ATM's

ATM's outside of Ocean Northpoint

These nice, sleek machines have been out there for a while now. I haven't tried it myself yet since you need a bank account with the bank that provided the machine. You can't use any ATM to use your bank account, not yet. Apparently, they are doing their best to get the systems connected and hopefully it will also soon be possible to have access to a foreign bank account since that would be great for tourism.

So far, I have never seen anybody use any ATM. Not these at Ocean, not anywhere else. I'm now thinking that it might be useful for us since it happens every once so often that we wonder whether we have brought enough cash along. Inflation is a nasty thing...

Unbelievable.. there are now even more car sales centres!

In the past week I have travelled around Yangon a bit more than I usually do. What surprised me so much is that there are now even more car sales centers. And I do not mean one or two new ones, there are many. Even in areas where there are already a fair few. They all seem to be selling the exact same types of cars and I doubt prices will vary much since they all have to go through the same car import scheme that the government has.

All these places are build on prime locations almost like it is an impulse buy decision. A couple drives by a car sales center and says to each other "shall we buy a car honey?".

Maybe  just don't understand the Myanmar psyche but even with something as expensive to set up as a car sales center, they seem to copy what someone else is doing and what they see as being successful. No matter if the other makes money or not, the perception is what counts....

There are now car sales centers in the front yard of houses to enormous steel constructions. They are almost as abundant as phone shops. How is it possible that these places can be profitable?
 

Weather troubles

At the moment we have a huge rainstorm dropping its water content all over the area here. It almost feels like being back home in wintertime. The sky is almost black and it is relatively cold at the moment.

This isn't the first downpour cum storm this week either. We had a similar one yesterday although I heard later that it was a very local one.

These past weeks every third day or so we have these storms. Sometimes accompanied with a massive release of electricity in the form of lightning. Sometimes just ear deafening booms. Like the one yesterday that made the glass window next to my computer rattle.

Usually around this time of year we have warm, dry weather. Now it sometimes seems like we are in the middle of the monsoon instead of cooing down to the Myanmar winter.

I always feel sorry for the people who are flying in or out of  Yangon when there is a storm like this. I hate flying on perfect flying days and anything less than perfect flying weather is worse. Flying in a storm like the one battering Yangon right now is something I do so not want to experience.

Weddings

We had a wedding last week of one of our teachers. On Thursday afternoon form 4 to 6 pm we all went to the wedding hall. We left our presents on the gift 'counter', as someone called it, and congratulated the newly weds.

After that we sat down at large round tables and were shortly after served massive amounts of food. Mostly meat and fish since that is what people like and it is a way of showing that you are wealthy enough to provide this.

What I always find interesting is that people sit down, eat, and leave as soon as they had their fill. A table behind us came in about 10 minutes after we did and had left way before we even had finished eating. Maybe their table companions weren't greact conversationalists but it is a pattern.

We had the remainder of the wedding with a dinner on Friday. I thought it was going to be different since only a few of us were invited. It was almost the same. The dinner hall was enormous and there were so many tables full of wedding guests.

To the disappointment of one of my colleagues we didn't see any of the official ceremony. That said, the food was very good and we ate our fill.

Book buffet

This is a word that starts me salivating the moment I think about it. Book buffet.. for a bookaholic like me there is nothing like it, especially since there are still very few bookstores here. Heavenly, that is what it is.

It is of course also:

• hard work
• sweaty work
• dirty work
• frustrating at times (when someone takes a book you had your eye on)
• much more expensive than I budget for
• addictive (terribly so)
• dehydrating work (I often forget to drinkenough even though water is readily available. And lunch I always skip. The word doesn't even register...)

