Take-Aways

I am writing, not because I witnessed any momentous and heart breaking events. I am writing to describe a mood. A mood that carried even us who did not understand the language. A mood that was felt even in the remote and quiet parts, far away from Yangon and Mandalay. It started with some murmurs. The occasional rickshaw driver, inn keeper, guide speaking of something happening with monks. It was low and subdued at the beginning but there was a light in people’s eyes when we first heard about it. It was a ripple that gathered momentum very slowly. Something that looked and felt like hope. The ripple started over the cost of living, over the gasoline price hike. It has affected everyone and there is not a person that has not, in turn, changed prices because of it. At the beginning it was a joke to us, anticipating the negotiating tactic. The standard line “it’s because the price of petrol has gone up”. Not that we ever stopped to buy petrol at a pump. So far, trishaw drivers and taxis have had gasoline stops at a grocery store, a fruit stand, a guy’s motorcycle and a pot of paint. Out of the vehicle with your canister and siphon it off whoever happens to be there. The pinch is being felt, acutely. More so in Mandalay, more so in the cities where work is scarce and rickshaws beg for business. Lurking outside of guesthouses, infinitely polite, infinitely gentle but desperate for the work nevertheless. But even in the villages where the price of a bag of rice has tripled in two months. It’s the gasoline they say. The gasoline and the Chinese. For everywhere they come to, they buy everything in site, pushing the prices up. Money here exchanges hands so fast. You have barely paid a driver that he distributes kick backs to any and everyone who even comes near him. He generally does not own his vehicle and whether he gets business or not he probably has to pay the owner a rental. It’s the absurdity of it all, the profound disfunctionality and paralysis that you cannot know unless you come face to face with it. The inability of the state to provide any of the basic functions that come to us for granted. The electricity cuts. Whether it is a 5 star hotel, a dingy little café or a store, electricity comes and goes at will. For indefinite amounts of time and business continues as usual with private generators or without. Street lights. None at night. The heart of Mandalay could be the middle of the wilderness for all you can see at 9pm. The absurdity of the money. For us tourists it becomes bags of money. The equivalent of a 100 Euro cannot fit in a wallet. You carry it around in a full plastic bag. Big money here. You walk around feeling like a big Mafioso with your illegal stash. The biggest denomination is 1000 Kyats (pronounced Jats) – basically 70 cents. The fact that there is a big para-economy that works in dollars. But not just any dollars. Not all money is equal. Unless your dollars are unfolded, brand new, quite recent denominations, with not a stain or little imperfection they are not worth the paper they are written on. Considering there is not a single ATM in the country, your crumbled 100 dollar bills could just as well be toilet paper for what they are worth in the black market. Everywhere, people take into their hands the basic institutions that the complete incompetence and corruption of the state does not fulfil. Education, justice, policing. Even primary school can be too expensive while teachers are under paid. Monks and monasteries fill the gaps and in the rural areas at least teach the children how to read, write and do math. The village in turn supports and feeds them. In the tribes of the Shan hills a locally elected, temporary and renewable chief dispenses order and justice in each community. There is not a person here that does not want and privately speak for change. But now, as the days go by, a sort of resignation creeps in. There is fear. But mostly there is sadness. They know that they are dealing with a power that does not respond to reason and does not understand the language of compromise. In the end people care little about who rules them. They want to see their lives improving and they want to join the world. Democracy just symbolises the exact opposite of what they have now, mismanagement, ignorance, indifference to the wellbeing and progress of the whole country. And yet, the best of Burma comes through in every conversation. The complete and utter lack of a “poor me” mentality. Here it is never the fault of foreign powers, history, geography. Overwhelmingly people acknowledge living in a rich but mismanaged country that could have it all. It’s funny being caught up in history. Unless you see it on TV it could pass you completely by. Here people rely on radio. Little transistor radios glued to their ears. But still, it can so easily pass you by. Even in Mandalay, the changes are so small that they are imperceptible. As imperceptible as the imposed 9-5 curfew that unless a local told you about you would not know. As small as not being able to get a taxi at 4.30 am in front of a hotel normally swarming with tuk tuks, rickshaws and pick up trucks begging for much needed business. It’s new but we could have equally missed it in the non-existent street lights of Mandalay. There are soldiers lurking at every corner of the city hidden in the shadows of the dawn, no doubt busily enforcing the curfew. We no longer can make international phone calls. The cost was prohibitive even for us but we could get through. Now it’s not possible. We tried at the private street phones, we tried in the telecoms office, we tried in the big hotels and over the internet. No go. The crackdown is complete and inconvenient. I left there yesterday feeling very much like a rat leaving a sinking ship even though the date was planned in advance and had nothing to do with the events. Just the act of leaving felt like a betrayal and an unearned luxury. I was guilty that I could when millions cannot. In Bagan, the biggest and most magnificent archaeological site in the country, there was nobody. It was a ghost town. Since it depends so heavily on tourism, they will suffer really badly in the next few months and this is the high season. Trinkets and souvenirs that went for $10 in the morning were being offered for $1 at the end of the day along with desperation and a smile. And when you said no, I already bought all I can, the heads hung low but still they waived goodbye. The question was always a moral one. To go and inevitably contribute financial support to an oppressive, backward military junta or not to go and effectively enforce a tourist embargo. Now it is also about the safety of going there. There are arguments on both sides. Valid arguments with proof and calculations. We went, and it was the right thing to do. Isolation only reinforces the regime. To go is now more important than ever. Now that there is turmoil and no money. Now that the people need your support and your custom. Now that a government that acts with impunity might hesitate if we are there. Go as soon as it is calmer and safe. Go! For the green hills topped with golden temples, the huge rivers that look like lakes, the fishermen rowing with one leg and fishing with their two hands. For the longest teak bridge in the world and the once second highest viaduct. For the temples inhabited by pythons. The food stalls of chapattis and the rice curry served on big teak leaves. For the countless tribe villages and ethnic minorities. For the colourful festivals and betel tinged red mouths. For the make up stalls that resemble a logger’s convention. Rows of different sized pieces of wood hanging like salamis or stacked on the ground waiting for the ladies to assess their weight colour and shape. They will take them home, grind them on a stone and put the golden powder on their cheeks and nose. For the men in longyi, that manage to make this long wrap-around dress exceedingly manly. And yes, it is like Scotland. As the wind blew on the truck climbing the mountain to the Golden Rock, filled to the brim with people, like a chicken coop, it was confirmed. There is no underwear. For the pretty girls balancing baskets, trays and the occasional table on their delicate heads leaving their arms free to hold their children and their money. For the endless smiles, hellos, welcomes and waiving babies. And yes, despite the places where children have learnt to hassle you a little bit asking for stylo, bons-bons and the occasional chicle (blame the French and the Spanish) tourism is good for the country. The rickshaw men said it, the shop-keepers repeated it and the villagers proclaimed it in our ears. But go with an open heart and an open mind. Go there ready to meet people and talk to them. Go, but not in a package tour that fills pockets that are bursting at the seams. Go and see the monks that are the backbone of society, filling the educational gaps that the corrupt government has left gaping. Go as soon as a little bit of calm returns. It’s eerie to be in a place, like Yangon was on Sunday, that locks itself down after 8 pm at night. Eerie and sad. Inside the country, it is impossible to know that people care, outside. There is only one way to show it. Just turn up! It is a complex place this Burma: intensely diverse, uncannily unique. It deserves better than it has. And when you go out to meet it, it will meet you so much more than half way.