Coming home today I felt so frustrated and so helpless I just wanted to scream. To kick and yell, but really just take a hot bath and then snuggle up and watch a movie. I’m so cold and damp that when I got home I put on my only hoodie, even though it’s still wet from being washed yesterday. It poured all afternoon, although I wouldn’t be upset by getting ‘drinched’ if I didn’t have to sit soaking wet in an air-conditioned car afterwards. The driver who usually drives the health team around always cranks the AC, despite Aung Kyi and I visibly shivering in the back. There have been so many ughs in terms of comfort here, but I’ve been able to roll with all of them (I gave myself a few pep talks before I came) except this one.
He kept the car running for the 3+ hours we were at the learning center (Aung Kyi giving check ups, Aut Ho teaching about health, and me acting as an urchin climbing post for about 30 ‘kinder garden’ers). He sat in the truck and ran the AC and radio the entire time. That to me is actually a worse offense than keeping the car running when you’re waxing your kid’s skis (though I have had many a bone to pick there as well). Why? Well at least the rich BMW prep school parent was spending his own money. Blowing fuel on an underfunded NGO’s budget? Un-freakin-acceptable. I see the attitude that invokes this behavior in a number of workers here and it absolutely breaks my heart. Our driver also drives like a maniac, even when there are 15 kids loaded in the back of the pickup truck. Aung Kyi’s and my own hesitance to ask him to turn off the AC is rooted in a fear of his silent, dominating personality. It reminds me of Sandra telling me that some male FED employees harassed one of the female employees over a dispute, eventually forcing her to leave the organization. This environment of male domination is still way too common in Burmese and Thai culture, and also leads to a subsequent resentment of Western women who are not submissive.
This topic is not what I will get into right now, although some of my thoughts on it recently have asked: where does this behavior come from? What fuels it, Fear? Of what, Power? Over whom? And… how do you change it?
Well, like so much else, my answer is education. You only change things like this with time and knowledge. That is also my answer for how to improve the situation of Burmese migrants in the Phang-Nga province. Luckily, not all Burmese individuals who I interact with are like our driver (who I recently heard may be Thai... another topic there), and Aung Kyi (of earlier “cutie” fame) and Aut Ho, his wife, are two examples. Both are smiling, welcoming, and eager to practice their English. These are all traits I admire, and am sheepish when my efforts are visibly lesser.
In the afternoon we went into the “Kinder Garden” room (it’s where you plant kinder surprise eggs, obvi) to conduct some physical check ups. As I sat down in the back with my pen and paper I was swarmed by a dozen interested lil’ chillens. Touching my arm, hugging me, sticking their faces up to mine. Giggling, so much giggling. I had so much fun in that hour. This is why FED does the work it does. It’s all for these little sponges, grabbing my pen to write their own names in English for me, playing paddy cake with me, tickling me, showing me their toy guns (issues), stealing my camera (other issues), literally clinging to me—3, 4, 9 at a time. It was so fun, and maybe even moreso because words weren’t needed. They would try desperately to explain something to me, pointing at pictures in my book to show that they wanted my camera back (with the security of my new camera and bank account in mind I feigned innocence), grabbing my hands to play thumb war… whatever it was, the drama couldn’t ever be that bad because I didn’t have to take part in it. No comprehension of the spoken language was needed to understand the dynamics amongst the children; one girl monoplized my pen and was very forceful when it came to getting attention, two others fell over each other to play with me but lacked the haughtiness of the other girl. Some boys wanted to be held, others wanted to show me their wounds, and without exception everyone wanted the newcomer’s attention.
Playing with kids was energizing and rejuvenating in a way I would have thought impossible. While I lay cathartic now, completely exhausted from the day, at the time I was peppier and happier than any afternoon sitting in the office where I inevitably struggle to keep my eyes open as I read UN reports. I see why Steph raved about City Step-- I can see how rewarding it truly must be, and how it can actually be fun too. Granted, I had one hour of it and if I were teaching here every day I know it would be a huge test to my patience. But all of those smiles, all of that potential (yes, I just used that word)… I finally got it. This is what everyone was talking about.
Walking around the pier watching thirteen year olds smoke between shifts on the boat I thought through what I would say in this blog post. We’ve all heard the stories about friends who went to a third world country, all that they saw, all that they want to share or act on when they come home… it’s all the same and I found I had nothing original to say. But what makes this experience so different is that it’s mine. I’m the one wading through monsoon- caliber puddles. I’m the one with dirty little children hanging off of me like coats on a coat rack. I’m the one walking by ponds full of trash, rickety shanties (with flat screen TVs in some), skinny chickens and even skinnier dogs. I’m the one walking the line between being a burden or a lightening presence to those I’m accompanying. For the first time in my life, I am actually experiencing this. And while my thoughts are still the same, the emphasis they hold is completely new.
I don’t know what my month here will mean for my future choices. I don’t know what role FED will play in my life after I leave. But right now, I’m just taking it in day by day. Leaving work early to lie on the beach one day, getting home late after hours of driving in a downpour the next. It’s pretty damn cool, and I’m pretty damn lucky.
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