The Myanmar Testosterone Club

Boys will be boys. Whether Myanmar or Canadian, white- or brown-skinned, boys will be silly, wild, creative, bored. Teenagers will be aggressive, tender, high, low, smelly. The mutual thrill of befriending someone from another culture (see 3 blog posts ago) has quickly and naturally transformed into kids’ friendship, and our living room has transformed into the same loud, smelly-feet clubhouse as our Canadian home.

The twins – now somewhat distinguishable as “Nee-Nee” and “Ko-Ko” – usually arrive first, ready to launch into living-room badminton or guitar or whatever’s on hand. Pyo Zin Oo (the short joker and our favourite) comes a bit later and alternates between the Kill-The-Man badminton attacks and quieter artwork with G’s geometry set. The other two boys are a bit more irregular. How these 5 have ended up being the gang is a mystery, but they’re lovely and real.

Saturday we rented a “moto-taxi” – motorcycle attached to a cart – into which we stuffed all 7 kids, John Bo and his parents, and me and Sarah. For $5 we motored to 2 ancient temples and the local volcano – a series of burping black mudpools that are slowly creating hills and a surreal lunar landscape on the edge of town. We bought a variety of beautiful mystery fruit and two lava-clay owl ornaments, the twins bought 3 sparrows to be released for good luck, and we still got home in time for the daily soccer (“football”) game at the stadium.

Presents and food are still central. The boys arrive with local sweets or fried mysteries that we usually struggle to enjoy. On them we inflict chocolate chips and sushi and cilantro pesto, with equally baffling results. We celebrate and play with the cultural differences, while mostly enjoying the common elements that make us people and friends first.

Sunday the boys walked us down to the river and hired a fishing boat to take us out to the sandy island in the middle of the river. The 7 kids erupted onto the island doing everything you’d expect kids to do – run, swim, sand castles (looking alot like the temples we visited yesterday), scooping tadpoles, racing, digging canals to bring water in from the river, chasing birds. We were 8 dirty, wet, panting bare-chested boys on a beach (and one amused wife) – is there anything more universal?

At first I babysat them, helped the boys integrate and learn how to navigate language and cultural barriers. Now they toodle through town with their gang or hang out here while Sarah and I do what good parents everywhere do – hide in our air-conditioned bedroom, coming out to break up the occasional argument, redirect bored kids, feed them regularly, and arbitrarily send them all out to the street when they need some air.

John Bo laughs at me when I flash the neighbour. The twins laugh at G when he farts. Boys will be boys. And friends.

Natural Beauty

I can’t remember the last time I wore pants. Undies, however, may need to come back into use.

When I wear my longyi (traditional skirt that pretty much all Myanmar men and women wear), I’m not trying to fit in and be fashionably cool and local. I’m trying to stay cool, and comfortable, and, um, free. I simply love wearing it, and happily my wife loves me in it too.

But there’s a fine art to tying the knot that keeps a longyi up. Locals are constantly re-tying it while walking down the street, happily flapping the skirt a few times to refresh the air supply before the ritual double fold, tease-out-2 ends, twist-once and tuck in. Young men playing chinlone pull the bottom edge up and tuck it in at the waist, creating the sexiest diaper look imaginable. Fashions include tight neat knots, Big Bulging Man knots, let a long end flop out free in the wind knots, and clever ways to tuck your money into the knot for market days. I’ve gotten good enough that I can go hours or even a full day without needing to re-tie, nor worry about what I need to wear underneath as a precaution.

Until yesterday, that is. Our newly-befriended neighbour came over with a gift of fresh watermelon. At one point during the visit with this young woman and the usual other folk who gather at our house, I gave Sarah a high-five. John Bo’s parents were so amused that they did a two-handed slap (high-ten?) Not to be outdone, I motioned to Sarah to do a jump-in-the-air high ten.

As we both gracefully launched into the air and slapped hands, the longyi knot strained against this new vigorous motion. When our feet triumphantly landed on the concrete floor, my longyi triumphantly landed around my knees. I quick-as-lightning pulled it back up, laughing and looking to see just how much had been revealed to our friends. John Bo’s quick commentary settled any doubts about modesty having been spared:

“It’s Okay, Mr Rick. Natural beauty.”

It takes 5 minute to walk over to the office, but much less time for a good story to travel. By the time I reached there, knowing smiles and giggles met me at the door. My other co-worker, Thein Thein Win, greeted me with a coy question – “So, Mr. Rick, how is the longyi tying going?”

“Good until today”, I replied. She smiled, then outright laughed, and said, “I heard. Natural beauty!”

Confessions of a Co-operative Missionary

What am I doing here? Every overseas person – whether development worker, missionary, or in my case, “Co-operative Expert” – must ask that in at least one crisis, and hopefully as a reality check on a regular basis.

