Myanmar Welcome Wagon

On day 6 of living in this small Myanmar town, word got out that we are friendly or we’d passed some kind of test. And around here, that means Presents (one of the most commonly known English words in this country, which says a lot about the people).

It started innocently enough. A quick walk to check emails at the office in the relative cool of the morning. As I reached the “tea shop” next door, two office workers called me over and made me sit down for tea and some fresh fried bean buns. The young waiter with light brown “thanaka” paint on his cheeks smiled as I ate their local food, and looked just as surprised when it was my co-worker, not me, who pulled out the cash to pay. All I could give was a heartfelt “chezu ten bedai” (thank you) – a phrase I’d be repeating all day long.

The young waiter looked equally surprised when I showed up again for lunch, this time my co-worker John Bo insisting on treating since I’d failed to figure out the new pink rice cooker at home. At the same time, Sarah and the boys were wandering the market with an English-studies university student who is volunteering to teach us English, receiving free samples of sweets, digestive crumble and fruits that even our tutor could not translate.

Our zero-English house “helper” got into the action by inviting us to go play some games with the local kids. It started out to be a winding back-alley tour to the outdoor pool hall, where we gathered several “youth” (ages 18-30 – they grossly overestimate the age of my grossly-oversized boys) to walk over to the chinone field (a cross between volleyball and soccer). They were all there to oblige us, but in broken language we managed to agree to play later when it wasn’t 100 degrees.

At 4:00 some 14-year-old twins arrived at our house (not sure who arranged that) to take us to the soccer stadium, with several motorbikes and bikes and a dozen kids joining the parade. The energetic “football” game ended up with over 20 players and twice as many spectators. When we got tired, our volunteer Engligh tutor rode back to our house to fetch cold water for us.

Then at just the right angle of sun, they threw us back on motorbikes to return to the chinlone field, where atleast 50 people had gathered in anticipation of 3 white folk looking foolish at a sport we’re just learning. But it was fun for all, and we took turns playing or watching their highly-skilled game. Some woman handed a chocolate-icecream bar to Z, squeezing his cheek and saying “Beautiful baby” (he endures that alot, but not usually with the ice cream). Someone else brought a bottle of cold drinking water. As we announced finally that it was time to go, we were told we couldn’t because they were getting more food for us (3 more ice cream bars).

On the parade home, we stopped at one chinlone player’s house to see his chicken-egg operation, which of course resulted in the present of a dozen eggs, 5 ears of corn, and invitation to a future dinner. We said goodbye and Chezu Ten Badai to everyone at home, only to find another family waiting inside (for how long I don’t know). These folk live across the street and brought their 9- and 6-year-old children to play, which our boys joyfully accepted – it’s been tough always being paired with older kids. We visited with the parents for the customary half-hour, during which time they managed to gift us with some candy, a bottle of milk and a brand new “longi” (traditional skirt - see photo of mine) for Sarah.

We escaped upstairs for 10 minute when John Bo announced “your next guests.” Six of the lovely football boys /had come back for a visit, bringing this time two bags of street-food snacks – “Djo” (deepfried cucumber/chickpea/potato) and banana leaves with some sticky rice mystery stuff on it. We countered with grapes and tea for them, brought out the guitar and cameras, and had a good visit.

Miraculously we managed to squeeze in a 15-minute meal before the neighbour family returned with their niece, also an English-studies student who wanted to try speaking to foreigners for the first time ever. Exhausted but also impressed with her determination, we tried valliantly to keep a conversation going with this young woman whom Z later described as “dreary – I hope her visits are sparse.”

Oh, at some time in there the credit union manager brought over photos – in print and electronic form – that he had taken from my visit there a few days earlier. And there’s probably more that I’ve forgotten.

