The Covid-19 Blog Post

Hi everyone! These are crazy times, and I know everyone is worried about everyone and everything in general, so I wanted to give a little update and assurance that I’m well and as safe as possible at present. If you don’t want to read it all, at least read these first two paragraphs! I’m still in Myanmar, but I’ve moved to Yangon and am living in an amazing AirBnB on a quiet street in a safe neigbourhood. We have a generator, lots of drinking water (and toilet paper, although we don’t need it thanks to bidets), and very easily accessible and well-stocked shops and markets near-by. All of the malls and shopping centers are now taking temperatures of all customers. Keeping a distance from people and avoiding touching surfaces is easy enough. We have even been able to buy masks and hand sanitizer in the past couple days. Many offices have closed, and bars and restaurants have been ordered to close too. I spend most of my time at home, leaving to get food or go for a bike ride on empty streets. I am far from the only foreigner who will be staying in Myanmar at this time, so we’re all here alone together.

The kitchen in my new place - so many appliances!

As for flights: I’ve been living in Myanmar since November 2017, in a city in the Southeast called Mawlamyine. For quite some time, I have known that the end of my contract there would come on March 15 2020, and I had made plans to travel to Canada in mid-April. I bought my ticket when prices were low at the end of February. It is a round-trip ticket, as I plan to return to Myanmar to work. Trying to change this ticket has proven impossible in the last week. I booked through a third party, and they have been absolutely swamped with calls and emails. I was on hold for an hour before I gave up and sent them an email, and now I wait for a reply. I looked at the option of cancelling that ticket completely and buying a new one, but the flight path options are not very appealing – layovers in China, where huge delays can be expected, or in the USA, where people are stocking up on BULLETS. The photos I’ve seen from American airports of everyone crammed into long lines and nobody wearing masks gets a big “NO THANKS” from me. So, all I can do is wait until the panic subsides a little and see what my options are. I’m alright with this, and I figure there are people out there, who were traveling around, and aren’t necessarily living or settled into these countries the way I am in Myanmar. I know LOTS of people (lots and lots), I know how things work here, I know where to get information and help if needed, and my visa lets me stay legally. So, why not free up the phone lines for people that are REALLY stranded? I promise, I am not “stranded”, I just have less freedom of mobility than usual.

The notice on the booking agent website!

I also think it would be nice to take you through a little timeline of my Covid-19 experience.

February

China started to really shut down at the end of January. Myanmar shares a HUGE, border with China, which many people cross over every day, often illegally, with limited checking or infrastructure. Many Chinese companies operate in Myanmar, or in partnership with Myanmar companies, and there must be thousands of Chinese nationals coming and going between Myanmar and China all the time on flights. I have been worried about a Covid-19 outbreak in Myanmar since the beginning of February. Thailand got its first few cases in February, and this was also worrisome, since this border is also huge, has many illegal crossings and limited infrastructure at the legal crossings. But life continued as normal, and Thailand managed to prevent an outbreak (in February at least), and if there were cases along the northern border areas, we didn’t hear about them. What did happen in February, was that everyone I knew got sick with an illness that we’ll probably never know for sure wasn’t Covid-19. It’s normal to get sick in Myanmar, and it’s normal not to go to the hospital to get it treated unless it gets REALLY bad. One by one, we went through the phases: sore throat, fever, fatigue, feeling “stoned” even without medicine, so much mucus and coughing. A couple of people also said it felt like “someone was sitting on their chest”, a symptom eerily similar to the difficulty in breathing linked to Covid19. Luckily, everyone recovered, and we told ourselves it must have just been a seasonal bug going around (weather changing from cool to hot). However, this theory is still brought up quite regularly in Myanmar, because if it was a cold it was a REALLY BAD COLD. Anyway, that was February, life carried on as normal, even though more and more countries saw outbreaks.

A photo of me from February, protecting colleagues from my bad cold or maybe Covid-19.

