Images from our (Burmese) New year's holiday

Old and new Burmese bills - note the denominations (e.g. 25 Kyats):

Upon arrival at the Island just outside Mawlamyine:

Village life on the island; love the goats.

Sunset over Mawlamyine:

And outside of Hpa-An - this funny little monk was shooting at us with his laser gun.

In the same area, we saw more buddhas than anyone would care to see in one place.

and took a cool boat.

Standard monks in Hpa-An, collecting food:

Climbing up Mount Zwegabin - steep & hot and somewhat picturesque.

Once we reached the top, we were so tired, sweaty, and sticky.. but we couldn't go look for food or water before we took about 30 pictures with the stubborn locals (who then didn't even smile!!)

We then found the best place to have a drink once you climbed up and down a mountain in 40 degrees:

Weekend at the beach

Much delayed.. pictures from our first weekend at a Myanmar beach - Ngwe Saung.

Bamboo bungalows - best served with a hammock.

Oh, the joy.

Locals & coconuts

Sunset walk on the beach..

Surprisingly beautiful shapes in the sand.. never seen anything like this before. 

And for the finalé on the way back - elephanties!!

Learning Burmese

Yesterday Arne & I started Burmese classes. It's only a 4-day course of a total 8 hours, but it should give us at least the basics: reading, some sentence structure, and initial vocabulary.

On the first day, to get us involved, the teacher went one by one, and in my turn asked:
"Liat, what is your favorite Burmese letter?"
I answered, of course, that my favorites were those people-letters.
She looked confused.
"You know, for example, that man, who's holding his stomach with his hands".
I was referring to this guy.

Isn't he cute?

Today, after my second class, I can confirm: this does not symbolize a pregnant woman nor a guy with a stomach ache. Burmese is just written in 3 lines: in this case it's one line for the consonant, and the vowels below and above.

I'm surprised to say that not only does Burmese have beautiful characters, but I have the impression it's easier than Hebrew. Or maybe it's just out great teacher that makes it seem that way.

Our new place

Every day before 7am, our street turns into a market, which disappears around noon.

As seen from our balcony

In the evening, a very successful dinner-place opens; this was taken before the customers showed up.

Colorful, kid-size plastic chairs and table make standard furnishing for street restaurants.

These are some “before” pictures from our apartment:

Happy Arne in the kitchen

Living room and balcony

– five days after moving in, it’s already starting to look like home. Some “after” pictures will come a bit later.

Exaggeration alert:

Today was the most productive day of my life.

To be fair, after suffering from a mild food-poisoning yesterday, I had the extra good feeling of the-day-you-get-outta-bed-and-feel-like-a-billion-dollars. And apparently, the fact that nothing really happened in the past week turned out to be due to it all building up to today.

I woke up just before seven from the marching band downstairs playing jolly Christmas- and “best of marching bands”- tunes.

I finally tried mohinga (noodle soup) for breakfast – it is in fact a breakfast food – and I totally got it. At 11 I had a meeting on the other side of town to kick off that cool work I’ll be doing, writing a proposal for microfinance in Yangon, which was followed by some really interesting conversation, talk of other business opportunities, and a yummy lunch.

At 2pm I finally had that meeting at the chamber of commerce which I’ve been trying to schedule pretty much since the day I got here. It’s been postponed about 5 times (of which 3 only this week). The meeting went really well, I thought, is a good (and first!) result for the consultancy work I’ve been doing and will further connect me into the local network.

Around 3pm I stopped by our new apartment (first night is tonight!) to drop off some stuff and change back from representative clothing into vacation-in-a-hot-country clothing, then go to a cute nearby café in our great new neighbourhood and write the good meeting’s summary to my employer (wifi is free if you buy a mediocre and over-priced drink).

It was time for an update meeting with Arne in the Chinese place on the corner, and over a Myanmar beer and some (steamed? Deep-fried?) delicacies, we discussed our successes of the day and then listed the tasks (=shopping) still to be done. I was assigned buying kitchen gear, cleaning stuff, and a table; Arne boxes, a cooker, and a floor.