We struggle to remain open to receiving, not knowing how or what to give back. Or maybe being open is the best way to give back. It’s extremely rare, if ever, that a foreign family with children has lived here, tried a bit to learn the language, shop at the market, make friends, wear longi skirts, etc. They’ve seen us demonstrate that we want to be part of their world, if only for a short while, and this barrage of gifts and visits is their loving way of saying “Welcome.”

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PS – I’m writing this in the office, where it’s taken 70 minutes to download 48 of 51 email messages. Even though it’s a hot hot Sunday afternoon, John Bo (left in photo, right is his dad who also lives with us, and the lady is my other coworker Thein Thein)insists on staying with me until I’m done. “You will be lonely and bored” he says. So many ways to give and receive care...

Taking Care

We brought our children overseas to open their eyes. So they can see different ways and cultures, face poverty and need, learn tolerance and giving, and celebrate the goodness of life. And so they can see their own lives in perspective, maybe learn to separate “I need” from “I want”, put some weight into the good old “There are children starving in China so eat your food” platitudes.

But in learning about poverty, they also learn about privilege. In 2 weeks my boys have become used to having people scramble to open doors for them. To being able to afford whatever they want in the best restaurants, demand taxis, have people iron their underwear and slice their breakfast fruit into works of art.

Every time they complain of a lump in the mattress or tired legs after 20-minute walk, i wonder which message they are internalizing – the poverty or the privilege. After one of my useless “think about someone else” diatribes, my boy quietly said “You’re good that that dad – making us feel bad.”

Enter my Wise Wonderful Wife to the rescue. Instead of guilt or intellectual exhortations, she whipped up an experiential exercise. Each day one of us is taking the role of loving Caregiver. That person has on extra radar to read the rest of the family’s needs and find creative ways to serve. “I’ll go get the water”, “I’ll take the lumpy bed tonight”, “I’ll hand out the oranges and keep the smallest one for myself.”

In this way we are learning from and emulating our gracious Burmese hosts, who genuinely want to give and take care of us. They don’t do it from a place of servitude or caste, but from a place of love. They do it for each other – our taxi driver hit the brakes in the middle of a bridge to give money to a beggar – and especially for us since we are in much more of a place of need as strangers here.

By taking a step in their sandals, we are learning about Respect. The self-respect the Burmese people display when they give in such a healthy, loving way. And a healthy dose of respect for ourselves in this curious position of dependency we find ourselves in. We don’t speak the language, can’t read a menu or street signs, don’t recognize half the foods, have trouble buying a bus ticket, and can’t tell the difference between a restaurant, tea shop or bar.

So we still easily tell our driver to wait by the car for an hour while we go for ice cream, but it’s not ordering a servant. He’s the professional; we’re the ones who need him because we don’t know how to find places or cross 8 lanes of traffic, and would be terrified to drive these streets.

One day at a time, we integrate these learnings into our daily lives by caring for each other. And happily discover that we’re not so bad at it after all – we were already a family who watch out for each other and try to be good to others. We can hopefully come back from this brief exposure to the Burmese Buddhist culture with a bit more humility and greater awareness of how to lovingly serve others. To still want the softest bed, but maybe sometimes find a different comfort in giving that to another person who wants/needs it just as much or even more.

Myanmar after Midnight

Arriving in a new country after midnight is like watching children sleep - you learn some about their inner nature when the clutter of the day is stripped away. Myanmar at 2am is tranquil, clean and classic. The airport is empty and spacious, not the Ghanaian gauntlet of thousands of hands reaching to drag you to their taxi, nor the frantic hands reaching through cracks of Zaire glass hungry for mail. Just a deathly slow immigration officer hunting&pecking his way through your documents without once uttering a word. He takes your photo to remind you that this is still a military regime you're entering into, barely-active remnants of an all-too-recent time when your every move would be watched and recorded and suspected.