March

March 1^st is my birthday, and I was able to celebrate this in normalcy, and it was an amazing weekend. Still no sense of impending doom. We even went to karaoke like three times in the first 2 weeks in March! 

3 weeks ago but feel like 3 months ago! Times have changed!

However, sometime in March, things started to get really bad in Italy. In my mind, the virus is split between Before Italy and After Italy. After Italy, I think that’s when everyone (especially countries that hadn’t dealt with SARS) finally started to realize what the worst case scenario really was. Meanwhile, March 13^th I had my last day of work, facilitated a workshop on teaching sexual health in the villages and said goodbye to like 30-40 work colleagues over a huge meal. The opposite of social distancing lol. OOPS. March 14 -15 I was fully immersed in packing, selling things, and moving out of my apartment in Mawlamyine and into my AirBnB in Yangon. There was no time to think about anything else. On the evening of March 15, we went to the mall and got some pizza. My Plan A was to stay in Yangon these 4 weeks, do some consulting work, send lots of job applications, do some networking, maybe do some interviews. Plan A obviously crumbled immediately upon arrival.

Meanwhile, that same weekend, Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, gets on TV and says “It’s time for Canadians abroad to come home now”, and implies things are going to get BAD. In some ways, this is a good thing, and I’m glad the Canadian government tried to be proactive in this. For me, as an individual, this was very poor timing. On my first couple mornings in my new place, I was flooded with messages from family and friends asking what my plan was. I hadn’t even unpacked or recovered from the move I had just made, and I definitely didn’t have the mental space to process the panic. 

They stayed like this for 4-5 days

For Monday and Tuesday of last week, all I could do was read, watch, stress out, and sometimes remember to eat and drink water. I was paralyzed by anxiety. Wednesday I started to come to, and reached out to some friends in Yangon. Some are staying, some have already left, I’d say it’s about 50/50. Then I sat down and wrote out some pros and cons charts, one each for staying and leaving ASAP. Then I figured out my costs for each option. Well, the cons lists for BOTH options were much longer than the pros, and the costs are going to be pretty similar too. So, it didn’t help as much as it might have, but it did help me feel way more in control of the situation than I had been feeling, and this helped. On Thursday, with new, improved headspace, I made the phone call to the booking agent, gave up after 1 hour, sent an email, and decided not to stress about it ANYMORE. Whatever will be will be.

On Friday I was feeling pretty anxious. My anxiety has always taken physical forms – IBS, chest pain, jaw pain, tension headaches, you name it. So, on Friday my face was feeling hot and I was sure it was a fever. Luckily, my new housemates are super rational and suggested I go get a thermometer from down the street. And of course, my internal temperature was 100% perfect, nothing wrong with me at all. So now, when I start convincing myself I have a fever, I just pop the thermometer in my mouth, see that lovely 36.8 and relax. 

Stress Relief during a pandemic

Since Saturday I have been feeling immensely more normal and better, and I think I’m now ready to either get on a plane with like 24 hours notice or to stay in Myanmar until May or beyond holed up in this house.

UNTIL MAY!? Hope I didn’t scare you Canadian readers, but that is very likely the minimum amount of time it will take before the situation is more stable (but it WILL get more stable). Well I am confident some travel options will remain open to me (via Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan for example), many countries are closing their borders and many flights are being cancelled. It’s not a good time to move around right now, or to take a long haul flight to the other side of the world. That's why I don't mind staying put for now.

The Pros and Cons

I think you might be curious about my pros and cons list, so here’s a little sample

Option 1: Drop everything and fly to Canada ASAP

Pros	Cons
Don’t have to worry about visa	No health insurance for 3 months
Free rent in nice house	Bad English teaching hours (5-8am)
Can trust the government (mostly)	Change flight or get new one, could be expensive
Near nature and hiking	Food and transportation expensive
Home for planned trip (unless all of that gets cancelled)	Empty grocery stores
	Could get stuck in a layover country
	Bayfield not so exciting
	Might put mom at risk

*”Being near family” is not on the pros list because for at least 2 weeks I wouldn’t be able to have any contact with them anyway!