Walking around town was as big a pleasure as ever, the best part being (naturally) the food shopping, this time done in a night market.

My conquests: Mini white eggplants (to be eaten raw), tofu, individually wrapped tiny corns, okra beans, peanuts, bok choy.. yumm.
Most of these items were bought from tiny vendors and cost around 100 Kyat each (15 cents).

Maybe it’s hard to understand why I felt it was such a productive day, but it really was, and it really feels great. Tomorrow is Myanmar’s independence day, and potentially – another great day.

# Disclaimer 1: I didn't really have such a productive day on a Saturday. I'm not that much of a go-getter; Just posted it late. 

# Disclaimer 2: pictures of our new beautiful apartment and neighbourhood will be posted soon, very soon.
# Disclaimer 3: It's a shame but intentional that I don't provide more details of my work, due to confidentiality.

Back "home"

This update is way overdue. What happened was, we had a successful visa-run & holiday in Thailand, where we managed to get our Myanmar visa (70 days for me), our dollars in cash (including a year’s rent in advance) and a pretty bad sun-burn. Thailand was quite hectic – everything was harder than expected (if you think getting 5,000 dollars in Bangkok is easy, think again. And if you ever need to do it, ask me how). On top of that, the internet in our beautiful boutique hotel worked poorly (but I just loved our purple room!). So when we got back to a warm welcome in our temporary sub-rented apartment –a dinner of meat balls and potato salad made by our house-mate (YUM!) – I must say Yangon really felt like home.

Love in the sand 

Bangkok has some really beautifully designed stuff
(including our hotel room which this picture doesn't do honor to)

..and also a lot of bizarre stuff.

So I was behind on all my private and professional correspondences.

Professional aspects are looking good. I hope to go for a field trip later this week with the NGO who sponsored my visa, and on other news, I might start doing some actual (external consultancy) work with a great social enterprise founded by an American/Burmese couple we recently befriended. They train Myanmar youth how to start their own business and give them a loan to get it started. I’m normally quite critical about things, but I really just love what these guys are doing (and how). Also, they seem like really cool people.

Christmas was less festive and cozy than previous years (to say the least), but as Arne pointed out it was no worse than my first 26 christmases in this world. How quickly expectations change.

Hard liquor and sweets - my idea of a secret santa gift 

On January first we get the key to our new apartment – 2013 is going to be an interesting year.

3 anecdotes (#1)

1. In Yangon, we’re the funniest thing in the world. We’re funny when we’re sitting in the bus, we’re funny when we’re trying to stop a taxi, we’re funny when we order food. Young locals burst out into hearty laughter from just seeing us. Several times, every day.

Gotta love the selling line.

2. Myanmar rum is cheaper than Myanmar beer (per same bottle size).

3. In Bangkok, the answer you get is “yes”. Yes is the answer for “yes”, “I don’t know” and “no”. 

Personal experience: -"does this bus go to the airport?" -"yes". 

Finding a home

I spent the better part of the past few days in our room, hosting a special friend that came to visit again: food-poisoning. It wasn't really that bad but making no progress on anything for three days felt weird.

Today we finally went out to start apartment hunting. About 2 weeks ago I wrote to one of the recommended real estate agents, saying we're looking for something in the 500$ range. He answered and said that would be a stretch. So when I called today I upped to 600$, but that too was apparently a stretch. He explained that anything even semi-decent will cost at least 1,000, and offered to take us to see such a decent place today at 1pm, just to get a feel of the market. I said ok, but later realized it doesn't make sense: I don't want to see an expensive place. I want to see straight away the right place. I texted to say we won't be coming, and that worked like a charm: he immediately called back and invited us to see a place within our price range, one hour from now.

Looks like we found an apartment!!!

