The news I don't know

Right now I'm still in "jungle" mode. This trip in to Chiang Mai, I just haven't really gotten my mind around being in Chiang Mai. Maybe it's largely due to the fact that I've been staying with others with whom I generally see and associate with the jungle. Maybe it's just because I've crossed some critical threshold of time in the village. I'm not sure the cause.

But this time I've not checked BBC News once, even though it's my web browser's home page. I tried to read the headlines once, but my lack of background knowledge simply overwhelmed. Somebody told me there was a terrible shooting in a movie theater in Colorado while I was in the jungle. I'm really, really sorry to hear that. I assume it's probably old news for you, though. Neither have I watched an episode of Glee or The Office. Or surfed Facebook for updates on people I care about. Or even barely checked my e-mail. Or really remembered the full potential of Skype.

And that's actually all a problem, because I'm not in Chiang Mai often enough to waste the few precious opportunities for internet connectivity.

Sooo... needless to say, this blog entry will not be stocked full of helpful links to recent news articles or discuss these major events that we are supposed to all share in our human psyche. According to popular opinion, that makes this a pitiful blog. I suppose there are pitfalls to trying to write a blog while living in the jungle. You just really know way more about what's going on than I do.

But I can talk about life in the jungle. I do not know what Aung San Suu Kyi's most recent words were, which is something I miss, but I know it's the rainy season and that tomorrow begins the Buddhist Lent. I know that when I take a shower, my hair may take 24 hours to dry, and I can forget about having really dry clothes. I know that plants are the most vibrant shade of green right now, and my valley has simply sprung to life from the dry grave of the dry season. I know that it's not banana season right now, though every Farang seems confused that we are not eating bananas. I'm not sure why. I know that papaya trees are beginning to put out their new produce, which will be ready in a few months, passion fruit vines are in their growing phase, and many pineapples are ready to pick. I also know that the leaves of the sweet potato vine growing wild in the crevice behind my house are really tasty on ramen (mama) noodles, and my mint and lemongrass make my "teacher's throat" feel a tiny bit happier. I also know where to go to look for wood to build an arbor for my passion fruit vine (though admittedly I need my brother for success on such occasions), and I know how to collect morning glory leaves for soup.

I also know the other stuff. The stuff that's common in a community that's suffered trauma. And people coming out of communities destroyed by drugs.

And though I am not able to follow the news from my home and perhaps you might idealize the beautiful parts of my world (and that's fine, they are idyllic), I'm sending out a plea to all of you to follow the news for me and to keep hoping and praying. And asking good questions. Don't accept too quickly. Be cautious. Because we need people who care about this part of the world and who want to see the hope of full lives.

Tantalizing dreams of the future

Tomorrow I head back up the mountain to my Shan community after nearly a month in Chiang Mai. I had not planned on staying this long, but getting a work permit delayed me and caused a longer stay here. I cannot even say how much I have missed it and how much I long to return.

Which is odd, perhaps. The rainy season has begun, and everything will be cold and wet. Perhaps nothing will dry. Perhaps my underwear will grow mold like last year. Certainly my feet and ankles will be perpetually covered in mud, and sometimes I will have total wipe-outs on this slippery substance that will leave my entire body a red-brown color and force me to do laundry earlier than I planned, because I still cannot figure how it is that even five-year-olds in Shan State seem to walk in the mud effortlessly and cleanly. I feel like a total buffoon in the mud.

But this community is a part of me now, and all my hopes and longings ride with the people of this community. That's what all my more political postings lately have been about--that deep, deep longing for peace and stability.

Yet there's more to it than a longing for a peace deal and stability and autonomous rule and human rights, etc... What about education? I don't just dream of children being allowed to speak their own language in school (that would fall in the category of "rights"), but I dream of fourth graders reading on a fourth grade level. I dream of Shan State meeting the regional standards of education, maybe one day exceeding. I don't just long for women and children to no no longer fear that fathers will be taken away and forced to be porters (again a human right), but I long for women and children not having to fear that their babies will die due to poor nutrition and preventable disease. I long for systems to form in which to help families who have no water source during the dry season. I long for enough economic development that opium isn't the only way for a farmer to feed his family.

