Where thro' gleams that untravelled world: Joy is...a new camera and the end of a long year

I'm not actually tanned (at all), but the super vivid feature on the new camera tells another story!

Less than one week left in Sangkhlaburi, and so passes another year of “getting experience.” I recently carried home my hefty illegally-copied book, Mon Nationalism and Civil War in Burma. I had been looking for it for ages, but it’s not an easy title to find in a bookstore…which I’m sure you find shocking. Naturally, I found the book just now, when it can only serve to reinforce hindsight. But that seems to be how it always goes, the big picture comes into focus at the end. And as it always goes, I find myself unable to sum the experience succinctly, and I wonder if I’ve really accomplished what I set out to do. My Dad used to always tell me “you never finish, you just run out of time.” This would probably be the most direct explanation of the year, at least in terms of professional/original objectives. As I write this, I am neglecting a proposal (and a proposal budget) that I’m helping develop. All year I’ve wanted to write this proposal, but there’s been push-back and inertia. Now, with three days to go, they’re gung ho. Such is life, I suppose.

As a friend of mine put it a few months back, despite reading the blog he wasn’t really sure what I did day-to-day in Sangkhlaburi. I certainly didn’t put much in the blog to suggest I did anything other than visit new places. And some of that was quite intentional. As you are aware, the situation here is sensitive, and some believe increasingly so…despite the “elections.” I didn’t want to write anything that could put people into vulnerable positions, however remote the possibility of that happening. But, at the same time, I'm sorry to say that I simply neglected you, dear readers. I haven't even told you half of the interesting and ridiculous things that happen here. I never did credit to the experience of Sangkhlaburi, how different it can be from day-to-day life I've lived anywhere else. I never finished the post I started to tell you about "professionalism" here, or the post about Buddhism, or the post about my trip to KL, or breakfast in Cambodia, or this...and that... The number of vignettes and mini-analyses that I've had ready to share but never quite completed is countless. I'm sorry for this--maybe sometime I'll have a burst of blogging, or I'll suddenly realize some burning revelation that ties it all together and compels me to my computer to share. Sometimes I couldn't write because I was busy, but oftentimes I couldn't write because I wasn't in love with the place, and had a hard time trying to balance my perspective and write thoughtful posts, not rants.

But, nevertheless, now that we're here and I am writing, I can tell you more about my job. Based on my job description I am providing “capacity building” and “health systems strengthening.” Not that that helps you (or me) to understand my role any better. The way I see it, I am a trainer and consultant. My training topics have included, among others: English; Excel, Word and PowerPoint; e-mail; typing; data collection; Skype; vaccination cold chains; medical supply chains; hepatitis B; menstruation; inventory design; nutrition; and proposal writing. I have consulted on topics such as: report writing, budgeting, approaching donors, writing proposals, understanding Sangkhlaburi organizations, promoting community ownership of health programming; data analysis, and traveling to Cambodia on a fake Burmese passport. Most of my colleagues are ethnic Mon from Burma, some are Thai Mon, some are Thai, some are Karen, and some are farang like me. I have become the de facto sex ed. teacher for the area, because once one group knows you can say the word “penis” with a straight face then everyone comes knocking. I find great joy watching in teenagers laugh wildly while doing slippery condom demonstrations on market cucumbers…and it makes going to the market a lot more amusing when you’re seeking out particularly phallic representations in the vegetable kingdom.

Am I the most qualified person for all of these jobs? Probably not, but what is absolutely amazing about this place is there’s an expectation that you’ll learn what you need on the job. Furthermore, there is so much need for so many basic skills that offering what I had was still offering enough. On this border, with so many stateless people looking for an in, or an out, they don’t put a premium on your paper credentials or your paygrade.