Option 2: Staying in Myanmar

Pros	Cons
Cheaper health insurance, provider covers Covid-19 related costs	Might have to extend current visa without leaving the country (expensive)
Better teaching hours	Might have to cancel Canada plans and trips
No lockdown yet	Pay rent
Might be better for work	Bad healthcare system
Have nice place to stay	Government misinforms
Good chance China will send aid and people if there’s an outbreak

 **Making pros and cons lists is hard when you don’t know ANYTHING and everything is uncertain. 

Daily Life

I also think my daily routine is mundane enough to convince you that I’m doing just fine.

7am-8am – Check messages, chat with family and friends in Canada, drink some tea, eat a banana, check email

8am-9am – yoga, shower, eat

9-12 (ish) – maybe go to the market to buy food (wear a mask, wash hands right after)

-       Do online work

-       Today I wrote this blog post

Lunch  - make at home

Afternoon until 4PM

-       Do some work, watch some Netflix or TV, read, eat early dinner,

4:30 – 7:30 PM – Teach online English classes to the Chinese kids

8PM – eat dinner, chat with housemates, watch a movie, read a book, go for short bike ride

My teaching schedule for this week - I'm not going broke

So to summarize: I’m safe, I’ve got everything I need to stay physically and mentally healthy, and I’ve got plans A, B, C, D, E and F ready to go depending on how the next few weeks unfold. I’m not alone, I’ve got a steady source of income, food and soap and I got my Spotify account working again. Unfortunately, the future is extremely uncertain for all of us, but I think in a few weeks from now we will know much more. So hang in there, stay sane and be grateful for the internet for letting us connect without passing germs to each other. Also guys, can this be the end of the handshake forever? Yes, right?

 

PS- In case you're wondering, little bro Robert's safe and healthy in Australia too, but if you ever have to pick between me and him for your zombie apocalypse team I'm definitely the better option just a friendly FYI 

Mid (ish) 2018 Update from Mawlamyine

Hello dear friends and family and I guess maybe some other people!








It is August and we are deep in the middle of an even rainier than usual rainy season. Even with the air conditioners on, the battle against mold is never-ending: clothes never fully dry, and just keep getting wet from riding on motorbikes in the rain. The sun rarely makes an appearance, and when it does it is fleeting.

This is the daily weather report in the newspaper that is the same EVERY DAY.






















On top of being inconvenient and a bit gloomy, this rainy season also brings flood risks. I am lucky that my house is on high ground, and I have been able to avoid flooded streets in my daily business. The worst that has happened was getting stranded in Mawlamyine for 5 straight days, cutting a highly anticipated trip to Yangon in half. Even then, the flooding was not here, but on the way, closing down the highway. The road was closed for so many days that I ended up flying to Yangon (a 45 minute, very overpriced flight).

A photo taken by a friend's friend who got stuck halfway to Yangon. This is the bus I would usually take.

So yes, it's raining, and a lot of time these days is being dedicated to rainy day hobbies and activities. In July a group of 5 of us joined a boxing class at a pretty fancy gym we 'discovered', and this has been a sanity-saver. Since we had to buy a membership for the classes, we have also been trying out some of the other classes and meeting the other trainers. There really aren't many foreigners in Mawlamyine, and we seem to be the first to go to this gym, so lots of the trainers and other members are pretty intrigued by our presence. Everyone is extremely friendly and welcoming, and it's been a really excellent experience.

The gang with our teacher. He's happiest when we are suffering.

