Two car rides home. Two entirely different experiences.
Thursday night I hung out with Generation Wave.
Generation wave is the hip hop activist group that first gained prominence after the saffron revolution for using creative means to protest against the junta. (They've been operating above ground in the country since late 2011)
Thursday was their 6the anniversary party. It was an ok affair, formalized. Poetry, singing. but choreographedish/formal feeling. Afterward, because we were hanging airound and I know a couple of guys in the group, we got invited ot hang out with them.
So I haven't updated this blog in a really long time , yeah?
To be honest it wa a very conscious decision on my part for a while. And then after that became the norm it was easy to let that continue to be. Conscious decision because my life went a bit topsy turvy for a while. School, apartment, life, ... Everything but work really (though the outside stuff started to affect it...). Well, but so things have been mostly put back on their feet again. So. I will not dwell on that.
I'm not going to go in long details about everything ive done/seen along the way. Just maybe a few one liners to sum up some things over the past month and some.
Medical tourism -> I got sent to Thailand for medical tourism. A breath of needed development and fast Internet, then was super excited to come back.
Right before I left I met the head of Generation Wave. About my age, a pretty inspiring , interesting person. Why Inspiring? Well it's one thing to wax poetic about democracya nd rights and justice if you're from the USA or any country where that's a given. It's quite another to do so when you're form BUrma. A place where politics is seen by many to be a dirty word. Or at least people have been 'bred' in a sense by the govt and for personal security reasons to see it as such.
Apartments, rent. Etc. sucks in Burma. You pay an entire years rent up front. Tink about how that screws the social contract.
Underground music scene here. Fun!
Going into the studio with a young band I Met. They insist on buying me lunch, it breaks my heart.
Selling my (or just about) first radio story. ( I'm waiting for the final edit to then do the production ).
International day of peace march, park events, labor protests... is civic democracy for real here? Or is that just my optomistic pipe dream because im not at the protests and events where people are being arrested?
Being insanely busy. No really. Work to research (to wondering what the hell I'm doing with my research). To taking my work home. Freelance work. Yah. Is been a bit much. But now it all seems like it's finally settling down.
Really interesting people. Really interesting city. Although some bad stuff has happened in my personal life along the way here, losing money, etc. there are these spurts of amazing ness, meeting amazing people, doing amazing things, that I can already feel how hard it is going to be to leave this place in late December. How I don't think it'll feel like enough. DC....
Wednesday night, I found/finally went to a really froofy gym id been told about.Well, froofy for Yangon. It's not as cheap as the one dollar one, but it's also not as pricey as the hotel ones. But the Burmese who do go there, who can afford to go there are pretty rolling in it. I got a ride home from a guy who owns a garment factory (oh plus family rubber plantation, mobile shop,etc etc. went to college in Australia. Doesn't really like working for his family, all he wants to do is. Yup. Sing. Nice ride home in beautiful imported car from Japan).
As a researcher this place is interesting. as a journalist, it's amazing. I literally stumble over fascinating stories at every turn.
Driving home from this beautiful restaurant on the lake. (After hanging out with GW. It was the nit of their 6th anniversary birthday party). In the back of a truck with some GW guys, (being the good daughter of the peds neurologist that i am, i of course take all precaution possible. And while sitting in the back of a truck kor car that has no available seatbelt and or anything. yes. That means absolutely nothing. stories of head injury flash through my brain. and yes, theres nothing i can do. and yes. my mother is reading this.). Coming home, close to midnight, and I see spots of light in the street of people sitting at tables eating, awake and lively at hours I didn't expect, and I really thought of how amazing of a place this is. And how amazing that I am here at a time like right now.
.
I'm just about done w my full time journalism gig. The freelance world beckons? Not to mention my research.
No comments:
Post a Comment