The taxi driver walks is a foot shorter than me and walks faster than me, polite but strong and not offering to take my bag. The old taped-together white Toyota with low busted seats is familiar, as is the lack of seatbelt, but his driving is not hurried, not honking, not weaving in and out even when there is an occasional other car on the road. This isn't the Egyptian nascar-wannabe terrifying my entry into Cairo; he's a hint of the active but collected, friendly but measured pace I expect will still be here by daylight tomorrow.

The road from the airport sports the usual brightly-lit car dealerships - the clientele who can afford to fly are the best target for selling new cars too. Big billboards advertise high-tech products, laundry soap and margarine. Skinny tall cement building each have a gate and a name, like an endless row of commercial city-states, each selling some product on the ground floor and housing multiple generations up above. Then out of nowhere the golden temple rises above all, shining gold with grandiose gates guarded by 100-foot-high lions in all 4 directions.

Unlike New York or Kinshasa, this is a city of 4 million people who do sleep. In a 40-minute drive I see only one roadside snack seller (ground nuts, bananas...), 2 long-legged & short-shorted sex trade workers, one group of young men sitting roadside with a guitar, and one homeless couple sprawled liberally in bright pink on the sidewalk corner. Not a single child the whole drive. Poverty most certainly is rampant in this city and country, but not along the cleaned-up streets that bring tourists and dignitaries past the golden temple and down to the hotel district.

At the hotel, no crowds of young men try to force the trunk open to "help" with the luggage. The night staff wake up quickly and cheerfully from the foyer couches and easily remember my reservation. The room is as clean and spacious as the website pictures, the AC noisy but functioning, the wireless internet works, and the streets are free from honking, fighting, laughing, trucking, in fact free from any noise. Only the king-size bed, covered only with a sheet, calls to me to enjoy a legs-stretched-out, horizontal, peaceful sleep after a 20-hour plane odyssey. I'm 13.5 time zones from home, but with just enough touches of the familiar to have a feel for what I'll wake up to - a welcoming, mature, steady and mysterious new place that will be my learning and sharing ground for the next 3 months.

Life, and death, and life on the farm

Baryshnikov is one confused water buffalo. On Tuesday he watched his "brother" SnowStar be taken down by a single shot, then hung up from the strong arm of a big blue tractor to bleed and be skinned and cut apart. He snuggled up to 5 kids and me, pushing his hard head and horns affectionately and powerfully into our small bodies as we dug a big hole to bury SnowStar's inedibles. And he moaned and bleated louder than any time since he was weaned when we all left and he found himself alone in the big pasture for the first time in his entire life.

Two days later those bleats were curious and excited as he smelled then saw his new baby brother entering the pasture. Baryshnikov has quickly become used to affectionate full-tongue kissing, constant following and leaning against, and attempts to suckle by this two-week-old buffalo newcomer.

We've all been as excited, or more, by this new flow of life on our farm. SnowStar will become months worth of meals for 7 families. 25 chicks were 2-weeks into their journey to the freezer of another couple-dozen families, and the 25 big chickens were supplying 4 families with all the eggnog we can conjure. WildSide Farm felt alive, even with the death of a cow we'd raised from 4-days-old.

Then this morning, one blood-thirsty mink reminded us that death is as much a part of the farm as life. One mink, one night, 49 dead chickens. We spent the day in shock, in mourning, in anger at a creature doing what - for some unknown reason - comes as naturally for him as killing a big cow does for us.

So it was that I entered our land partner's birthday party with a wheelbarrow full of beheaded carcasses (minks are as vicious as they are deadly efficient). His urban friends from Victoria all helped build a 10-foot funeral pyre with the last of my year's burn pile, reverently placing dead chickens and chicks on higher and higher levels. A bit of gas, straw and a blow-torch later, the huge hot blaze was a beautiful cremation and a Burning-Man-style purging of our sorrow.

