Pumped by your heart to the tips of your arms and your legs

She’s not sure whereabouts in Burma she is from, because both her parents died when she was very young. She knows that she left her native land at some point, because her grandmother raised her in the forest somewhere near Bangkok, but she was an abusive drunk. She tried to tell her grandmother to stop drinking, but she would never listen to her. She knew she had to leave. Five months ago some relatives took her north, to the border at Mae Sot, where she crossed over into Burma and began to live with a new family who didn’t have any children of their own. They told her they would be her parents from now on. She was happy for the first time in a long while. But then she began to feel sick. She was tired all the time, and she didn’t want to eat. She found some strange lesions and ulcers on her skin. Her new family decided they should take her across the river into Thailand and seek help at the Mae Tao Clinic. When she got there, the medics did lots of tests and gave her some medicine. She felt a wee bit better for a while. But when she asked for her parents, she was told they had gone, back to Myawaddy, across the river. Without her. The tests had confirmed what they had suspected – she has HIV. Who will take care of her now?

I spent time with this beautiful, but tiny and frail girl today, and she told me her story. She is 14, but looked no older than 10. She lives in a home run by an NGO here in Mae Sot, with 13 other women and girls who are also HIV positive. Her adoptive parents deserted her when they discovered she had the virus, because they were scared that they would contract it from her. Her future looks bleak, as she is not receiving any treatment for her disease; there is not enough money here to provide all the HIV patients with vital Anti Retroviral medication. Most days she goes to a local migrant school, which is one of many schools that children from Burma go to here on the border, because they cannot go to Thai schools. Her favourite parts of the school day are writing, playing and nap time. She is always tired. 

She does not really understand the enormity of her condition, of what having HIV means, but friendly, caring faces from the Mae Tao counselling department visit her often, and in time she will begin to understand the reality of her future. At the moment though, she is feeling well, and she is happy playing with the other young girls that live at her home, when she is not too tired. She told me that when she grows up, she wants to be a sales woman. 

I met another woman today, she is 32 and found out she had HIV 9 months ago. She came from Bangkok for treatment because she had Tuberculosis. While receiving treatment for TB, she tested positive for HIV. Her first husband, and the father of her children, died of HIV, and her second husband recently left her and remarried because he didn’t want a sick wife, so now she lives in the same home as the young girl. Her 11 year old daughter is now living in Mae Sot at a boarding house, and her 15 year old will be here soon, her father, in the Mon state in Burma, cannot afford to look after him anymore now that she cannot work to send them money. She too is not receiving any treatment for her HIV. It has taken her a long time to come to terms with her disease; she used to be very angry. But our councillors have been visiting her regularly and now she is much calmer, and is slowly coming to terms with the prospects of her future.

Médecins Sans Frontières closed their Anti Retroviral program in the Mae Sot area in 2010. Mae Tao Clinic has taken on the 46 HIV positive patients that MSF were treating, and have been providing them with medication while pursuing measures to assure they will continue to receive treatment in the future. New patients that meet the criteria for ARV’s are referred to the Mae Sot Hospital for treatment, but unfortunately this does not guarantee that they will receive treatment, as the Thai program is already full. Patients are accepted only as “vacancies” occur.  

Everyone here is so sick. But there are never enough resources to go around. 

Here is some information about the theraputic arts programme these women are involved with 
http://spinningtop.org/saw-pure-futures/


You can buy one of their handmade purses here, income generated from their crafts goes straight to the women
http://spinningtop.org/purses/

Ordinary People in Extraordinary Circumstances

Everyday, I am happy that I have such like-minded and activist friends. My pal Dom is living in Melbourne at the moment and has just finished an internship with Amnesty International. He's written this opinion piece that was published in the Dominion Post (the daily paper in Wellington, the captial of NZ).
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/5304987/Ordinary-people-in-extraordinary-circumstances