Rainy season has put a bit of a damper (GET IT) on exploring and roadtrips, just because driving a motorbike in the rain is truly as unpleasant as you're imagining. The monsoon rain is Canadian thunderstorm rain ALL THE TIME, so imagine a wall of high-velocity raindrops hitting you going 40km/hour with only a thin plastic rain coat on. It hurts, it's cold, it's hard to see anything, and I swear everyday one of those high-velocity raindrops manages to hit me RIGHT in the tear duct. Not to mention, arriving everywhere, all the time, soaked, isn't really a good look for anybody. I get wet from like right above the knee down, but also a circle right in the middle of the top of my chest. If I'm on the bike long enough, these two wet zones will eventually meet in the middle. The potholes are also getting REAL serious, as water just erodes the pavement and new potholes seem to appear every night, some of the like a foot deep.

Monsoon street fashion

While caves are out for rainy season, waterfalls are definitely in. Spending a day in and near a waterfall is a really popular activity for the locals, and most of us are lucky to get invited to tag along. Finding the waterfalls without the help of someone to show you the first time can be a bit difficult. Google maps are not very useful here, and there are very few road signs, or signs at all really. But once you find them, it's great to know you can go back and enjoy a swim!

Other good rainy day activities are getting clothes made at one of the many many tailors with inexpensive fabrics, board games (we played risk for 5 hours a few weeks ago) and baking (just got an oven), along with classics like reading, Netflix and playing on a small keyboard that a bought a few months ago.

Not just Risk, Game of Thrones Risk

Alright, seems like I've complained enough about the rain for now. Outside of #monsoonlife, things are going quite well. With some help from another Cuso volunteer, we managed to create a website for Jeepyah (where I work), which you can see here:https://jeepyah.org/  I have never made a website before, and it's something that I can actually show off to people, unlike most outputs of my work (although these are also available on the website in the Publications section). Some cool new projects are starting up, one working on engaging women in politics and elections, another addressing gender-based violence and harassment and stigma around talking about sex. I really love working with my local colleagues and am very excited to see what they will achieve with these projects! Please, if you want to support me through Cuso, I'm still nowhere near my fundraising goal despite several stern talkings-to (take pity on me I'm such a bad a pathetic fundraiser!)

https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/FundraisingPage.aspx?registrationID=3869366&langPref=en-CA

JCSDO staff and students of their training course

My supervisor and I wore the same shirt to a meeting

My language learning is coming along quite nicely, especially with how little effort I've made and how bad of a student I've been. I think living here in Mawlamyine, rather than in Yangon, is making the difference. In Yangon heaps of people, including taxi drivers and people working in shops and restaurants speak English. In Mawlamyine, if you want to eat in most of the restaurants you better do it in Burmese! Taking taxis here also usually requires at least a little Burmese. In addition to Burmese, I am also learning the Mon language, which all of my work colleagues speak, most as their Native language (Burmese is a second language). In Mon I know the essential words like eat, come, chicken curry, fried pork, rice, home, go, and how to greet people and be polite and stuff. The sounds in both languages are quite difficult, but Mon takes the cake guys. There's one sound that is like "mb" that comes from the back of your throat, and I straight up can't make it. Not even close. Luckily, I'm getting enough brownie points with the limited language I can use to get by.

And last but not least: Ontarians, rejoice! I am still planning to be home for Christmas this year, and should be around for at least a month. Please try to limit the snowfall and windchill, I don't think I'll manage it very well at all this time around.

Many thanks for reading this and continuing to not forget about me! I really appreciate it 😍! See you in December, or even sooner if you want to come visit (October and November are great weather here!)

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.

Some weird food

LOTS of baby bodily fluids on this particular day at work

Some more strange (but delicious!) food

Luckily, the rewards, both personal and professional, are worth it, and it's shaping up to be a great first year of my 30s.

A resident of Jeepyah's shelter project holds her baby. Jeepyah supported her through pregnancy and delivery

Where in the World is Mary Update

Hello from hot, humid Myanmar! I have been to Canada where several people told me again that they actually enjoy reading these blog updates, and a few friends have admitted to not actually knowing my whereabouts, so I’m feeling freshly motivated and compelled to write.