It's so nice! It's right in the middle of downtown and currently serves as a travel agency. It has one big space, high ceilings (with neons and spots), 2 bathrooms and a tiny bedroom. And a beautiful balcony looking out at 34th street..! Painted, airconditioned, hot-water, and if we want it furnished we can pay extra (but it's probably cheaper to just buy).

How very exciting!! We still need to seal the deal (agree, sign, pay deposit) - but it looks easy. If all goes as planned, we'll move in on the second week of January, after we finish our agreed sublet of a room in a shared apartment uptown.

So the apartment market is definitely quite easy. Looks like it could take as little as 1 day from first contact to signing.. Pictures will come as soon as I can take some..

Why this morning was a great morning

1. I had cheese on my toast for breakfast. But (more) seriously -
2. We went to see an apartment where we'd rent a room for 2 weeks, once we come back from our Bangkok visa run. The place looked great - big room with a balcony (!), equipped kitchen, washing machine, and a lovely german room-mate. Sealed the deal and looking forward to some normality.
3. I attended a P&G event. That might need explaining: P&G has recently contributed water purification sachets to Myanmar disaster readiness via World Vision, and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be invited by the kind country director of World Vision Myanmar. The P&G-ness of it all made it feel like home; the demonstration of the sachet cleaning filthy lake water was really something, and I met a lot of really nice people who just wanted to be friendly and help me. I got a bunch of business cards from P&Gers and others.
4. I got a goodie bag with P&G products.
5. I talked with that same country director, who about 2 weeks ago planted a seed of a social enterprise idea in my head (a project he led several years ago in another country). I've been thinking about it ever since and wanted to ask for his opinion of me reapplying it in Myanmar. He was encouraging and enthusiastic.. and so am I.
6. As I walked out of the hotel, on this sunny (and somehow not humid) day, with beautiful grasssy lawns and silence around me, I had that feeling which I thought is only achievable in Geneva, that of, "oh how perfectly delightful life is!".
7. After a pleasant taxi-ride home, I got myself a delicious plate of Rice-Sleh from the nice lady downstairs. It's the second delicacy she served me this week, and I feel it's bringing us closer. Today she asked which country I'm from and showed me her daughter. I felt a bit bad paying so little for her yummy food, but I promised to be back.

So much work to be done!

Bit by bit - finding work (update)

So how is the work-seeking project going? I know, it looks like I've been trying to avoid the topic, distracting with pictures of rivers and pagodas. But actually, it's been going quite well. Nothing is moving fast, nothing is a sealed-deal, nothing is clear, but still, there's progress. After 2 weeks in Myanmar, and thanks to a really nice Australian guy I got to know here, yesterday I met with a local organization who's doing great work across the country, working with local communities and organizations to improve livelihoods; improving agricultural practices, encouraging small businesses, driving informal education and training, and everything else that's good. I hope to start working (voluntarily) with them very soon, on defining a very interesting (and broad!) 5-year project proposal, which should then be sponsored by a UN agency. At the same time, I'm getting a small income from some private-sector work I'm doing (we can call it "consulting"). Having some interesting work, a small income, and increasing contacts, I'd say I'm better off than I expected to be at this point.

Sunday afternoon in the park

After a few days of staying mostly in our room due to a sickness in the family (probably caused by food), we decided to take the afternoon off and visit Bogyoke park / Kandawgyi lake. Very green and full of hidden young couples, it was beautiful.

Loving welcome to the park

The overall feel of the park

The beautiful.. erm.. Arne says it's a "buffet restaurant". Better look it up.

Wedding photography; I learned yesterday that Myanmar weddings take 2 hours. First, the couple signs something, then they feed each other. Then there is a dinner where the couple goes between the tables and thanks the guests for coming. End of wedding.

Many many in-love couples in the park..






















(including us)

An adorable pineapple-shaped plant-thingie. How did we not think of that?

The always-majestic Shwedagon pagoda

Yellow flowers floating on the water

Beautiful wooden bridges all over..

Bye Parkie! Until the next time!
You were very nice (even though you ripped us off at the entrance for being foreigners).