Sometimes this year in my primary partner organization, the health department where I worked most of the time, I felt I was scrubbing the floorboards of a sinking ship. No matter what I trained or consulted about, nearly every day was one step forward and two (or three) steps back. We would check the medical supplies and prepare the distribution lists, but then the lists wouldn’t be distributed with the medical supplies. Or we would begin analyzing our data, only to realize that many staff didn’t know how to make percentages. We would talk about the importance of improving donor relations, only to have staff waking up late—and arriving late—to donor meetings. Despite pleading, cajoling, coercing, threatening, and patiently explaining time and again, the medical supplies are running low and they have done little to reach out to much-needed new sources. There is a potential that they could develop artemisinin-resistant malaria if they don’t watch out—and we’re not playing games when it comes to drug-resistant malaria that has the potential to impact the whole world. For the bad days, my comforting analogy was the idea of a treadmill: I may not be going anywhere but I’m getting some good exercise and career experience. Sometimes, however, that treadmill felt like the perfect polite euphemism for samsara, Buddhism’s endless cycle through death and rebirth, prolonging suffering lifetime after lifetime. Work offered a lot of interesting analogies to Buddhist philosophy, as I’m sure most things do upon close inspection.

A lot of people say development aid doesn’t work, and you should get out of the way and let the professionals manage it. I’ve wondered at points if they weren’t right. It certainly would be better to know, with certainty, that sufficient malaria drugs will always get to the clinics, where sufficiently trained medics will always dispense them according to strict protocols. That I won’t deny and will actually agree with, considering how much is hanging in the balance. Yet, I do still think that all “professionals” start somewhere. I mean, that’s why I’m here, right? “Getting experience?” Isn’t that the same thing that these fledgling community-based organizations (CBOs) are doing as well? And aren’t they actually doing it with some advantages on the INGOs, given their community access (particularly cross-border in this case) and with their linguistic and cultural skills? Don’t they deserve a chance to serve their own communities before being brushed off by the big boys? All of these questions ultimately answer my own queries about the efficacy of my job or the reasons I am here. I am trying to help bridge the gap between the CBOs and the INGOs, and trying to help improve the quality of the staff and staff output at CBOs. Whether or not I have succeeded is a mixed bag. I think that pretty much sums up aid work anyway, a big mixed bag of small victories and frustrating failures.

Yet, after a year here I can fire off acronyms of local organizations as if they were the alphabet: MRDC, MYPO, CoF, TBBC, MNHC, WCRP, HURFOM. I can actually tell you what each of those collections of letters means and what it does. I know what to do when someone tells me “a jo!” and I know how to answer when someone says “shi taw-ya-hah?” or “shi kaw ma-haa?” I can say useful things like ‘snail,’ and ‘elephant egg’ and ‘dirty’ in Mon. These places mean something to me: Panang Bain, Halochanee, Balec Dun Paik, Bee Ree, Jao Dong. I make edible, nay, pretty tasty bamboo and green mango curries (the MSG helps). I know what I should wear on Mondays, and what happened to Hongsawatoi. I have a grandmother, sisters, and 3 cats in this town.

Success? Mixed. Experience? Owned.

I’ve invested a lot of energy and effort into my work here, but despite some dissatisfactions, I know that I’m receiving experience fourfold for the effort.

And, as for Mon Nationalism and Civil War in Burma, it’s a real shame that it isn’t on the shelf in more

bookstores. The Mon have a toweringly impressive historical record. Their legacy includes many of the most unique flavors of Southeast Asia’s cultural heritage, including the introduction of Therevada Buddhism, the Thai legal system, ruins of impressive Mon kingdoms, the Shwedagon Pagoda, and the beautiful Mon script (the foundation for today’s Burmese and Karen scripts). Their Sangha, or ‘monkhood,’ is highly prestigious and patronized. They were one of the first literate societies in Southeast Asia, who had arrived and written in SE Asia well before the Thai or Burmese ever arrived. And when the Thai and Burmese arrived, they found most of the land between Burma and Cambodia to be controlled by Mon and Khmer kings with expansive empires. Today, it is considered very distinguished to be of Mon descent, and even the current King of Thailand had Mon forebears. But one of the greatest challenges that today’s Mon face is just that: their history overshadows their present—to the degree that quite a few people do not know that the Mon still “exist.” Many (or even most) Burmese and Thai don’t realize that the Mon people still maintain a separate identity, they assume they have long been assimilated into the larger national cultures. But one of the reasons it’s easy to assume this is because the Mon were so fundamental in shaping key characteristics of those larger national cultures, whether or not they are still recognized for those contributions today. To a degree, the Mon remind me of the Maya in Mexico—people are shocked when they learn that the Maya still live and some still speak Mayan. It didn’t die out with the pyramids all those centuries ago. How ironic that the Maya and the Mon influenced so much of the present through their past achievements, and now they are nearly forgotten and candidates for development aid.

