Letter from Burma

[ltnt]

Sounds like a great experience to me. I cannot figure out the need to do short wave radio, but any excuse will do. I thought at one point you were going to open another tourist trap across the water from Raynong? This seems like a far better plan. Do you actually have a "work visa,"?

[Thetyim]

one point you were going to open another tourist trap across the water from Raynong?

IIRC he wants the radio license for the new establishment

[Bettyboo]

I'm with theGent, I reckon Simon is working for the CIA...

[Simon43]

I would love to build a small hotel opposite Ranong (at Kawthaung), but current foreign investment rules in Burma require me to put down $300k, which is a reasonable amount, but more than I currently have.

I did start to do my 'ham' radio from Kawthaung earlier this year whilst I was doing voluntary work in the town, (I got a radio licence from the local military commander). But without a salary for my work, I could not get a work visa and I had little money to support myself.

So that's why I sought out and obtained paid employment in Yangon. Now I have more than enough money to support myself, and my wife and ex have the incomes from their hotels. But my move to Yangon meant that I had to re-apply for the radio licence and that's what I'm doing right now.

As you say, why bother with ham radio when you can send an email?? It's a techie sort of hobby really, rather old-fashioned in this modern age of Twitter and Facebook....

Simon

[Simon43]

A couple of 'street-life' photos that I took today:



Because of the lack of potable water in Yangon, shops often provide free water to passers-by. I took this photo in the Indian area of China Town.



Most Burmese still do not own mobile phones, so it's a very common sight to see land-line phones which can be used by passers-by for a small fee. These are cordless phones, linked to the landline of the shop behind.

For international calls, it's best to use Skype or VOIP from an internet cafe, but sometimes the call quality is terrible. I was pleasantly surprised today because I was able to make a video call via Skype to my wife in Phuket. The sound and video quality was up and down, but meaningful conversation was still OK

Simon

[Simon43]

BTW - I mentioned the money transfer service between Burma and Thailand, which I used a few days ago to send 10,000 baht to the missus.

Exactly as described by the money agent in Yangon, my wife's Thai bank account was credited with 10,000 baht the very next day. Excellent service and I'll use them again at the end of this month to send over some money.

I think that even when it's possible to do a money transfer via the banks, this unofficial transfer system will still be very popular because it is much cheaper than using a bank funds transfer service

[porkhunt]

Great reading and pics simon,how's the food other than the chicken and chips.

[Marmite the Dog]

Excellent tales - thanks for making the effort to write them. I tried to send a green, but I cannae.

[Dillinger]

Great thread Simon, a lot of which is truly worrying. A lot of funny stuff in there too. Be Safe and Keep it Coming. Good Luck

[Simon43]

how's the food other than the chicken and chips

Good question, and I'll see if I can take some piccies of typical Burmese cuisine.
Fresh fruit and vegetables are no problem in my locality. As can be seen from previous photos. there are plenty of local street markets, offering a huge selection of fruit such as bananas, pineapples, applies, jack-fruit, durian, papaya etc etc.

But Burmese cooked food seems very bland, nothing like Thai cuisine. I tend to eat from street restaurants, (no food poisoning yet!). The typical fare is rice or noodles with pork, chicken or beef. It doesn't excite my taste buds at all.

In the tourist areas there is a good choice of restaurants which offer western foods at western prices...

I tend to stick to my 'beer diet', (which has worked for me for years). Fresh fruit, fresh natural yoghurt - all washed down with a nice cold beer

Simon

[ltnt]

I think that even when it's possible to do a money transfer via the banks, this unofficial transfer system will still be very popular because it is much cheaper than using a bank funds transfer service

Simon, there must be a "black money," exchange there? You may have already found it? The conversion of foreign currencies could be quite lucrative? It used to be very good here in Thailand, but now its almost even up.

[Simon43]

Today being Friday, is the worst day of my week. It is the day when I have to teach twenty 4-year old kids for 3 hours.

I cannot imagine a worse form of torture, (for me, not them). Imagine at my stately age of 53 years jumping up and down like Zebedee the spider as I play Simple Simon Says - made even more difficult because at this tender age the kids have very limited English language skills. When I shout 'Touch your nose', the kids all look to their Burmese classroom assistant for a translation, which rather kills the spontanity of the game.

The kids are not the only person looking at the classroom assistant. My roving eyes watch these two young women as they follow my every move, no doubt amazed at the agility of this old foreigner as he prances around the room like some demented idiot.

