Appreciating now

Change is kind of difficult.

If I calculate it out, in the last ten years, I have lived in 21 bedrooms "long-term" (tells you how long-term anywhere has been), with over 50 different roommate/housemates. Right now, I have been living in the one-room apartment that I currently live in for four months now, and I have actually no roommates (quite an unusual arrangement actually for me). The little bungalow, which I last called home, was the longest I had called anywhere home since I was sixteen, and I stayed there for just barely over a year. As you can imagine, I found it difficult to leave that house.

With this sort of nomadic life, I think I have earned the right to state that change is difficult. Yet, I will add that I would not give up one of these experiences. I certainly hope and pray, by learning to live with so many different types of people, I am a hair's breadth readier for what my dad calls "the ultimate roommate" (that is, marriage). Moreover, I have learned from people and cultures all over the world, and who I am today is layered deeply into these many experiences. I have loved the life I have been fortunate enough to live, and I am simultaneously extraordinarily grateful that I will soon now have someone with whom to share all of life's future transitions.

Yet, despite this gratitude for life's many phases... I must admit, I am struggling with change again. In just over two weeks, I am moving to a new city to start a new job with new students, living in a new house, relying predominantly on a new language (that is Thai, instead of Shan), driving a new car on a new side of the road, and a little over a month after the move will begin my new life as a married woman. It's a lot to take in.

And being who I am, as soon as I know a change is on the horizon, it's my instinct to focus on that, rather than where I am.

So in honor of all this change, I want to take some time to appreciate all that has been (and is) in this rather short phase in which I have found myself in Chiang Mai. Here's my incomplete list of appreciation for my Chiang Mai time:

1. I have fallen in love with a wonderful man, who will soon be my husband.
2. I have been privileged to join hands with Partners and Shan Youth Power as we began the new migrant resource center, which is today Seed (This is a video of Seed, and if you look, you'll even see me teaching in this video!).
3. I have come to know the most wonderful Shan staff at Seed, who have been at times my students and at times my teachers, but always dear friends on whom I have often relied (and enjoyed their cooking).
4. I have had the chance to get to know the other Partners staff that I did not have the opportunity to get to know so well while working in the village on top of the mountain.
5. I have developed dear and lasting friends, who had no connection to Seed, Partners, or any other work related activity.
6. I have had a comfortable bed, a hot shower, a spacious bathroom, and air conditioning for quite some time now.
7. I have had the most amazing students ever (for proof, check out this past post).
8. I have enjoyed exploring Chiang Mai, whether through slow meals at the vegetarian restaurant at Wat Suan Dok or through walking around the Shan parts of town.
9. I have had the pleasure of walking/bicycling through the flower market everyday on the way to work.
10. I have been refreshed by the daily sight of the Doi Sutthep (a mountain).

Where are you all? Where are you headed? What are you grateful for right now? I'd love to hear from you.

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.

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/