A big reason we moved to the country was so that our children, as well as us, could understand where food comes from, where life comes from. And where death comes from, how it follows and precedes life. In this week our 8-year-old came home from school to witness the cow slaughter ("His soul will just go back into the herd, so it's OK"), and 5 boys helped with the burial. Eleven children so far have helped bottle-feed a new born buffalo, and console Baryshnikov in his grieving. Seven boys and five little ones helped with the chickens' funeral pyre, watching "their souls going up into the sky and heaven." And in the single most redeeming, beautiful moment of this hard day, we came home from morning soccer to find a note from our 9-year-old neighbour taped to our door (in reference to the one chicken who miraculously survived the carnage):

I brang your last chicken to my house becose I thot it was lonly. I hope you donte mind. :)

The children get it, and teach it, and just live it naturally. Life, and death, and life again - it's all one. You can't embrace one without embracing the other.

Demolition

The longer you’ve been in a tree fort, the harder it is to take down.

You put your whole self into building that castle in the sky. Straightened out dad’s bent nails, salvaged planks from the neighbour’s fence, stolen supplies at night from the construction site across the street. You chose just the right tree(s), agonized over triangle vs. rectangle designs, and negotiated with the parents for how high up the rope ladder could go. You pounded and bruised and bent and re-nailed till it all miraculously hung together.

Then you stood back and looked at what you’d created. A little off-centre, a few headless nails smashed in sideways, a gap here or there to let some light in. It wasn’t what you dreamed, but it was your creation and it was Real.

The first day after finishing a tree fort is the best. You throw the tools in a bucket and convince mom to let you haul up some popcorn and lemonade. You sit inside with your buddies and just glow in the achievement. “This is the BEST fort ever!” You believe is was IT.

Then a few more days pass and it’s not so new anymore. The one thing you forgot when designing and building it was what you’d do once you moved in. Turns out that reading magazines by a stolen flashing-orange traffic light isn’t so awesome. You start to notice those cracks, realize it’s a bit too small, wish you’d put in a bigger window. And before you know it, the talk is about the next fort, or the addition.

When we’re ten, the new fort planning begins about day 3. When we’re ten, we’re fearless in our unattachment, and it frees us to break-down and re-create ourselves and our world endlessly. Taking down that fort, careful to not splinter wood or lose nails, is every bit as creative and energizing as putting it up, because even during the destruction we are seeing the raw materials of the re-creation.

When we Grow Up, we stay in that fort longer. We get used to its creaks and smells, and very good at DIY patch jobs over its faults. If that support beam is cracking, we can just attach a second one alongside to shore it up. We build extra rooms and skylights on our soul and believe it will all hold together.

But now and then we need a Re-Do. We need to take that fort down all the way and start over. And if we don’t, life may just do it for us. More often than not we keep trying to patch up that fort until some out-of-our-hands “Act of God” not-covered-by-insurance earthquake shakes us right down to ground zero. Or the foundation wasn't built strong enough for all these additions and it finally just gives way. Either way, we wake up in a pile of rubble knowing it’s time to pick up the hammer again.

We need to honour the raw materials as they come down, knowing that they’re the starting place for the new structure. And we need the courage and vision of our ten-year-old selves to believe that this growing pile of rubble is still the foundation for a new castle in the sky. And believe that while much of the good character of the old fort can be preserved, this will be an even better one, this time with a deck on the roof and a secret entrance and maybe, just maybe, a bigger window that lets in a bit more sun.

Best U-Pick Strawberries

I'm a better man when I pick my own strawberries.

A favourite childhood memory is the annual trip way out to the country (Langley, when it was country) to the U-Pick strawberry fields. We'd put on our special old clothes, search around to find some old buckets, and starve ourselves to make room for the feast to come. Once there we'd have eating contests, and one notorious strawberry fight that included squashing juicy berries in each other's blond hair. We'd jump into the off-limits rows to get the larger commercial berries, and mercilessly pick just the biggest berries, leaving the smaller stuff and under/over-ripe berries on the bush or strewn on the ground. Only slightly embarrassed at their "boys-will-be-boys" boys, our parents would pay for the few buckets we managed to actually collect, and we'd be off home for an afternoon of jam-making and freezing.

