Lost walking stick

Dear all,
    
I was going to leave Myanmar December 27^th,  but after making arrangements I felt so reluctant to leave the children, as well as wanting to spend time at a school in Mandalay, and feeling so unready to be in such another world as Berkeley the day after the next (not to mention finding myself in Bangkok that afternoon), that I ended up at the last minute changing my flight—also because at that point it looked dubious that I was going to be able to get to the airport in Mandalay in time for my connecting flight.

The next morning I woke with massive, major second thoughts, but I couldn’t do anything that night because there was no way to get into town, and Richard, the other volunteer who was just back from being away a month in Bangkok, thought the internet office was closed on Sundays anyway. Moreover, there’s a 22-hour time difference, phone calls are dicey, and everything in Myanmar is just slow and complex.  I ended up sitting on some steps with Aung and Richard that night, the three of us sharing a conversation, and it was fun and I felt better about having stayed.

Monday morning I walked into town with Richard (the walk was challenging: the truck and motorcycle noise and exhaust was very draining; I guess we happened on the morning rush hour; and after stopping for mohinga and noodle soup, we found a motorcycle to carry us the last stretch into town),  and though I spent all morning at the internet café and on their phone to Bangkok (calls wouldn’t connect) and to Tapei (calls did connect, but kept dropping), had no luck changing my flight back; though I actually found one flight online that said it had two spaces left, the Tapei EVA airlines office said the Tapei-SF segment was full.  Basically without an expensive upgrade of hundreds of dollars, I can’t get a flight until the Jan 21 date that I now had booked. 

in the Sagaing marketplace

Anyway, by that evening walking up the lane in the dark to buy a banana from one of the little window-sized shops in little shacks, snacks and sundry items hanging from above, I again felt at peace about my choice. 

People are so incredibly generous.  Knowing I might be leaving, a couple teachers whom I barely knew gave me beautiful gifts of a jade mobile, and a jade necklace and bracelets. Wyne and Aung, whom I'd been helping with the scholarship essay, gave me the gift of a lovely longyi.  And, waiting me at the foot of the office steps the morning I was to have left, a little student whose name I later learned was Thar Nyi Bywa and another little student gave me a small notebook and pen; and a couple other young students during the day presented me with little packaged snacks.  They were very happy when Aung told them that I would be there longer. 

Thar Nyi Bywa

Later in the week

During the walk into town the other morning with Richard, he noticed that across from the gas stand that had been put up across the street a few days ago, the people on this side of the road had now installed a gas stand also.  (Previously, the old gas stations, as elsewhere, consisted of a stand with plastic water bottles filled with oil that are poured through a funnel into the motorcycle or car gas tank.)  Progress moves in….   There are also more and more regular big gas stations here and there. As well as ATMs everywhere now.

Other mixed progress is seeing the collecting of previously pervasive plastic litter from the roads and

litter along road in Mandalay

paths—and later seeing the mountains of plastic dumped on roadside empty lots. Yesterday I watched from my window as a man who had swept the courtyard debris into a wastebasket proceeded across the road to dump it in the ditch alongside the road opposite me.  

Myanmar Academy Awards

And there is some positive progress, too. The Myanmar Academy Awards was held the other night, and watched some of it at a teashop with Aung Khaing Soe on the way into the internet café to send the necessary emails regarding my return date change:  it is the first year where it is not government-controlled, and it is the people who decide who gets the academy awards.

watching the teachers play Burmese traditional game

This week all the schools celebrate sports events for the week, so in the end my informal afternoon class has been somewhat touch and go. Yesterday some of the novices gathered around, and passersby would join us, while other novices on the edge of the platform were standing, watching a soccer competition. Once the young novices said they were going to be in a running race at a certain time, and asked me to watch, which I showed up to do but it didn't seem to happen, or if it did, it was at another time or place.

teachers playing Burmese traditional game

 
While the sports were going on today, my little group of students and I moved to another platform under the trees.  First we made a play of the African legend of Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky, which they seemed to understand pretty well, with sun, moon, water and house characters.  

Thar Nyi Bywa explaining story to older novices

Today I had a group of older, 10^th grade, novices who could speak English a little easier in their parts, and little Thar Nyi Bywa, who would still sometimes repeat my “You say” along with the dialogue I’m telling him to say. The older novices were able to help clarify to him, laughing.

re-play of Aladdin

Afterwards we made a play of Aladdin again.  Little Thar Nyi Bywa would often step in in the role of a director, since he knew the story already by now and had enacted it once, prompting me when I was assigning—“princess?” “genie?”—and often stepping in to show another boy how he should be playing his character in that moment of the play. 


At other times of the day, though—in the early morning night hours—beginning to be homesick and ready to leave. Puck's fairy dust has begun to fade away. Three weeks seems so long.


And have lost my beautiful walking stick.  The other night instead of climbing the steps to put it against the office cabinet where I'd been keeping it, I placed it out of the way by the outside wall. In the morning when I looked for it, it was gone.  And though I searched everywhere where it seemed someone might throw a stick, it was gone.


 Happy new year to you all,

Zoe