So what is the book buffet? The Myanamr Book Center (one of our few bookstores) organises it twice a year. It lasts for 5 days. One one side of their compound they have discount books. Stacks of books for set prices. One the other side, and, my personal favorite, there are 5 huge tables full of books. You buy a 10,000 or 20,000 ks, bag ($12, $23) and start filling the bag with whatever takes your fancy. Most books are children's books and you have to sift through them carefully since their usually donated. You have very good, almost brand new books but for example also colouring books that have been done already. Most of the books are for younger kids, but every so often you find gold. A while ago I found a fantastic book on Autism for kids there. That was worth the 10,000 ks. bag it went in and much more. This time, I found 7 good novels for me. For KK I  found a wonderful 8 in 1, extremely heavy cookbook (in a 10,000 ks. bag with space left for books for Eaindra. Luckily the bags aren't sold on weight...). Xenne got stacks and stacks of extra books. He helped both on Saturday and Sunday to fill his bags (Saturday from 9 to 5:30. I'm doing my best to turn him into a book addict). Thandar had some trouble at first finding books she liked but she went home with 2 bags. She even found 2 Artemis Fowl books.

On Monday I tool my Grade 4 there on a field trip. I do that every year. In the weekend I put books aside that I think they will like. On Monday morning, they fill up their bags. It is always a huge success. Especially when we get back to school and they have the time to see what they and everyone else found.

Xenne and my books. KK's cookbook and most of Eaindra's books are not on the picture

The book buffet was last weekend. My muscles have recovered. I'm ready for the next one. Unfortunately it won't be until the end of march or early April. *sigh*

THE VISIT is over

Since we had an unexpected long weekend, we went to a favourite teashop of ours.  After all, we could take it easy and be out of the house for a little while as well.

When we arrived, the live coverage of President Obama’s visit was about to start. It was filmed at the airport and it was obvious that he hadn’t arrived yes. Even though there wasn’t much to see, all eyes in the teashop were glued to the TV set in one corner.

We saw him land (on TV) and how he greeted the reception committee. There was an intermezzo in which probably some formalities took place on the airport side. We saw a short recap of Barack Obama’s life.

We left while President Obama was driving along Pyay Road towards his meeting places. The streets were lined in students in their traditional school uniforms of white top and green trousers or longyis.

A friend who lives very close to Pyay Raod told me that her street was repaved this week and that all the owners had had orders to paint their gates. Heaven forbid that President Obama would look into a side street and find a street full of potholes and badly maintained fronts!

I do wonder what he has made of Myanmar. Just looking at some of the buildings that he would encounter like the international airport with its bumpy landing strip; some very modern and recently constructed business properties along Pyay Road, the houses along New University Road (since he would visit Daw Aung San Suu Kyi who lives along that road and the American Embassy is there as well), and the beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda which he managed to visit briefly.

It was odd seeing President Obama and Hillary Clinton decent from the plane. I’ve been here a few years now and it still surprises me how fast some things have changed. Myanmar has gone from a country you couldn’t talk about to a country everybody is discussing. From a pariah state to a country that has seen more dignitaries in the last year than in the previous 50 together.

Don’t get me wrong, I thing that this visit has been good for Myanmar. By the look on the faces of the people in the teashop what probably counted most for them was the fact that this visit was happening at all. It must have been something they thought would never ever come to pass. For the people here, the fact that he has been here must have been the biggest boost of confidence they have had in a very very long time. 

Quite a disruptive visit

We were speculating last week about having a day off tomorrow because of President Obama’s visit. Unfortunately, the always welcome words ‘you have an extra day off’ were never spoken.

This afternoon, during KK’s cooking class, we talked about it again, same result though, no one had heard the words that would give us an extra day.

Then this evening at around 9 pm, my assistant teacher called. She had it from a colleague. We have indeed a long weekend thanks to President Obama’s visit. Apparently a large section of Pyay Road will be blocked of tomorrow and our school happens to be on Pyay Road.  There is no use having the school open when nobody can get there.

Even though I have no problem at all with having an extra day to spend with the kids, I am a bit disappointed. We were working on persuasive writing with Grade 4 and they have sent beautiful letters of invitation to President Obama that I delivered last week at the embassy. They invited him to our classroom for some Myanmar snacks and a short lesson on the language and history.

It is a pity that the kids can not even have the suspense of the slight possibility that President Obama  could come for a visit.

Me, in stead of getting ready for another workday tomorrow, realize I can read some more in the excellent book I grabbed from the Library on Friday.

