A Tour of the Neighborhood

Ah, nothing better than a nice place to sit. Yesterday, I got the last two major components for the Yangon apartment: a fridge and a desk chair. Now, the fridge is just an ordinary mini-fridge, nothing special there.  The desk chair, on the other hand, is one of the best I've ever owned.  I'm usually not one to boast about material possessions; stuff is just stuff. This beauty here, however, was quite the find. Oh, that head-rest thingie up at the top snuggles the nape of my neck just so... 

In a previous video, you might have seen snippets of my new neighborhood as I sang about the women working there.

Today, you'll see some more as I trace the one mile or so walk from home to where I work, much to the bewilderment of my neighbors.  What is this crazy foreigner doing walking down the street talking to himself into a camera?  Note the confused looks on the guys sitting at the tea-house in the background.

Child labor is a big issue here.  I've noticed that at most of the small tea-houses that are seemingly on every corner of Yangon, most of the wait-staff are kids. Whether they're relatives of the adults running the place, I don't know, but most of the time when I sit down for a coffee and donut, it's someone who should be in school bringing to me. 

Speaking of schools, I saw something interesting spraypainted on the fence of a school just a couple blocks from my place. Graffiti. This picture says a lot. 

Actually, the graffiti on my little walk was remarkable in other ways too. I believe these other pieces might be the work of the same tagger. The message is very positive. 

I'm not sure what 'ERACISM' means, but in my head it evokes the phrase 'erase racism'. Very original use of a foreign language!

And for this last one, it's obviously political, but as to what it means, I have no idea.

Enjoy the video...

Power Out and Power Forward

The 27^th of March. A Thursday. Armed Forces Day here in Burma. A national holiday and my first non-weekend day off from teaching. My plans for the day had been dictated by my plans for the evening. All of the teachers from my school (there are 10 of us) were going to get together at a local restaurant for some socializing followed by a 'flat crawl' (British English being the norm here, flat=apartment). The idea was that we would be wandering from one teacher's apartment to the next amongst the half dozen or so of us within walking distance from said restaurant. Given that my place was a mere 3 blocks from our starting point, I figured my home would be amongst those visited. Cleaning, beautifying and preparing my joint for its first social visitors was at the top of my things to do list.

Let me further preface this anecdote by explaining that I was mistaken in something I wrote recently here on my blog regarding my role as the building's water-tank keeper. My twice-daily duties of turning on and off the switch to the water pump leading down to the well is actually NOT for the tank for my whole building; the tank I was filling serves just my apartment.  

Seemed like it though; I don't use that much water, but the tank would always run dry if I didn't. Forgetting to turn the pump off after starting it was bad enough. The tank would overflow, spilling water onto people's windows and into the stairwell. Forgetting to start it in the first place leads to situations like I was facing yesterday morning. An hour or so after waking up, I did the thing in the bathroom that people normally do at that time of the morning, but when I pushed the flush lever, nothing happened. The tank was dry and I had no water. Not a problem, I thought. Just turn on the pump, the tank would fillv20 or so minutes and the toilet would become flushable.
 
Twenty minutes passed and I went back to my odoriferous offerings to the porcelain god and still nothing. Kitchen sink didn't work either and I had dishes to wash. Went downstairs, found the landlord and with a lot of gesturing, miming and saying “water no!” I got my point across. Half an hour after that, the landlord and the plumber show up at my door. Unfortunately, in the interim, another thing had happened: the power had gone out. I read about Yangon's notorious power outages, but this was my first time experiencing one at home (several of my classes had been interrupted by the lights going out, but those were minor inconveniences as the school has its own back up generator).

The plumber climbed up on the roof, looked into my tank and said “There's no water in here!” (I was able to translate the Burmese from the context). Again via gestures and such the landlord asked me if I'd turned on the pump. Of course I'd turned on the pump! Being the master of that switch has been part of my daily sacred duty for the two weeks I've been living here! Given that they really couldn't diagnose the issue when there was no power, the plumber went away and I was left in an increasingly hot and stinky apartment. It got to 100F yesterday, and despite my attempts at manually flushing the toilet by chucking water into it from my basin reservoir, I couldn't get all of the source of the smell to go away. People were coming over in a matter of hours and my place stunk. Shit. Literally. 