This morning I wake up at 5:30 and wander a full 20 yards back to our three rows of strawberries. I'm wearing the same clothes I'd taken off last night (my closet has three sections: Farmer Ricky, Consultant Ricky, and - the most colourful - Ricky Ricky). I hose down one of the many buckets we use for almost everything and start in on row one. No hopping rows, I work methodically and slowly and peacefully along each plant, knowing I'll be out here until every plant was cared for.

I pick every berry that's ready, regardless of size (the small ones are often better anyways). Some look so tantalizingly close to perfect, but I observe a bit of lightness at the tip and leave them, knowing that when I come back in a day or two they'll be even better. The ones that the slugs have taken a chunk out of get picked too - when I go back in to sort, they'll go into the jam pot, while the "perfect" ones will be flash frozen on pizza trays. Not a berry is wasted.

I also care for the plants as I go. Rogue weeds are removed. I observe the health of the soil, and rearrange the drip-irrigation tubes. A few full strawberry plants are removed where they've become too dense to allow enough sun in. And an entire planting pot is filled with slugs (it's a bad year for those little friends) to dump into a big garbage can of water at the end. Slugs are much more agile than you'd expect - every minute I have to push back down the ones that have ambitiously crawled up to the lip of the planter looking for freedom.

As we'd drive away from our childhood U-Pick adventure, in our haste to gather a year's worth of berries in one morning we'd leave behind a path of destruction that some poor Langley farmer would have to remedy. Here on my own farm I've improved the health of my plants, making space for more berries to grow and ripen.

The slow ritual, repeated every few days throughout the season, gives room for contemplation. I remember the woman in Saanich who sold us the starter plants, and how patiently Sarah has been dividing the runners and growing our plot each year. I reminisce about the hundreds of hours we spent with Joe and Nathalie creating these garden beds, and the dreams we had of Someday having enough strawberries and blueberries and other perennials to get us through a full year. Three years later, I'm living that Someday every day.

As the sun rises above the treeline, I reverently drown the slugs and carry a full bucket of organic, zero-mile berries back to the kitchen. I realize that I've picked over 500 berries and eaten exactly two. There was no need to gorge on someone else's free berries. These are ours, and eating will happen all year - frozen, jam, syrup - and later today in a fresh pie or shortcake or homemade icecream for my Farmer Wife's birthday.

I was blessed to grow up knowing where strawberries come from, but never really appreciating or respecting where they come from. Now that I'm even more blessed to know who they come from and how they grow, I don't pillage anymore. I'm part of a symbiotic, give-and-take relationship with my strawberry plants, and the berries taste that much sweeter from the exchange.

Oh (sigh) Canada

We tried to be patriotic at dinnertime, listing things we like about Canada. A kids kazoo band buzzing out "Oh Canada" at The Hub should inspire optimism in our big little country, right? So why do I feel like the core things I'm proud of about Canada are slowly (or not so slowly) being eroded away?

Canada cares for the environment.
Canada is a Peace-loving, Peace-promoting nation.
Canada believes in reformation, not just incarceration.
Canada is deeply committed to free universal health care.
Canada has a great public education system.
Canada contributes significantly and effectively to international development.
Canada doesn't have the huge disparity between rich and poor.
Canada promotes and honours its cultural identity.
Canadians are willing to sacrifice personal wealth and comfort to help others.
Canada is a model of democracy.

Regardless of whether Harper is the architect or just the symbol, every one of those statements is becoming less true. We are a nation going backwards, reneging on our commitments and our beliefs and our values, losing what has truly made us special and unique and respected and valued in the world. We are increasingly ruled by fear instead of hope, self-interest instead of love, growth instead of prosperity.

I'm still proud to be Canadian. Proud of our history, proud of our identity, awed by our potential. I just wish I could feel hopeful and proud of the direction we're going.