I left Uzbekistan at the beginning of October, and stopped along the way VERY briefly in Russia, Barcelona, and the Azores Islands of Portugal. I met up with some CEU classmates in Barcelona for a lovely couple of days while they waited out the strikes and protests. Then on to Canada, where 6 or 5 weeks or so flew by as I bounced around between Southwestern Ontario, Ottawa and Toronto. Thanksgiving and its many pies were a special highlight! As always, all visits were lovely and it was fantastic to see so many people!

On November 8 I left Canada for Myanmar. I’ll be staying here for 12 months, working in a small city called Mawlamyine. You may recall that I’ve actually been to Myanmar before, but I never got this far south in the country. It’s brand new territory!

The work

I’ve taken a position through a Canadian organization called Cuso. Cuso finds local partners and helps them to decide how a “volunteer” from Canada might best be able to assist in developing capacity and then finds the best person for the job. The local partner in my case is a small, community-based organization called Jeepyah, and I’ll be helping them to first assess their position as an organization and then develop sustainable strategies for stability, growth and impact. The idea is to transfer my technical knowledge and skills to various members of the group, and since I up until now have been somewhat of a generalist, it is fitting that we’ll be working through multiple areas together over the next year.

Cuso

The process through Cuso has so far been a dream. The level of support given to us (they call us volunteers) before and during the placements has so far been exceptional. I spent the first two weeks in Myanmar doing an in-country orientation in Yangon (the capital). Everything was provided for us, including a very productive language class. 

Cuso works all around the globe, matching the needs of their partners with the skills of applicants. From a development perspective, this is an excellent model for building the capacity of people who already have excellent ideas about what should be done to improve their communities, and is a very sustainable way to go about supporting them. If you think you’d like to contribute to such a sustainable and high-impact activity, feel free to click this ridiculously long link and contribute a donation to the organization! And if you were going to get me a Christmas present, please donate here instead!

https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/FundraisingPage.aspx?registrationID=3869366&langPref=en-CA

Jeepyah

I am only a few days into working with Jeepyah, and I’m still figuring some of it out. It is split between a Women’s Empowerment Project, a Community Development project, so Child Rights Monitoring, and Community Mobilization. It is an ethnic organization that is particularly focused on the Mon people. In Myanmar, the Burmese are the majority and are the most represented group in government. All other groups are considered minorities, including the Mon, so their commitment to ethnic identity and tradition is strong. The office is a house in a residential area in Mawlamyine, and they have a training center nearby. Only a few of my colleagues speak English, and they are the ones I will work most closely with. Jeepyah also has close ties with other civil society organizations. I think a more detailed blog will follow once I figure things out a little more.

Two (and a half) very important colleagues!

The town

Mawlamyine is the capital of Mon State, and sits on a large river, not far from the ocean. It is a pretty quiet town, with one modern shopping center (thank the heavens it at least is there!) with a LOTTERIA (Korean McDonalds) inside it to cover my western fast food cravings. I’ve also seen two places advertising “pizza”, although the quality and standard remain unknown. I’ve seen a few tourists around, mostly backpacker types on rented scooters. In the hills surrounding the city there are some beautiful Buddhist pagodas, reclining buddhas, and other stupas and places of worship.

500 monk statues

The world's largest reclining Buddha

My apartment isn’t half bad, especially because it has an AIR CONDITIONER! It is also spacious, comes with an oven, and is conveniently located nearby to places that sell pizza and beer. It does NOT come with hot water, and there have been a couple power outages, and I saw a cockroach the other day (but just one!), but these things are all fine. Until March it also comes with a spare room with a king size bed in it…just saying. Maybe I’ll be driving my own motorbike by then too and can be a personal chauffeur!

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There you have it! A short sweet update to fill ya’ll in on the wheres, whats, whos, whys and whens, and just in time for Christmas so that when people ask how I’m doing there will be something to tell them! Much love to all who read, and ta-ta for now darlings!

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