What am I saying? Yesterday I had a conversation with a woman responsible for a lot of the communications from Partners to rest of the world, and we discussed how frustrating it is when everyone thinks things are okay now. First off, the conflict isn't over, and human rights are not really being fully honored.... BUT it is reasonable to be excited by all the positive moves that have occurred in Burma. OF COURSE we should write about those and expect others to be as excited as we are. YET that's not the end of the story. We're talking about a country that's been devastated by over six decades of war... and before that was their independence war and WWII... and before that was colonization, which wasn't exactly the best rule either...

You don't rebuild overnight.

So I'm asking that you continue to remember Burma. Remember the Shan people, whom I talk a lot about, but also the Karen, Kachin, Chin, Lahu, Lisu, Mon, Rohingya, Rakhine, Burmese, etc. Remember all 135 ethnic groups of Burma. Hold us in your thoughts and prayers, because so many hopes and dreams are pinned on being able to finally approach the many development challenges.

And if you are in a position to be able to help financially right now, I encourage you to do so. The work is really just beginning.

But that's not the point. Remember Burma. Talk about Burma. Don't let us slip out of your daily conversation please, because that's what I fear. If Burma "democratizes," people will forget us. So, please, keep talking and reading and asking questions.

The Burmese Military apologizes.

Today, while sifting through the news on Irrawaddy and the SHAN Herald, I saw one that struck me. Recently in a staff meeting at Partners, one person lamented the destruction of the new peace agreement already.

You see, on May 19, the Shan State Army and the Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC - the representatives of the Burmese government) came to what I would have called impossible nine months ago: an agreement, not merely to stop fighting as they had decided in December (with many skirmishes anyway), but to begin working toward a new future (see: The 12 Point Agreement). Everyone cheered, and there was a sense of breathless excitement (and also fear that it would all turn out to be a sham, because I think nobody ever loses that fear) among those of us working in Shan State, while waiting to see what the follow through would look like.

Four days later, the follow-through appeared to be more fighting.

And so this staff member lamented that the peace deal lasted a mere three days. That it was over.

Hearing those words really pained me deeply, and I went back to my room that night and remember feeling strongly that we, especially outsiders and guests, could not be the first to give up. If no official media was announcing that the peace agreement had already fallen apart, we had to be those that held it up in the greatest hope. I believe, we must be the last to despair and the first to hope, no matter how audacious, because truly no good can come without hope. That was Monday.

Today, Wednesday, I discovered the unthinkable: an apology  from the Burmese Army and a decree that went out to all its troops to cease hostilities toward the SSA. An apology!

Please be as excited as I am about this historic event. It's not perfect, but it's enough to keep hope alive. Nobody is ready to give up on the push for peace in the region, therefore I will not despair.

Maybe, just maybe, the time is coming when we can stand beside our Shan sisters and brothers in every way possible in the enormous efforts of rebuilding communities after decades of war. There's so much work ahead, but I wait expectantly for the day when we will be allowed to begin this work.

It's a failed system, not an isolated event.

First of all, thank you, everyone, for how much attention you have given Tsam Hurng over the last couple days. I did not imagine that response. Thankfully, I have also been sent several sources of numbers, so I can correct my statement about the under-five mortality rate.

Thankfully the numbers I had previously read were based on much older figures, and all the work of clinics on the border regions does appear to be making a difference, though the numbers are still quite horrible. The current mortality rate for children under the age of five in Eastern Burma is 138 for every 1,000 births. Taken this way, a child born in Eastern Burma (technically this is not limited to only the border regions, but the study focused largely on the border regions) has close to a 14% likelihood of not making it to his/her fifth birthday. These numbers are from "Diagnosis Critical: Health and Human Rights in Burma" ( http://maetaoclinic.org/publications/health-and-human-rights, click on "Diagnosis Critical" to review the document), who used many of WHO's finding and some original research.

As a point of comparison, babies born in the rest of Burma have only 66 deaths before the age of five to ever 1,000 births, meaning about 6.6% This number should still horrify you, as Thailand has only 14/1,000 (1.4%), and the USA has 8/1,000 (0.8%), and Norway has 3/1,000 (0.3%) (see http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT).

If you're not a numbers sort of person, I realize this post may not be the most compelling post ever. However, the point is, Tsam Hurng died because of a failing system, not in an isolated event. Poor maternal nutrition weakened him before he was ever born. His mother says that all her babies used to be born healthy, but since she had to flee her village (due to the war), she has never had quite enough food or the right food.

