"Where are they now?" - From our alumni newsletter

I was asked to write for the "where are they now?" section of our IOMBA alumni newsletter.

Here is what came out..

Quick update on an inspiring development

The most amazing thing happened this week. At least I found it amazing, so here it is.
On Monday I finally had the meeting at the Israeli embassy, which I thought would lead to an immediate start of my working there, but it turned out that due to a complex paper trail, I would only be able to start in April.

This made me quite confused: what am I supposed to do for three whole weeks now? I was really counting on starting working, and now I had about 25 really long, really empty days to fill.

The next day the insight came to me: I'll post on the Yangon expat google group that I'm looking for something to do, and see what comes up.

This was my ad:

The responses were amazing! I got about 15 of them, including:

- Building a website for a catholic HIV organization in Myanmar
- Helping with a school production of Animal Farm - the musical
- Teaching 6th grade
- T.A for kindergarten
- Reading someone's novel which he just completed and wants a second opinion on
- Helping to organize various charity events
- Helping to write articles for the local yellow pages
- Writing reports on water and microfinance

.. and the list goes on. In return, I was offered anything from "coffee, friendship and gratitude" (my favorite) to "an honorarium" (Also not too bad).

It's maybe not that surprising since I offered my time for free, but still - I was somehow inspired by the whole collaborative spirit of the thing.

I love it when weird ideas just work!

And now the coming two weeks - which I was so disappointed and confused about - have turned into a great opportunity to try something new! (Guess which option(s) I chose..)

Now off we are for a weekend at the beach! *sigh*, things are really going my way recently :)

Our new home

My breakfast table

Our water / decorative string holder

Our lounge at night-time

The sink I* built

*Arne acted as senior advisor.

Our trip to Shan state (in pictures)

We've been back for a week and I just found a moment to post some pictures. Things have been hectic. Also, I've taken on a job.. but more on that, later.

Beautiful Pwin Oo Lwin - I wish we had more time there..

Beautiful waterfalls outside Pwin Oo Lwin.

Yellow bamboo growing in that same waterfall area

National Kandawggy gardens - a really beautiful park by any standard

Train-ride to Hsipaw

We actually ate those noodles from her head - YUM.

Standard Myanmar landscape..

Men and women were manually building the road to Namhsan.. this kid was playing around nearby.

Hike from Namhsan to Hsipaw

Playing rock-paper-scissors

Up to 8 hours a day hiking up and down mountains.. sleeping on (wooden) floors.. great (and exhausting) experience!

Day trip

Earlier this week, we took a trip out of town: we crossed the river with the huge ferry which mostly serves commuters who live in the countryside and work in Yangon. It was our first time on the other side.

The day started on the ferry, where I was trying to practice my Burmese reading. Needless to say, I didn’t understand the sign.

On the other side these small, beautiful boats were parked

And after the boats, were the taxis.. car-taxis, motorcycle-taxis, trishaw-taxis. We were immediately bombarded with “hello, where do you go?”, “hello, taxi?”, “hello, where are you from?”. Since everyone is so friendly, you feel bad just ignoring them so you always try to somehow respond (though to me it’s still a mystery how to respond to “where do you go”). We ran away from them (though we in fact needed a taxi), and went for a Myanmar-tea at a surprisingly chilled-out teahouse. We also had a delicious sufgania (Berliner) which was filled with a sweet bean paste.

We started wandering through the village; amazing how rural it gets just 5 minutes away from Yangon. We saw some really beautiful houses; anything from bamboo shacks to colonial houses.

And we got to see goats cuddling.

After wandering a bit around, getting lost, taking a tri-shaw and then a 40-minute packed and bumpy pick-up ride, we finally arrived at Twante (which I still can’t say in a way locals understand). The lonely planet wasn’t too psyched about it but still recommended it as THE day trip from Yangon, with the main highlight a visit to the local pottery. You will notice there are no pictures of pottery in this post (and not because we didn’t go there).

We started with lunch and a visit to the market; I was delighted to find this interesting combination of stamped tofus.

Saw some colorful veggies in the market..

On the way to the pottery place, we saw this lady.. normally I don’t photograph locals without their permission, but this time I just couldn’t help it.

note the use of cabbage as a pillow.

So, that’s it. Preparing to leave this mechukmak but cute town, I took a picture with its famous clock-tower. Earlier today, following a “where do you go?” we decided to use it to our benefit: we knew the clock tower was the major landmark in town, and asked for directions to it. Needless to say, they had no idea what we were talking about or what a clock-tower is. Makes you wonder.

 After a return ride which started with 30 minutes waiting for the mini-bus to fill up to 150% occupancy, and then a bumpy 40 minute ride, we reached the ferry back, which unloaded all the commuters coming home from work. And we got a beautiful sunset with seagulls from the top deck.. you can feed them and they flight right up to you.

Conclusion: tourism in Myanmar is difficult, hot, buggy, but still somehow rewarding.

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.