Cooking classes

KK has finished his cooking classes for non-Myanmar food. This was usually my domain but lately he has a new-found confidence in his own ability. 

At school several teachers expressed an interest in learning how to cook Myanmar food, especially our two house guests who both felt that the biggest downside in leaving our hospitality apart from the company (especially the kids) was missing out on the wonderful food.

Over the years I have met quite a few tourists and often they don’t like the Myanmar food. They claim it is oily and not very tasty. More often than not, they don’t eat at really Myanmar places since those restaurants are often more difficult to find.  Many restaurants here are more Chinese oriented.

They have a point though, Myanmar food can be oily. Many people here believe that it is good to use q fair amount of oil in cooking. It shows of your wealth. In villages without electricity, oil is used to cover the curry to prevent it from going bad. 

At our house we cook (or I should say KK cooks) with little oil and the result s of his efforts are very tasty, hence the request for the help in learning how to cook Myanmar food. So Sunday two weeks ago four of my fellow teachers came over to our place to learn about some traditional dishes. 

They started with la-phe or pickled tea in an original lacquerware dish, very typical Myanmar. Pickled tea tastes a lot better than it sounds.  It makes for great salads as well. 

La-phe

I left the kitchen shortly after they started. Our kitchen is not roomy enough to accommodate so many people. I just waited for the end results. And they were worth getting out of the way for.  Green tomato salad, pumpkin curry, pickled mango salad, chicken or pork curry (being a vegetarian myself I have no idea what it was and never asked), and the day’s favourite: bean curry.

Some ingredients

Fresh herbs

Everything is ready1

The mixing

cook in the kitchen

chop chop

The result.. yum!

The idea is to continue the lessons coming Sunday. They haven’t started yet on the Mohinga and other noodles (my personal favourite there is noodles Shan – village style), soups, and desserts.  Some of this will be done coming lesson. Good for my tastebuds!

Babies and the trap of too much cultural adaption

The other day at the bookbuffet (something that a well-known bookshop here organizes twice a year) I met a western couple I know and their beautiful, 4-month old baby.

As always, we talked babies and theirs in particular. It must have been at least 10 minutes if not longer that we chatted about all things little.

When I got back home I realised I had completely forgotten to ask their daughter's name. It is the kind of question that back home is the 2nd or 3rd thing you usually say, and it didn't even cross my mind until way later.

Here in Myanmar children often get their names really late, up to a year after they are born. I have asked for a name so often followed by a 'we don't know yet ' that nowadays I wait until I know the baby is about a year old. Then the relatives and especially the fortune teller all have had enough time to be consulted.

The father of this particular baby I met later and I now know the baby's name. He told me that when the baby was born the hospital staff reacted very surprised when the parents told them their daughters name. Their reaction was along the lines of ' how can you know it already?'. Well, because we westerners usually choose a child's name even before the baby is born. He didn't say so but thought it. It would probably be a difficult thing for Myanmar to comprehend. 

I was heartily ashamed of myself though. I knew western etiquette better than that.

Bando

Our group for Bando (a type of Myanmar martial arts) has undergone some small changes and we are now with more people. We all enjoy it even though we all get different things out of it.

Our teacher is the coolest guy ever. He is in his late fifties and we all think he is great. He speaks virtually no English and often skips a number when counting out loud. Apart from counting, his English extends to ‘teacher, ok?’ , a question he often asks if he wants to check if we can handle something more. He seems to go at just the right pace, faster when we are ready for it, slower when we seem more tired or need some revision.

Two of the group have now done the complete 63 steps of the basic poses. I have gotten as far as 55 and have done the routine once completely but without further explanation about the last steps.

I enjoy it tremendously. Much more than I thought I would. Last weekend I was even terribly disappointed when I suddenly realized that we had a holiday on Tuesday and therefore wouldn’t have Bando classes.

We have now also started on some other techniques. I haven’t figured out yet how I have to integrate these new ‘actions’ in the Bando scheme of things but I’m confident that it will all fall into place in the next couple of years. Apparently, it takes a while to clear the beginner stage….