Moreover, the medics and doctors at our clinic have to tell mothers on a regular basis that there is absolutely nothing that can be done for the child who was born blind. Usually the cause was a virus, like measles, that the mother caught while pregnant, a virus that probably every one of my readers was vaccinated against as a baby. When a mother comes in with a blind child, I feel very grateful for my role as teacher, not doctor, because the job of telling this mother, who thought the clinic was the final bit of hope for her child, that nothing can be done is terrible. There's no school for the blind here. A blind child most likely has a very difficult future ahead of him/her. We need vaccines, but a quality vaccination program is difficult, complicated, and expensive. There are plans, but it's baby steps at a time.

So, please, choose to see these kinds of stories in their context. We're working in a land that will take decades to recover from the war that has ravaged it for decades, if that war finally ends. So please look at Partners' website (http://www.partnersworld.org/). Maybe you can get involved.

When child mortality rates take on flesh and skin...

Back in November, those of us staying in the village experienced what felt like a miracle. On vaccination day, a mother with an eight day old baby showed up at the clinic. The baby weighed only 1.2 kg and looked like a skeleton. The mother reported he had been born tiny (possibly a few weeks premature but not much) and was refusing milk. Thankfully, at that time, a Norwegian midwife was with us, and while the rest of us could at best make recommendations (a doctor present even nervously considered the pros and cons of putting a feeding tube into this small baby), Liv provided concrete help to the mother, working with her on how to extract her milk and put it into the very weak baby, who simply was not strong enough to latch onto the breasts.

Two weeks later, the baby was still alive. Still small, still weak, but alive and struggling to live. The mom appeared tired, but she did nothing else in the day but attend to this child, and the baby lived.

Then the baby made it to the one month mark, which is important in Shan culture, because he received a name: Tsam Hurng. He was a live, and he had put on another 100 grams, and he weighed 1.6 kg, still far too small, but he was making it.

Then in February, I went to visit the mom and baby again and was amazed by what I saw: a healthy, thriving little boy with an extraordinarily devoted mother. I sent these photos to Liv, the Norwegian midwife, and felt so proud to have witnessed something so good and extraordinary happen. I thanked God.

Then yesterday I received a phone call from my Shan brother (I'm in Chiang Mai right now, waiting on a work permit). Tsam Hurng had caught chickenpox and died.

Everyone had worked so hard to watch this child live and grow to be a man. His mother had devoted herself to him, and he had seemingly come out of the woods and was okay.

But he died. From chickenpox.

I feel angry at the injustice. Children living on the Thai-Burma border have terrible mortality rates. Unfortunately, I cannot find an online source for the actual mortality rate, but I've seen in print anywhere between 1/3 and 2/5 children die before their fifth birth.

As I share the joy with many Shan friends of mine who are about to have babies or just had theirs, I feel the shadow of the mortality rates. I suspect they're a little better in the village where I live, because we do have a clinic with a mother-baby department that works tirelessly to combat many common causes of death in children. Still, Tsam Hurng reminds me of how far from perfect the situation is.

Please pray for and remember Tsam Hurng's family, and do not forget Burma. Do not think for one moment the struggle for the ethnic regions is over. Some things are improving, but the work is just beginning. And some places, like Kachin State, still wait to see any improvement from the government changes.

America, please reign in the optimism...

A gold rush of massive proportions for all the natural resources and business opportunities will likely begin... now. I want economic development for this country, more than words can say, and I wish I could simply rejoice at the news of new opportunities. Reality and history, however, tell me that business in Burma has often been born on the shoulders of ethnic slave labor and horrific oppression. Today I grieve the decision of my country.

President Obama, why did you lift the ban so quickly and with so few restrictions? Did you not hear the thousands of people who have been abused, displaced, tortured, and even murdered thus far in the name of economic development?

http://uscampaignforburma.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/dangerous-optimism/

Burma is changing

I increasingly find it difficult to write here. Oftentimes I cannot tell every interesting story I encounter, as I would like to, because they involve real people who have real stakes in the world. I'd like to tell you about the guy I know who has gone to Yangon in hopes of applying for a passport so that he can study, but that will have to suffice. I'd like to tell you about the girls I know, who are trying to decide when the right time to return their villages is and how best to use their medical skills. I want to tell you the stories that these one-liners encompass, but all I can give you are on the one-liners... which is nothing. But they do show something: people are thinking about going home. People are gaining rights.

