don't really speak any Burmese.

And yet, somehow, I am sure that this is what I'm supposed to be doing at this point in my life. I'm not sure why, but beneath all the nerves and anxiety and uncertainty, there's an underlying calm, a knowledge that this experience is going to turn me into a stronger and more worldly person. Three months with a lot less conversation and connectivity will be three months with a lot more introspection and discovery, and I'm ready. Good thing, too, because I'm in the domestic terminal of the Yangon airport, and it's time to go.