Working with the Mon has been fascinating and complicated, mentally and emotionally. It's hard to know exactly what will happen in their struggle for autonomy. Their main political representation, the New Mon State Party, really only has direct influence over a population of about 20,000 maximum just across the border from here (and they exert far less control now that they are considered "illegal" under the new "elected" Burmese government). The other 980,000-1,480,000 Mon live elsewhere. Many of these Mon identify as "Mon," but fewer of them speak the Mon language. Some very interesting analyses, and current circumstances, suggest that the power of all of Burma's ethnic minority parties has waned to the extent that they will never significantly change the course of politics again. Many people view the NMSP, KNU, KIO, and others as holdouts of the Cold War, represented by old men clinging tenaciously to their former pieces of power. They are certainly being skipped over as the Burmese government makes more and more deals with Thailand and China, leveraging its rich natural resources to sustain its political power. One Mon friend of mine believes that Burma will essentially exist as a province of China within 10 years, technically independent but existing as a colonial state of sorts providing energy and gas to China (and ignoring the needs of their own people). When I asked what India and Thailand would do in response to this--since, after all, they want a piece of the pie, too--he said that the Thai elite are all Chinese, and they won't mind if China's in control (and it is true that most people in power in Thailand, including the Shinawatras, are of Chinese descent). He says that India may try to get the US involved to attempt Burmese regime change (and less China-friendly policies). I don't know about all of this, but it was an interesting analysis...

For most Mon people, especially young people, the only real and current opportunities for advancement exist in Yangon, Mandalay, or Moulmein; or in Thailand, Malaysia, or Singapore. I imagine, by necessity, most will find themselves assimilating to the larger Burmese or Thai societies. Meanwhile, in the local holdout organizations like the health and education departments of these political groups, people continue to put priority on identity politics. Just the other day the new coordinator in my partner health office was printing out draft flag patterns for the UNFC, United Nationalities Federal Council, a consortium of Burma's most significant ethnic armed minority parties. Two Tibetan resistance representatives, supposedly sent by the Dalai Lama, were giving a workshop on constitution-writing to the NMSP's Thailand office a few weeks ago. The movements, and the Mon language, are far from dead in places like Sangkhlaburi, but their influence beyond the border is questionable. A recent and very provocative report by an experienced Burma analyst (and long-time cross-border aid worker), Ashley South, suggests that supporting the cross-border work of these ethnic groups just prolongs the suffering, as even well-intentioned supplies like medicines and money can easily go to support armed fighters and not the general vulnerable population. In any case, there's no easy solution. These conflicts do represent the longest ongoing civil wars in the world, after all. The way I see my personal contribution is just that, personal and person-to-person. I don't imagine I can do much on my own to influence the outcome of anything, but if I can help increase opportunities or knowledge for a few people, that's satisfactory.

Truth be told, sometimes I still wake up and wonder what the hell I’m doing in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand. I think the feeling of ‘fitting in’ happened less here than anywhere else I’ve lived yet. Though I’m parting in peace with Sangkhlaburi, I think several factors conspired against really connecting with the town in the way I’ve connected with previous homes. To begin with, I never anticipated calling Thailand, Burma, or Monland “home,” so coming here I wasn’t prepared for any of what I found by previous study, unlike the Middle East or Mexico. I remain thwarted in my attempts to improve my Thai beyond painfully-conducted small talk, and Thai wasn’t all that useful in my office anyway, given that no one else (save one) spoke Thai either. My Mon and Burmese don’t really extend past pleasantries (and strange words like “potato”). In a border town as diverse as Sangkhlaburi, it’s hard to know just what I’m identifying with anyway—Mon? Thai? Burmese? Furthermore, it’s so remote from any other sizable city that escape was rarely an option—4 windy-roaded hours from Sangkhlaburi to Kanchanaburi is pretty different than 30 Caribbean-blue minutes from Isla Mujeres to Cancun. Finally, being in a long-distance relationship has meant that most of the year there’s always been a part of me that wishes I was somewhere else.