I must be careful to make sure my Simon Says does not match my thoughts about these women...

'Simon Says.... touch your breasts!! - Oh hang on that's not quite right is it??'

I'm reliably informed that all other sane teachers refused to work with this class because it is (apparently) too degrading. Well I have no pride and the kids (and Burmese assistants) love it as well. I realise that many (all?) women have a soft spot for a guy who is good with kids. I've had plenty of practice (4 kids of my own and the dozens of 'hanger-on' family kids from my ex and her clan)

Now all I have to do is to offer private language lessons to these assistants at my condo and I'm sorted...

[ltnt]

Now all I have to do is to offer private language lessons to these assistants at my condo and I'm sorted...

You sure they're not government "Minders," watching you? CIA suspect and all...

[Simon43]

You sure they're not government "Minders," watching you? CIA suspect and all

Quite possible - and I'm perfectly willing to submit to all manner of interrogation techniques that they might impose on me....

[Simon43]

One rather sobering aspect of working in Myanmar is that you start to understand how much the 'world' has passed the country by.

One of my classes is for adults who hope to go and study or work overseas, typically in Singapore or Australia. Their command of spoken and written English is good, but their knowledge of topical subjects that we might take for granted is seriously lacking.

We chatted about banks and banking. As I've mentioned before, there is as yet, no international banking system in Myanmar, but there are local banks.

I asked how many students in my class, (typically aged between 18-30 years), had a bank account. Not one of them had a bank account!

'So where do you keep your money?' I asked. 'At home, we hide it' was a typical reply, or 'we carry all of it with us all the time'.

Since there are about 850 kyat to $1, you can imagine how large the wads of money are ...

My students explained that they don't trust banks, and Burmese banks did not offer any service that they wanted.

'ATM cards? - what are those?'. (ATM machines have started to appear in Yangon for use with local banks, and my students had seen these machines, but had no idea what they were for.

'PIN codes?' 'Nah, what are those?'.

'Online banking?' 'Huh??'

Whilst they all knew about the internet and FaceBook, their (justifiable) ignorance of banking and finance basics indicates that the country has a long way to go on it's redevelopment path.

[Chairman Mao]

^ Sounds good tbh.

[Simon43]

My lack of Burmese language skills is proving to be an obstacle in my efforts to make friends with the locals. I had a meal this evening at the Cattle Club and paid for a few Xmas tinsels for the showgirls. I was happy to buy them a drink, but my mind was on work for the next day.

These girls were about an 8, but the only English word that they possessed between them was 'OK', (which is also used in Burmese language anyway). 'What's your name?' produced blank looks. 'How old are you?' gave the same response. 'Do you take it up the jackse?' was no better.....

So I decided to forgo carnal pleasures for the night, because I could imagine sitting with a Burmese dictionary on my bed trying to locate the Burmese words for 'huge' , 'flacid' and 'premature'.

Anyway, the total bill tonight for 1 big beer, 1 french fries, 2 chicken wings, 2 expensive xmas tinsels and 2 lady drinks was under 750 baht.....

Simon

[ENT]

^ 55555

Excellent stories Simon, really good.

I'd love another adventure in Burma, I did one up through Tachilek a couple of years ago on a visa run, but decided to stay a week or so longer. Bloody great fun.

You've got me scheming again.

[Simon43]

I promised some more photos, so here we go.

BTW, to give you some idea of the effort required to post on TD, it took 7 minutes to fully load and display just one web-page of this thread.... the internet can be slow!

Today being Monday, I had arranged to teach for the first time at the monastery school in Dala Township, which is located just across the river from south Yangon, but which is very isolated and rural, since there is no connecting bridge.

I walked about 20 minutes from my condo to the passenger ferry terminal, and boarded the rusty old ferry for the short trip across the river.

Many people use this ferry to travel to and from Dala Township, especially to go to work in Yangon, or to bring produce to sell in the street markets. On board the ferry I bought a snack for just 3.5 baht, which consisted of a large bread bun, spread with butter, then sprinkled with sugar and condensed milk.