My friend Marnie works at the Cambodian Childrens Trust in Battambang, Cambodia. This is an excellent organisation set up by a young Australian woman that works with local families, orphans and street kids. They have a drop in centre, provide safe and supportive homes for children in need, a shop and a swimming programme, amongst other things. I'm heading over to visit in August and can't wait to see the great work that Marnie and her team are doing.
http://www.cambodianchildrenstrust.org/

My cousin Shayne is also pretty great. He's a bit of an environmental warrior and is always fighting some amazing fight to save some beautiful area of the world from destruction by some group or other. At the moment he is living in Aceh, Indonesia fighting their good fight.
http://leuserecosystem.org​/

There are lots of ways that you can help humanity, one of the most effective is donating money, but just raising awareness is an incredibly good way to, obviously, raise awareness. You'd be surprised at the amount of people that are totally oblivious to the issues of refugees, asylum seekers etc. It's not enough to just sit back and say that these people are other peoples' problem. We are all human, these people are a problem that, as humanity, we all must face up to. In NZ, we have an excellent resettlement programme, Refugee Services Aotearoa. You can find out about ways to help this fantastic organisation here:
http://www.refugeeservices.org.nz/

I volunteered with Refugee Services for about the 10 months leading up to leaving NZ. I was paired with the most incredible Burmese family, I love them so much, and look forward to being friends with them for a very long time. They recently had a new baby and asked me to name him. Meet Micah Van Bawi Lian Khual Sim. Volunteering with this family was one of the best things I have ever done in my life.

It is not enough to just sit back and say that other people are doing things, to help, so you don't have to. At the very least, talk about these issues with your friends, families, children and colleagues. This is a simple thing that YOU can do to help.

I want to ride my bicycle

It’s raining pretty heavily right now. We only came home for 5 minutes to get something, and then we were going straight back to work. But that was well over an hour ago. At least there is internet at home so I can get a little work done here. 

I don’t really have much to say this week; life is just plodding along here. Last week passed me by at a very fast pace, and I don’t even know what I did. Went to work, ate a lot of food, read two books – one on the Khmer Rouge, called Stay Alive, My Son, and one called A Spot of Bother, by the same guy that wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Both were really good and I read them in about 6 hours each. Jeeze, life is getting boring if I’m telling you about the books I’m reading. My apologies, if you are reading this. I’m also planning my trip to visit my lovely chum Marnie in Cambodia in August (and before you get all ‘laa dee daa isn’t it nice for some’, I have to leave the country for visa reasons!), she works for the Cambodian Children’s Trust in Battambang and I just can’t wait to see her.

Oh, I know something I did that was interesting, yesterday I got up bright and early (for actual, like 6.30am) and went for a 26km bike ride. Half way through said bike ride, we stopped and climbed up 800 steps to a pagoda, and then back down; and were back in Mae Sot well before lunch. Needless to say, I nearly died of exhaustion, I’m still embarrassingly unfit. I’ve noticed that the topic of me on a bike appears more often than not in this blog (still hate that word, blog. But I hate ‘journal’ almost as much – what am I? Some kind of emotional teenager or tortured artist, writing in my journal? I don’t think so). 

But it really is amazing. I love my bike, not only because it has a basket and a bell and sparkly purple tape decorating it (we are desperately trying to find flowers for the basket and handle bar tassels as well), but because it gets me from A to B about 99% faster than my lazy legs could walk me. Why did none of you ever teach me to ride a bike before? Sure, it was a bit of a joke, but you should have insisted that I learn. Why did I spend all those years walking half an hour to and from uni and home, in the freezing cold, when I could have biked there in about 10 minutes. I had to walk somewhere the other day, to and from two places I go all the time, and I actually could not believe how rubbish it was. Sure, there is a crusade against cyclists in NZ and they are constantly being hit and injured, but here, bikes are the law. Everyone gets out of the way of people on bikes. And I’m such a badass on my bike that I don’t even wear a helmet. I’m invincible on my bike. You all just wait till I fall off, there’s no doubt it’s definitely going to happen, it’s just a matter of when.

Walking is for suckers. I’ve seen the light and I’m never going back.