So...how will it feel to get on the bus Thursday morning and make the long ride to Bangkok one more time? Relieving and anxiety-inducing at the same time, no doubt. In one way, I’ve been ready to leave for a long time, but in another way I see all the people that I’m leaving behind, and all I could still do and still be a part of, meaning some guilt may tinge my getaway. My guilt is assuaged by the fact that I’m not leaving Thailand, nor Burma, in the immediate future. In fact, if anything I’m only increasing my experience and my ability to help the larger cause. On Sept. 2 I will fly to Rangoon, Burma—or Yangon, Myanmar—to spend one month teaching English (inshallah I’ll get my visa later this week). For me, more important than the English teaching, I’ll be able to see the other side of the Thai-Burma border equation. I can sit in chatty Burmese teashops, the hubs of Burmese social life, munching on tea leaf salad and samosas. I can find a guesthouse with a good generator, since the power goes out every night (even in Burma’s biggest city). I can hopefully make it to Kyaiktiyo, one of the most sacred sites in Mon State, to marvel at the golden boulder perched precariously (and miraculously) on the side of a mountaintop. I can practice those Burmese numbers, which I memorized months ago but have had little use for since. And I can whip out my beautiful new camera, an early birthday present from Nezar, to capture it all for a future blog post.

While in Burma I will not be updating the blog, and I will be finding as many ways as possible to “make myself scarce” electronically. When I come back, I’ll be moving to Mae Hong Son, and my MSc Public Health will start in October. Hopefully, if I ever beat this procrastination streak, I’ll be updating you on Burma then. In the meantime, my new camera and me have been roving around Sangkhlaburi. You may notice a slight obsession with the ‘tiltshift,’ aka miniature-maker, feature. It’s SO awesome! I hope you’ll enjoy some new photos and some of my Sangkhla faves. I've also included some (anonymous) photos of my brave colleagues at the health department, taking their work to the field. These photos, taken by them, show the kind of work we support back in the office. Thanks readers for sticking out a sparse blogging year, and sharing some experiences from another place and another year with me!

To Sangkhlaburi and the Sangkhlaburians, thanks for shaping my future and sharing a year with me, it has been a real honor. Dangoon ra-aow!! Che blon, a kaw kaw!

Houseboat on the move in miniature. The lake looks SO much more like a lake now that we've had a proper rainy season. Gorgeous.

The boat dock at P Guesthouse, my favorite hideaway for lake-watching, and a good place for sunbathing in the dry season.

I'm a total geek for color filters--I think they make any photo look professional.

Sunday swim-time.

Whoohoo!!

Sunday stroll-time


Sunday flirt-time

The spidery shadows of the spindly wooden bridge during dry season.

Dry season from a houseboat

At Wat Wangwiwekaram on the Mon Side, home of the beloved and revered monk, Abbot Ven. Uttama, who passed away in 2006. He founded "Wangka," or "Mon Side" after fleeing Burma with about 60 families. A wax likeness of Uttama is seated in the gold chair on the right.

One of the Buddhas at Chedi Buddhakhaya, the big pyramidal chedi most people just call the "Mon temple."

In front of the Mon temple; the purpose is to stand a coin on its side. I assume it's to bring luck, but it looks like there wasn't much luck this day.

The Sangkhlaburi we see today is only a few years older than me. The first Sangkhla was flooded in 1984 when they built a huge reservoir about 70 km SE of here. This formed the lake and partially flooded the former Mon temple. Now when the lake is at lower levels you can take a longtail boat to visit.

The fun of Picnik, Picasa's online editing software. On our way out to the sunken temple.

A Mon musical and dance performance. I can't lie: I think Mon music is a bit agonizing. It is atonal and almost always blasted with every volume control on max. There doesn't seem to be a set rhythm, just clashing and banging of wood and metal instruments at the same time. Mon dance, however, is quite beautiful. It is like other traditional SE Asian dances, the movements are constrained and the hands are the most expressive part of the body.

If this photo of our new office kitten doesn't make you melt into a puddle, then something's happened to your soul.


Best breakfast: "nambia," a kind of chickpea-like thing on flatbread, Burmese samosas, and Burmese donuts. Topped off with a tea layered with sweetened condensed milk. You have to be there by 8 at the latest to enjoy this treat (and to catch the Thai national anthem, which plays promptly at 8 am every single day).

I love Thai menus

This is actually a literal translation of both. "Waterfall pig" is a style of cooking pork, and "shrimp is startled" means shrimp in a spicy sauce. If only it meant a pig taking Niagara Falls in a barrel, and a shrimp saying "Oh!" with raised eyebrows...