And then there's the generalities. It used to be so much easier to talk about the facts of life in Burma, but now... no fact remains steadfast. Everything is changing so rapidly. Two words describe the situation better than anything else I know: hope and fear. And I suppose I can only write on the juxtapose position of these two ideas in the day to day reality so many times, before you know what I'm wanting to say even before I put it on paper. We wait, and we pray.

Please do not misunderstand me. Life in Burma in the ethnic areas is yet to be "good." BUT life in Burma is changing. There's a real (albeit still small) NLD presence in parliament, who will create a very public opposition to the old military rule. Outsiders are being very hesitantly invited in to do NGO work. The ceasefires are not instantaneously disintegrating, though they're not necessarily being followed quite ideally either. And people are beginning to talk about what they would do if... if they have freedom, if a real democracy rises out of these murky waters, if they can go home.

My own hopes and dreams are changing... because Burma is changing. I have this new dream of putting my Shan language skills to use in its own homeland.

Sometimes a few of the more skeptical people around me remind to keep a reign on my optimism. I don't know if I'm honestly optimistic or merely hopeful. I hope. I don't know if I believe yet, but I hope. And that's what keeps the possibility of a better reality alive. It's the only thing worth writing about that I have said for the last five months, and I don't intend to stop: I hope.

Creating a Village

I am already back in Chiang Mai, a strange occurrence considering that just over a week ago I was here. However, this time I am here to pick up my parents from the airport in a couple hours, an unmistakably exciting reason to be here.

However, my relationship to Chiang Mai is also changing. I used to feel in every visit like an outsider, a confused visitor, a fraud who knew just enough Thai to survive but whose mind was ever switching to Shan. But yesterday and today has reminded me that it does not take spending huge swaths of time in a place to turn a city into a village. The villa I always stay at greeted me happily with lots of questions when I arrived. The man that fixed my friend's computer smiled cheerfully in recognition when I came to him with a computer that would not connect to the internet. The Shan housekeeper at the villa and her younger siblings went to dinner with me after work (as soon as they heard I was going to dinner at 8pm, though they had already eaten, they declared I was not allowed to go alone, grabbed my hand, and took me out the door). This morning the breakfast restaurant owner asked me if I knew anyone looking for work that I could send her way (she knows I know many Shan people who might be looking), and the Shan cook that works with her held my hand as she asked about my parents coming. Finally, I find myself in the same coffee shop that always plays Norah Jones and Eva Cassidy music. As I walked in, the lady that owns the shop asked me in Thai, "You want a latte as usual, right?"

I've gotten in the habit of explaining to people that there's something special about village life that I cannot imagine giving up right now, and that certainly remains true. But I am also coming to an awareness that a person can choose to live as if in a village anywhere really. There may be many, many choices for food in Chiang Mai, but by becoming a regular, I am creating the same sense of closeness and space in Chiang Mai as I have in my village. I am connecting on a human level. I am learning names. I am smiling and following up to the tidbits of story I've learned the last time. While here in Chiang Mai, I do always still miss the real village (I say this while the background noise of construction machinery threatens to blast my eardrums), but perhaps, more importantly, a more transferable mindset has developed in recent months. My home may change several more times in my lifetime. Politics may force that eventually. But I am committed to the human connections that living in a Shan village has taught me.

Whispering to a migrant worker

A couple hours ago, I went to Chiang Mai University's dental hospital to get my teeth examined, and I was given the bad news: I have my first ever cavity. Actually, though I had made it 25 years thus far without that diagnosis, apparently a rice-dominant diet has turned my pretty teeth into a hotbed of six new cavities.

While that was mildly disturbing, the good news was they could get back to me the same day to fill them. That has meant I've had an odd number of hours in which I do not want to go too far, because I will be coming back to get my teeth filled, but I also do not have a whole lot left to do on this part of town (besides either sit at my guest house eating mango, as I am doing now, or sit in a cafe). So I decided to explore a little market I had only brushed past previously to fill up some time, hoping I might find some tea, a pillowcase, or a bath mat, the three things I'm currently looking for.