I’ve been sent to Myanmar by the Canadian Co-operative Association for 3 months to help promote/support the co-operative movement. For better or worse, co-operatives are a central pillar of the government’s Poverty Alleviation strategy. Co-ops are being set up in every village in the country, through which the government is channeling micro-finance loans for farmers and entrepreneurs. This presents a tremendous opportunity to work within the existing framework – on the surface, at least, we are not swimming against the current.

The first of two major challenges is the limited understanding of cooperatives. Co-ops are almost exclusively used for micro-credit loans, without seeing the potential to cooperatively address many other community issues. They tend to be run similarly to other businesses or non-profits. Leadership is often not rotated, and usually not shared by women. Overall (and please note that there are strong exceptions to each of the things I've just listed), members do not feel or exercise a true sense of ownership – the co-op is merely the necessary vessel to receive necessary aid.

I deeply believe that the co-operative model, comprehensively applied, would bring great benefit to the member farmers. Our hope is to help create a model co-operative that demonstrates:

• Community ownership – people understand the co-op to be owned by them, for the benefit of their own members
• Initiative – members use collective action to creatively address their own challenges, not just the narrow vision of receiving loans or other assistance from external sources
• Democracy – leadership elected openly, rotates, and is responsible to the members
• Gender balance – true women leadership and representation
• Accountability – members understand, exercise, and demand their right/responsibility to be part of the financial and operational oversight of the society
• Open and Voluntary Membership – co-op resists the impulse to close the doors after founding members receive benefit, but rather see the strength and mutual benefits of increasing membership

A co-operative embracing these principles will thrive. But how to help the farmers understand this, when there are no co-ops that I have found that model all of these principles? We can and will do endless education workshops, share Canadian examples, search out those few brave souls willing to try something new. But in the end, we have to be honest with ourselves – the initial participation will happen because we are also providing loans or fertilizer or something.

The second challenge, therefore, is how to develop a true co-operative in a place where people do not currently want, trust, or believe in such a movement? Co-ops have been forced down people’s throats for decades. First by a socialist government who made co-ops the way to start a business or acquire farmland. Then a current government –equally well-intentioned, I believe – tying access to credit to co-op membership.

Are we well-intentioned NGO’s any different? For two exciting hours last week I met with the co-op department staff envisioning an “integrated farming” co-op with seed saving, organic fertilizers, collective farming/processing/marketing. But in the third hour, we managed to get down to reality, which was that farmers do not want to farm collectively. They will jump through these hoops in order to get whatever assistance our project can offer, but their preference would be to receive the inputs then farm on their own.

So I am the missionary offering free meals in exchange for bible lessons, the government mandating co-ops to get loans. “It’s for their own good,” says the government Minister. “They’ll thank us for it later once they’ve seen the light,” says the church minister. “Once they see the true benefits of a true co-op, the movement will spread of its own accord, even without assistance bribes,” says this co-op development preacher. (And I can’t help but add Mary Poppins – “Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.”)

My own FreeRange Consulting business is the result of this type of mutually-agreed-upon coercion. I entered a government business-start-up program just to get the financial assistance it offered. They knew that was my reason, and I knew they were hoping to convert me into a businessman along the way. But through this dance I did learn a great deal about how to launch and run a business, and in retrospect I am glad that they forced the training on me.

Just like that government business program, I can offer training/vision that will benefit farmers in ways that they can’t fairly be expected to understand or believe before experiencing. I’ve travelled 14.5 time zones from my home precisely because I have a unique perspective and expertise in this area. I can give examples, handouts and fancy power-point presentations, but until they’ve tasted the difference for themselves they deserve to remain skeptical. It is my job – and the reason that the local sponsoring agency has invited me here – to introduce people to new ideas that may or may not take root eventually.

This story has a happy ending, or at least interlude. After visiting several strong but not cutting-edge co-operatives, we finally found an inspiring example. It’s an integrated farm that was started in 1979, the only way these landless farmers could get land from the government. In 1996 the military expropriated ¾ of their land, but the remaining 123 acres are still farmed by 22 member families. The whole project was imposed by the government and almost destroyed by it, and there is still an undercurrent of being forced to exist as a co-op in order to get ongoing aid. Not a promising base.

But after 34 years of functioning together as a co-op, watching new generations grow into membership, they’ve grown together. They built a school for the children, and provide scholarships. They’ve launched a fish farm operation together. And most importantly, over 34 years they have naturally formed real co-operative bonds, even if it takes a nosy foreigner to point it out to them:

“What happens if a member is sick during planting time?” I ask.

“We all go and help them, of course,” is the automatic and somewhat incredulous answer. “Why even ask such a question,” I see them thinking.

I press my point home, and in the process remember why I’m here. “Because in a normal place where each farmer only sees to her own farm, coming together to help might not be the automatic answer. THAT is what a co-operative is.”

THAT is the seed I’m here to plant, with enough passion that people are inspired or at least curious enough to try. And there’s nothing coercive about presenting an idea and the opportunity to try that idea out if it’s offered with respect and honesty.

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.