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:

At a conference

Today was a water and sewage conference at a fancy hotel.  One week after starting my job, I was sent to represent the Israeli embassy. It was interesting..not only content-wise.

- I was the only non-Asian in a room of 100 people.
- I was the only under 45 in that same room.
- When it was time to take a group photo, they called to the stage only the "distinguished guests". I was pretty sure I wasn't one, so I stayed seated.
- It quickly turned out I was in fact a distinguished guest. For the coffee break, I was sent into the private VIP room where coffee was served to tables, with a side dish of a shrimp dimsum, a spring roll, and a mini sandwich. Awkward coffee break; awkward conversation, weird selection of food for 9am.
- I discovered really interesting things, like the average household in Yangon only gets 8 hours of running water a day (we get 24), and that only 5% have access to the sewage system (that's us).
- Lunch in the VIP table consisted of a 9-course chinese meal which we inhaled in about 40 minutes.
- I normally consider myself pretty comfortable with chopsticks, but not for these nine courses, and not when I'm sitting with ten older, suited, Japanese people. So I couldn't REALLY eat all the courses.
- They finally provided a fork on the ninth course.
- When I reviewed the menu retroactively to check out all the different animals I just ate, it turned out the thing that was my favorite by far was in fact a marinated jellyfish.

Tomorrow - back to the office!

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!!

"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!