I'll try to go by again tomorrow or the day after and take some pictures of this market. It's really quite small compared to most similar markets, but it holds all of what I love best in a market. The stalls crowded close together. The smells. The snacks. The colors. The spices. Everything. And then random bath-related products in the back. That appears to almost always be the case in every market.

As I was looking for a bath mat, I decided to go check out some of the random bath-related stalls. To my surprise, one of them also had an array of yarn, so I decided to ask if they had crochet hooks, something several girls at the clinic had requested. Unfortunately, at about this point, my Thai began to fall apart, and all I had left was the random assortment of words in Shan that I knew I could use to ask my questions. Of course, Thai and Shan, while overlapping 30%, are rather like English and Dutch... similar, yes, but that doesn't mean speaking one means understanding the other.

But the girl helping me understood me... I saw it in her eyes. I knew I had used the wrong words, but she pointed me immediately in the right direction. I tried to speak again in Thai, but once again failing, a mishmash of Thai and Shan tumbled out of my mouth, and I felt a gentle arm suddenly pulling me further into the shop as she put her finger to her lips.

Finally her own words came out in slow, deliberate Shan for me, so that I would understand, "Older Sister, why are you speaking Shan?"

"I don't know Thai," I answered. "But you know Shan too then!"

Again, she hushed me with her finger to her lips, and added, "Older Sister, there are two of us who are Shan here, but be quiet. There are Thais walking around. Nobody knows."

I looked at her and comprehended for the first time what it really means to not have papers. No ID. To not exist in the eyes of the world.

We went on to chat some more, and she asked me why I knew Shan and was quite happy to learn that I lived in a Shan border town she knew quite well and had even lived in. She craved any knowledge I could give her about her Shan community, but my own linguistic abilities only allowed the most basic of knowledge. We whispered a little longer in a corner of the store, then after verifying where I could get what I was looking for, I left.

And I reflected.

Earlier today my usual "breakfast shop" gave me some extra soup for "being Shan." In fact, they never call me the Farang anymore, only "Miss Shan" (Sao Thai Yayy), a name actually given by the very kind Thai owner and repeated by the Shan workers.

Because I believe in the power of language, I have not yet figured out what it means that when I come to Chiang Mai, the language I speak is the language of the lowest tier in Thai society. The undocumented workers. Individuals who have left their homes for a combination of both economic and political reasons. Individuals who feel no other options left. And find the struggles of life in Chiang Mai to be their only chance at survival.

And I find myself whispering in corners of little bath product stalls, while a young girl calls me older sister and asks me for the news.

The real news is that this young girl is just one of 1.44 million unregistered migrants in Thailand. See: http://www.un.or.th/documents/TMR-2011.pdf

If

I've been thinking a great deal lately about what it means to live well in the midst of stark uncertainty. Right now, my entire community and world exists between two radically different possibilities. IF there is real peace. IF the fighting returns more intensely than even before. It seems one of these two will happen. It seems there's no in between.

IF there's peace, we can move on a vaccination program and start talking about what education in Shan State might look like one day. We can discuss development and consider sustainable agriculture. We can even use buzz words like micro loans and agriculture co-ops.

IF there's fighting, we'll need every available blood donor. And aide. Delivering food. And love for every traumatized victim. And we will face still further daily uncertainty.

I know, I'm using the word "we," because I live in a community that faces this existence. And this future is, in part, my future. But I won't ever go to the front lines to defend my village. And I'll be allowed to leave whenever I decide all the uncertainty is just too much. And I will get away regularly to reconnect with others, skype my family, who are all safe and sound, and drink iced coffees in cafes while writing blog entries with soft jazz music in the background.

When I think about all of this, the longing for peace, which I find myself repeatedly writing about in every letter, becomes almost overwhelming. The second "IF" emotionally overwhelms me for all my friends. Though 90% of the time, every friend and loved one surrounding me is Shan, it is I in the end who can escape the pain, and I find I cannot stand that reality. I want my community, my friends, those I love to have the same ability as I... but I have a passport, and that changes everything.

