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.
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.
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