I swept up the powdered bird poop from the corners, made the place look the best I could, but without water, there wasn't much more I could do. I recorded my weekly ukulele song for the Seasons of the Ukulele contest, edited the vid and left my stifling abode for a local internet cafe where I'd hoped to upload my vid and chill in their aircon. 

The place was packed. National holiday, hottest day of the year so far, everyone and his brother were down at 'The Castle' internet shop playing games and Facebooking. Whereas normally this place gives me decent speeds to upload my vids, yesterday my standard resolution offering was giving me approximate upload times of 6 hours. Damn. Even after 'dumbing down' the resolution, it still said 2 and a half hours to upload. I couldn't just sit in the cafe all that time and I still had some prep to do for my pending visitors. Back through the market to home. 

The power was still out. Of course, no water. Headed out to the rendezvous having scrapped my plans for inviting people back to my place. I don't want my first impression to be that of a guy who lives in an apartment that smells of poo. 

I found out from the other teachers after relating this anecdote that it's only going to get worse in April. It's the hottest month of the year, meaning the most aircon being used. It's also the end of the dry season, and since much of Myanmar's power is hydroelectric, the low water levels in the river means less juice in the grid. Last year, one guy told me, the power went out pretty much every day in the month of April from the hours of noon to 3.


As for the night out with teachers itself, I'll just say this: an interesting group of characters, as you might expect given the sample group of English speakers who have chosen to teach in the wild backwardness of Yangon, Burma. 

Week 110, Seasons of the Ukulele






Saturday, 29 March 2014

What to do? Where to go? How much will it cost? How do I get there? I have to make a decision this weekend. What am I going to do in April? I've got one more week teaching, and then I'm off for a month. Paid vacation. Yes, that might sound a bit surprising given that I've only been teaching here for a month, but that's what I'm gonna get. Mid-April is Buddhist New Year (celebrated in just a few places like Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka), and our language school is closing down for a month.


I should leave the country on a 'visa run'. I don't have to, but I'm sort of expected to. One of the odd things about Myanmar labor laws for foreigners is that the maximum length for which you can get a work visa is 10 weeks. Every ten weeks, any foreign national living here has to leave the country, even just for a day, then come back for a new 10-week, $50 work visa. My company pays for 5 of these visa runs per year, i.e., reimbursing me for costs up to $280 per trip (more than enough for a flight to Bangkok and a couple nights hotel). By the end of this upcoming vacation, I'll have been here 9 weeks, so by the last week of April, first week of May, I need to be somewhere else.


But where? How much can I spend?


I don't want to spend too much. Tomorrow's payday, and I am so looking forward to getting my first paycheck. My start-up costs here have been tremendous, so much so that I had to put off a few purchases: desk chair and refrigerator, until I got paid. I don't want to spend the last week of April like I did this last week of March: counting my Kyats, getting small loans from friends, having to stay home to save money. I DO expect to save money here in Myanmar. That's one of the main reasons I came. I've never been good at saving money, so this will be a challenge, but I expect to bank at least 1/3^rd of my income in savings.


I am having a great time here, but make no mistake, it's been a challenge. You only have to read my last couple of blogs to see that. Sometimes, as I lie in bed in the morning hearing the families of pigeons overhead, I can't help but wonder: 'What the heck am I doing here?'. I think we all question, at some level, sometimes very much repressed, our basic choices in life. When you're in as trying a place as this country, of course, I'd be lying to say that I don't sometimes wonder why I'm here. I did the same in Thailand. The same thing happened in Seattle, for that matter. Anyways, part of my answer to that question comes tomorrow when I collect my monthly salary of 1.5 million Kyats.


Tomorrow, I am a millionaire.


My dream vacation is this: Buy a motorcycle on the outskirts of Yangon, drive southeast out of town towards Dawei. Get a tent and sleep on the beach. Slowly make my way down the isthmus of Kra, making excursions out onto the undeveloped and pristine islands off the coast of Myeik. Make my way slowly to Kawthoung, the southernmost city in Myanmar, sell the motorcycle, cross over border into Ranong, Thailand. Jump on a boat and spend another few days out on idyllc Koh Phayam, back to Ranong and into a van to Bangkok. Spend a few days catching up with friends there, then back on a plane to Yangon.