I'm pretty sure this is the best photo ever taken

A Light for Burma

Take the time to watch this video. These images reflect daily life here at the 

Mae Tao Clinic.

My Burmese Days

My trip to Myanmar/Burma is one that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I am not really sure how to begin telling you why. It is a nation of incredible beauty, breathtaking views, and the most genuinely stunning people I have ever had the pleasure to meet, in both spirit and appearance. But there is a nearly constant tension in the air. An underlying knowledge that the place I am in is controlled by a brutal and ruthless military regime. One that has kept its people oppressed and silent for decades, and one that continues to commit atrocities and human rights violations at the very same time that I am sipping my icy cold mango juice and enjoying the view.

We began our journey in Yangon, the former capital of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, the nation formerly known as Burma, and the city formerly known as Rangoon. Things change here often. We arrive and find somewhere to stay, and then head out for breakfast and exploration. We find ourselves at our first pagoda, Sule Paya. It is huge and golden and grand. Amazing. Here we meet two new friends, Aung Htoo and Maung U, who give us language lessons and showed us around. We agreed to meet them later on to go to the Shwedagon Paya to watch the sunset. 

Shwedagon. Wow. What a place. It rises 98m into the sky, and shines a brilliant gold, real gold, and its umbrella is encrusted with rubies and diamonds. A truly magnificent site. I cannot believe that I am finally here. This is a place I have read about so much, and the site at which so many influential speeches and protests have begun. Now I feel like I am really in Burma.

There are many layers to my journey into this seemingly forbidden and forgotten land. On the one hand, I had an excellent holiday, seeing sights I never thought I would see, and thoroughly enjoying being a tourist, travelling throughout the countryside. On the other hand, I have never felt so monitored in all my life, and so acutely aware that I was in a country that is ruled by a brutal and oppressive military junta, it was easy to forget this at times, but this fact was never far from my mind. Take, for example, our stay in the ancient city of Bagan: this area, which is actually now named the Bagan Archaeological Zone, is a place where time really feels as though it stands still. 

We arrived at dawn, around 5.30am, on an awful night bus from Yangon. We got off the bus, to be greeted by the most gentle and friendly “good morning”. After a bit of back and forth banter and practice of our Burmese phrases, we agree to the ride being offered by this lovely man. He leads us to his vehicle. I then realise that I have actually arrived in a fairytale. His pony is called Hirsenandes, and she is beautiful. His name is Soe Soe, and he will soon become a good friend. We climb aboard the pony cart and meander to our accommodation; meanwhile the sun is rising over this magnificent land, to the quiet clip-clop of Hirsenandes’ hooves. We sleep a few hours, and then our new friends return to show us the sights: There are literally hundreds and thousands of pagodas and temples as far as the eye can see. It is absolutely incredible; I was genuinely awestruck by the majesty and grandeur of this place. Never in my life have I seen such dedication to a religion. We end this searingly hot and sweaty, but peaceful day watching the sunset at one of Soe Soe’s favourite temples. We climb to the very top of this ancient and crumbling brick structure, the place is deserted bar one or two others that come and go. This is our spot. The view is unbelievable, and so too is the sunset. I could stay up here for hours in this fairy tale.

The other side of the trip to Bagan that was never far from our minds was that the roads we are driving and cycling on were most likely built using forced labour. And the area now known as “Old Bagan”, where most of the temples are, is “old” because the people that used to live here were forcibly relocated to “New Bagan”, so that I, as a tourist, could feel as though this place had been this peaceful and uninhabited for centuries. And for the privilege of using these forced labour-built roads, and visiting this allegedly uninhabited area, I am required to provide the military with my passport and visa details. Oh, and $10 US dollars of course. As many oppressive and corrupt regimes before it have done, the Burmese government has destroyed its economy so much that it doesn’t even accept its own currency. US dollars are the only currency you can use to pay any sort of government fee. The local currency, the kyat, really is only used by the locals. 