When the ferry arrived in Dala, I slowly walked the 2km to the monastery where I was teaching. This is not my paid teaching job, but an unpaid role that I had offered to do on my day off. Why? Because although I had never been totally sh*t poor, my financial situation over the past couple of decades had swung from $ millionaire down to almost sh*t poor, then back up to very well off, then down to bugger all again, then up, then down, then up etc etc etc. I appreciated how a little money or a little help from another person can make a huge difference when you really do have totally bugger all... Call it Karma, stupidity, whatever you like

In Dala Township, there is no government school, so the local monastery is used as a base for a primary school, which offers basic Burmese language education from about 5-10 years. After that age, the children receive no more schooling, because there is nothing available. (I met some of the older kids on the ferry who were 12 years old and selling cigarettes and chewing gum. Their knowledge of English was quite good - from chatting with tourists - and their work is really the best option in the circumstances.

My 2km walk to the monastery was taken slowly. Bear in mind that it was pissing down with rain (monsoon season), very very humid, the road was unpaved and flooded, and I was wearing smart trousers, shirt and tie. (It would not be acceptable for a respected profession such as a teacher to go to work in jeans etc). I had to resort to taking off my shoes and socks and rolling up my trousers!

Finally I reached the monastery, where a sign explains the purpose of the primary school.





The classrooms themselves have concrete floors and open windows. There is no fan.... there was a blackboard and a whiteboard (the adjoining rooms only had black boards). In the corner was a clay jar with drinking water. There were no chairs - the kids squat on the floor. Apart from the kids' exercise books, there were no teachers' books, no libray books, no reading or maths books, no wall posters - absolutely nothing.




I met a couple of the kids outside, waiting for the class to begin. The kids were able to say 'hello' in English, but even the older girl - about 11 years old - didn't know any other English words. Like ,ost of the kids and women in this community, they all wore Tanakha on their faces. Tanakha is a yellowish paste made from a tree bark which is applied to the face as both a sunscreen and as decoration. Many of the girls sport Tanakha 'Mickey Mouse' noses



These particular kids were too poor to afford the school uniform of white shirt and green shorts or skirt.

So finally I got to teach! I had agreed to teach for about 2.5 hours every Monday. This was my first day, and whilst I had visited the school the previous week to get a feel for everything, this was my first chance to see what I could do as a volunteer teacher.

Since I was the first ever foreign teacher that the school had had, the Burmese teachers ushered the complete school population into the room where I was. There were maybe 100 kids all squashed into that room, sitting on the floor and ranging in age from 5 to about 10 years old.

I mentioned a few posts back about the challenge of teaching 4 year old kids in my paid work. How do you think it was trying to teach 100 kids of different ages, all squashed into one room, with no fan, the rain coming through the open windows...?

I can only say that I was gobsmacked by the eagerness of these kids to learn some English. I had brought a few educational posters with me, (alphabet, animal flash cards etc), and so I worked through these, encouraging the kids to say and spell out the English letters and words. These kids hung onto my every word, chanting out the spelling of everything that I said and wrote. (I was almost hoarse from having to speak loudly so that all the kids could here me). The younger kids did their best to understand, but I will have to provide different levels of teaching for these younger ones, so that they get some value out of the class.

The noisy scene was made even more crazy when I spotted 2 very large American tourists just outside the classroom - brought there by a tour guide to see 'the poor kids', and snapping away with their telephoto lens cameras and videoing my performance.. (so watch out on You Tube for 'The Adventures of Teacher Simon').



Anyway, a great time was had by all, despite the shitty weather and the rotting dog that lay only metres from the classroom. I'm back to my paid teaching tomorrow, but I will definitely be back in Dala next week to do my little bit to help these great kids

Simon

[Mid]

awesome stuff Simon ,

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.

[BaitongBoy]

Wonderful thread, Simon...they are very lucky to have you...and you, them...

[robbo]

great stuff, enjoying this heaps, keep it up Simon please

[Simon43]

.. and rains fall soft upon your fields.

Wrong there, it was absolutely pissing down with rain in my face

[ltnt]

Excellent decision to serve the kids in the orphanage. Couldn't pay you for that I think. Something you contributed to their day and their lives. Next step? Building plans? Outpost S.W.? I bet those kids would love using the S.W. with you? It'd be like a giant step into the 50's. 1850's that is.

Be careful and be sure to do a parasite flush every now and then.

[Simon43]

@Itnt, sorry for being somewhat 'thick', but what is an Outpost S.W. ?

I have some long-term plans in Myanmar, but not actually at this monastery/orphanage. I first need to get my radio ham licence sorted out, (and that is progressing well - my Burmese friends have spoken with the government department who have agreed to issue me with an import licence for my radio gear - then after they give it a quick once-over, they will then give me my ham licence, (and then arrest me....)

Simon