Except for the buying and selling of a motorcycle part, I don't see why this wouldn't work. In fact, I've decided. Just by writing this blog, I've deduced a workable plan. This will cost a lot more than my allotted visa run, but it's doable. Might be a disaster. Might be the best time of my life. We will have to see. 

Here's a montage video of my first three weeks in Myanmar:

Neighborhood Guitar-Playing with the RIff-Raff

A week ago, I was coming home from a late dinner to my fabulous penthouse apartment here in Hladen Market when I was greeted by a random guy on the street. We were about a block away from my home.

“Hello!” he said.
 
“Hello!” I said back.

That seemed to be about the extent of his English until we got to just in front of my building. There were a bunch of Burmese guys sitting in a rough circle on the then closed street vendor kiosks and on the pavement of the street itself. They were passing around a guitar and singing songs, a scene repeated hundreds of millions of times every night in every country on this Earth. No language needed; the common language is music.

“Please, please!” my new friend remembered another word of English and gestured for me to join the group. Heck yeah! A bunch of guys sitting around playing guitar and singing? This was exactly the kind of connection I was looking for with my neighborhood. I sat down on the edge of the pavement and of course, the guitar was immediately passed to me, the foreigner. After a year in Thailand, I learned that there are a few standards I know by heart that Southeast Asians seem to love. I played Knocking on Heaven's Door, Let it Be and of course, Country Roads. They knew the words (or at least the sounds), sang along and we all connected, smiled and had a good old time. A water bottle with some unknown brownish liquid was being passed around and was offered to me. Refusing food or beverage in Asia is, as a friend once told me, like kicking Jesus in the nut sack, so of course, I had to accept. It was what I expected, some kind of whiskey and water.

Mind you, with Country Roads, when you get a bunch of guys singing it, particularly if some of them have had a few, the chorus is belted loudly. Very loudly. That's just how it is. ...to the place, where I BeLOOOONNG!!!! WEST VIRGINIA!!...

I'm sure everyone in a two block radius heard us. I didn't think about it for a second. See, here in Myanmar, there is absolutely no sense of being too loud or noise pollution, particularly not at the relatively early hour of about 10:30 PM. People here are free to make as much noise as they can when and wherever they want. It's kinda hard to explain, and kind of annoying when it happens at 6 AM, except to say that I wasn't in the least bit worried about being too loud.


I kinda like that. All in all, I'm at heart a loud person, so I like the freedom to make my noise as I wish. No one complains or minds too much because they know that's how it is. When it comes to things like civil and political rights, the people in this country have less freedom than most of the rest world. When it comes to freedom in how you chose to live and act in your daily life, it's a free for all. Lotsa freedom, far more than even the USA.


There are, of course, exceptions. People still gossip, worry, complain about their neighbors and judge. Apparently, some of the guys in this song circle last week were amongst the riff-raff of the neighborhood. We broke up about 10:30 that night, and at 11 PM, I got this text from Nwe Zin, my real estate agent:





Oh come on. Now, I knew immediately that this concern was well intentioned. I do have a bit more than a modicum of street smarts, even in a foreign country like Myanmar, but my landlords don't know that. They want me to stay away from the riff-raff.  Ultimately, they should know, I'm one of the riff-raff myself.  The riff-raff are my people.


Today, the landlords agreed to hire people to come in and deal with pigeon situation above my head.


Again, this all with the best intentions in mind.

Toinght, a week later, once again it was getting late into the evening and I had forgotten to eat dinner. For the first time in a week (and I had been listening for it), I heard the neighborhood guys playing guitar and singing on the street in front of my building. I went and ate, this time with ukulele in tow. Came back to the spot where the guys were playing and singing, it was after 10 PM by that point, and the energy of the first night wasn't there. I followed along as best I could to the guitar they were playing, and when I played they were clueless as the chords on a uke are totally different than a guitar.


I don't care what my landlords say. I want to connect, safely and sanely with the guys in my neighborhood. Music is one way to do that. We don't speak each others' language even musically when I call out chords like “G”... “C”... “D'... They know the chords, but don't know the letters.