The trip to Bagan was even more exciting, because The Lady was here at the same time as us. This is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s first trip here in a very long time. There is nervous excitement in the air. There is also a lot more security in the form of government officials in the area. We cannot let anyone know that we work with Burmese refugees, IDPs etc., so we have to lie to everyone we meet, and I don’t like it. I know it is for our own safety, but it doesn’t feel nice. We are not lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this woman, my personal inspiration, and the inspiration of a nation, but we meet a young man who has just seen her, and he is simply beaming. He is so excited to tell us all about his brief view of her, and that she is the most beautiful woman in the world, and how much he loves her. This is a sentiment made known to us through clandestine comments by people throughout our time in Burma.

After Bagan, we head three hours up the Irrawaddy River to Pakokku. This tiny little rural town is glorious. We arrive after a beautiful trip up the infamous river, passing families playing, washing and living in the muddy waters. We take trishaws (like rickshaws) to the only available accommodation in Pakokku, a small guest house run by an elderly woman, and now her children and grandchildren. We are celebrities in this town. Everyone smiles and waves and shouts Mingalaba! to us. They bring their babies up to us to see their first white face. I fall in love with this place instantly. We arrive at Mya Mya’s house. She is the sweetest old lady in the world. We begin filling out the necessary paper work that we are presented with where ever we go (name, age, nationality, passport and visa info, fathers name, reason for being in Myanmar, where we have been, when we will leave etc.). Mya Mya informs us that she needs to take our passports to be photocopied. It turns out that the military intelligence office in Pakokku needs 9 copies of our passports for the one night we will stay here. That’s right, 9. The knowledge that we are being monitored and watched wherever we go is ever-present, but nowhere more so than in Pakokku, for this sleepy little town is actually where the Saffron Revolution of 2007 began, when the monks here rose up in protest at the overnight 500% price-hike in petrol costs.

Mya Mya warns us that we are not to take any photos of the monastery or any monks, and that if we do, the government spies that are watching us will turn up at the guest house demanding our cameras to delete everything on them and find out why we are really here. There is no doubt in my mind that we are followed and spied on in this lovely little town, in which the people go out of their way to welcome us and make us feel comfortable.

After Pakokku we head back to Yangon on another night bus. We visit the National Museum – what a strange place. It has no concept of what a museum should be. Sure, have masses of old stuff, but please tell us what this old stuff is, and give us a little context. 

We then decide to call our friends that we’d met at the Sule Paya earlier in the week. We meet them and go for a walk down the river to watch the sunset. This country just keeps getting better. We then go with them to get an illegal Thai massage at a secret massage place, why an innocent massage is illegal, we have no idea. They take us for dinner, more delicious Burmese salads. At dinner, we end up finally having the conversation that has been so forbidden up to this point: we talk about the government, the border, Mae Sot, and the Clinic. We tell them who we really are, and they, in turn, let us know that they have KNU connections, and are actually on the border and in Mae Sot often. 

Burma is the most remarkable place I have ever been. I will definitely come back one day. I am very sad to leave, but it helps to know that I am not just going home to my boring and normal life, but back to Mae Sot to continue to help these incredibly resilient people, and support them in their seemingly never-ending quest for democracy, and freedom from oppression. It was amazing to meet people living inside the country, as up to this point I have only met those that have had to flee. 

I urge you to visit Myanmar/Burma if you are ever able. It has so much to offer, most of all, its people. I know that everyone says the people from the countries they visit are crazy-nice. But in Burma, they are different. On the surface they seem just like any other friendly local that lives in an impoverished country, but scratch a little below the surface and it is easy to see and feel that there is a strong and positive fighting spirit present in this population. They truly are the most wonderful people I’ve ever met.

On the surface, Burma seems normal, just like any other poor nation. But it is easy to see that there is something very sinister at work here. I feel that my new friend from Yangon summed it up perfectly: “If I tell you what it is really like to live in this country, I will go to jail”. This sentiment will stay with me for a long time.

  

The New Light of Myanmar - daily government paper. There's some serious propaganda in here.