Mary's Far Away Fun Times Blog!!: 3 months in Myanmar

Hello world!

It's true, somehow three months has already flown by. PLUS, it seems like this will be the final blog post of my 20s. So two shocking milestones in one post.

First, let me tell you about how I've settled into my home for 2018. Mawlamyine is a beautiful but very boring (but somehow still very noisy) small city.

Very loud Buddhist concert of some sort

Very loud parade of some sort

There are no traffic jams and lots of trees. I've made a small group of expat friends and we spend quite a bit of time together, having dinner in the evening or going on adventures with our motorbikes on the weekend to pools or waterfalls or whatever sounds even remotely interesting. And yep - I mean my motorbike, that I bought and use on a daily basis to get to and from work and run errands and such. It's a small Honda semi-automatic, so it doesn't have a whole lot of power under it, but it gets the job done.

My beautiful baby

It's also provided a great deal of entertainment and freedom to explore the area. I'm very pleased with it! If you come to visit I'll let you try it out :)

Although this spot isn't in Mawlamyine, it's a good example of the kind of place I can now visit easily

I've been getting used to my new house. I bought some speakers to drown out the mediocre karoake coming from downstairs, and I've even started to suck it up and jump in a cold shower every once in a while. Here is my hilarious and tiny building manager, who decided to help me put up my curtains:

Work is still going well, and I think many of my colleagues have warmed up to me nicely. It took a month or so, but we got there. I've started teaching an English class to any interested staff 3 times a week, which has given me a great opportunity to get to know some of them much better. We've been busy writing reports as well as proposals to continue their programs.

My supervisor's son at my "desk" using my computer to do important power rangers related research

I've also been helping some organizations that are part of the larger Mon Women Network, so I've learned about land rights issues, political representation issues, child labour in the area and the push for a federal system. It's all been super interesting, and I think by then end of this 12 months we are going to be able to improve the organizational systems and structures of Jeepyah and make a significant contribution to building their capacity to deliver their great programs. If you're interested in supporting this work, please check out my Cuso fundraising page:

Journey with me!: Together we’ll support Cuso International as we work to reduce poverty and inequality.

My Myanmar language have been going well, much better than expected. I have lots of free time, so I've been having classes 3 times a week! The only problem here is that at work, the language used is Mon, not Burmese. So I've been focusing on Burmese since it's the most practical language, but also making an effort to learn some Mon. Unfortunately, these languages have completely nothing in common. and learning them simultaneously would probably not normally be advised. Let's see how long my motivation keeps up, but at this rate I might reach an elementary level in at least one of them!

Mon children on Mon Youth Day. They love to march, lots of marching

As mentioned earlier, my 30th birthday is also quickly approaching. I've been preparing myself mentally for the momentous shift from 20s to 30s most of this year. I'm not having any kind of crisis because what's ahead is definitely as exciting as what was behind. It's definitely got me feeling reflective and pensive though. I was talking yesterday with friends about how the days can still seem so slow but the years seem faster and faster, and my guess is this feeling just intensifies with age. I've met so many great friends in the last 10 years, and I can't wait to see what my 30s will bring. And hey, if you feel like you should get me a birthday gift, please please just donate to Cuso instead! (They're REALLY on my case about being a lazy fundraiser, you'd be doing me a big favour hahaha) Here's that link again:

Journey with me!

So the year coming up is going to involve a lot of listening to my work colleagues and coming up with solutions to their challenges at work and with running their programs, dealing with international NGOs and improving accountability. It's going to involve a lot of sitting on floors, eating weird food, deciphering broken English, narrow escapes from various baby-bodily-fluids incidents, heat rash and being extremely patient and flexible.