So, please, pray as all of us as we live between this shaky reality of what could be and what might be. We live with the dreams and fears entangled together. The hope of one day returning home for those I love is beyond words. But the other IF... All I ask is that you pray. That you remained concerned with our little corner of the world. That you read the news about Burma. That you write any and every politician you find when campaigns are run for the sake of Burma. For we live in uncertainty, and the answer to all of our questions about what might be lies in the hands of a few government and military figures... and I'm naive enough to believe that maybe the rest of the world will influence their decisions. So pray. And act. And read. And talk.

And check out Partners: http://www.partnersworld.org

Or the Campaign for Burma: http://uscampaignforburma.org/

Waiting for peace

A  few days ago, a thirteen year old girl at the school lost her entire family to the SPDC. Her parents were shot, and her four year old little brother was kidnapped.

Meanwhile, we have a ceasefire... even a peace deal. And all that people really want is to go home.

We wait. We hope. We pray.

And this thirteen year old and her parents' friends mourn.

The Narrator Voice

While occasionally people thank me for writing, the truth is that writing exists mostly as a compulsion for me. I think in terms of writing. I call it my "narrator voice." I reflect and think and dream in this narrator voice that is always communicating... perhaps merely to myself, but I feel the tug of my fingers toward the keyboard when the narrator voice is at its loudest or most passionate. I rather think it reflects an incredibly narcissistic side of myself, a side that actually believes others care or might benefit from hearing these reflections. Yet, I cannot turn off the narrator voice, and I feel compelled to put it on paper. Mind you, I do not always share the writings that result from this inner voice, but I have to write. And when this narrator voice is at its most prolific, even the small minority that gets shared with others adds up to a sizable amount.

Yet there are these other strange times, in which that voice suddenly turns off. In these times, suddenly as I walk through life, my thoughts make only silence. They do not string themselves together into words and paragraphs in my mind. To write is to struggle, and what I write frustrates me, for it is not coming from that place deep within where the narrator voice resides. It feels forced and for someone else, not out of my own desires or passion.

I tell you all of this, because I have not been writing for several weeks. I have not written any group e-mails. I've hardly written any individual e-mails. And I have not written any blog posts.

I apologize. To those of you who are so faithful to read all that I have to say, I am providing absolutely no further knowledge about life in the Shan village I love so much, and I am sorry for that. Moreover there's absolutely no reason for my silence. There's no bad news or good news that has overwhelmed me and thus silenced me. There's been no sickness or other strangeness. There's only been so very much of the ordinary beauty that I usually revel in and which inspires pages upon pages of contemplation on an ordinary day.

But my inner voice has become oddly quiet, as it will occasionally. Without it, I don't know how to stream words into sentences. Without that voice, my thoughts can only burrow deep, deep within me.

Perhaps I am coming out of it, as the ability to write this post may hint at. Still, if this is all I find myself able to write for now, I only hope you understand. I am trying. I want to tell you lots. I only need time to pull my voice back out of the folds of its hiding place. I simply do not wish to write you merely an "update" of life, factual without any heart. So please be patient and wait.  In telling you even this, I am waking up my narrator voice again, and I will speak. The words will come. I want you to know about the place I care so much about. And I want to talk about all my hopes and fears and dreams when it comes to potential of peace in Burma. I want to tell you all these thoughts, but these thoughts do not exist in words yet. So know that I will write again soon. For now, all my love goes out to all of you who have been faithfully reading my words.

Shifting Roles

      Lately I've been thinking a lot about roles and titles. I live in a society, where often instead of using the “you” pronoun, people will call you only by your role to them. Most often for me, I'm called “teacher” in either English or Shan, and nobody ever says the Shan word for “you” to me, and that's okay. Generally, I call everyone “you,” because I haven't gotten as used to using a title or role for a pronoun.  
     Yet something has recently been changing inside of me. Suddenly I've found the word “nong” (little sister) slipping out of my mouth when talking to a few of the girls with whom I used to live. And suddenly one has called me “pii” (older sister), and a medic, who's older than me, has called me “nong,” and I've called him “pii.” I am more than just “khuu” (teacher), and for the first time, I realized that's what I've been waiting and longing for. I've waited for someone to not call me “you” really, but to claim me as one of them in a sense, as a “pii-nong” (sibling).  
     Most will continue to insist upon calling me “khuu” out of respect, and that's fine, but every time I hear someone call me “pii” or “nong,” I cannot contain the smile on my face. I am more than just a teacher.