First paycheck, I'm buying a guitar.

Get Rid of the Pigeons

A letter to my real estate agent. I can live with bees. I can kill and control the cockroaches.  The lizards everywhere are kinda cute, but they do shit all over the place.  The biggest issue in regards to the animal life in or above my apartment is the pigeons. They have to go.  I paid a lot of money up front for this place when I moved in, so they have the resources to deal with it...  I don't have the slightest clue how to ask in their language for this, so I wrote a letter to my rental agent. Note the simplified syntax and vocabulary; this is how I write to non-native-English-speakers.

______________

Dear Nwe Zin,

Most things are very good here at the apartment you helped me find. I am thankful to you for finding this place for me. I like it very much.

There were a couple things that they asked me after I moved in that were a surprise. The control for the water tank for the whole building is in my apartment. Every morning, I have to remember to turn on the switch, let it go until it begins to overflow on my balcony, and then remember to switch it off. Sometimes, I won't remember to switch it off, and will go out with the water pump still on, making a small flood in the building. Before I moved in, I didn't expect to have to be the master of the water supply. It isn't a lot of work, but it is still work. They are making me do something to keep the building going. Tonight, I gave a key to Ton Ton so he can get into my place in case I forget to turn on or off the water. I have given up the complete privacy of my apartment. That is asking something of me to give up my key like that.

So, they are asking me to do things. I can do them, but I need them to do something for me in return.

There is something important I want you to ask Pyew pyew and Ton Ton on my behalf that needs to be fixed here. The pigeons. The pigeons need to go. I think pigeons are nice birds. They're beautiful animals. I will feed then when I can. That said, there are what sounds like 30 or 40 of them living in the space between my ceiling and the building's roof.

They're noisy. That's okay, I can handle the noise. It's kind of annoying, but I can live with it. The problem is that they go poop. They shit. I can see it everyday in this fine, gray dust that settles on my floor in certain places which has fallen from the ceiling up above. I know what it is, and I can't live with it. It is pigeon shit powder, and it will likely only get worse once the rainy season starts.

Thing is, Pigeon shit is very unhealthy for people. Even if you sweep it up, you breath it into your lungs every day and it's very bad. Over time, it can kill a person. Bird poo, when it dries and gets into the air can cause many different diseases.  I need you to stress this with Pyew Pyew.  That is what is important.  The bird poo is a health issue!  I'm sure she doesn't want for me to get sick because I live in her building. I already have a chronic bronchitis condition; my lungs are not that healthy to start with. I can't go a year with 40 pigeons shitting over my head and having that poison slowly get into my apartment.

I need you to tell Pyew Pyew to hire someone to get rid of the pigeons. Not kill them, just make them go away, and then put screens up so that they can't come back. If they build a little separate pigeon house for them on the roof for them to live in that isn't inside the building, that would be wonderful. Again, please tell them I don't want the pigeons killed. They just can't be living and pooping over my head.

Thank you very much and let me know how it goes.

Joko

_________________

So, we will see what comes of my pigeon removal request.  I am serious about it though.  I don't want flying rats shitting over my head, separated by the filmiest of screens for the next year.  

She Works Hard for the Money at the Market

Had fun yesterday and learned a little Burmese language while I was at it.  Memorized the words for 'may I take your picture?' and then wandered around just half a block of the Hladen Market I'd written about earlier.  I was looking for footage of women working as this week's Seasons of the Ukulele contest is about women songwriters and I had chosen Donna Summer's song named in the title above.  

Here are some framegrabs for the video challenged:

I think she's selling green peppercorns... In traditional Bamar (the actual ethnicity of most of the people in this part of Myanmar and where the name Burma comes from) make up:
 

See no evil...

Yes, we have some bananas.

I swear this woman said yes when I asked if I could take her picture, but then changed her mind. 

 

There's plenty more photos at my Photobucket page.   

And here's the video...

Shamrock the Boat - A Yangon River Cruise

I'll admit, sort of an odd way to spend my first weekend in Burma, but as I was invited, I thought it might a good way to network. Lots of beautiful sites and interesting expats.

A Tour of My New Apartment

Okay, the place is together enough that I can have visitors now.  Would you care to come in?  Please remove your shoes on the way in...