Hello hello, long time no talk (I’ve been a bit occupied with India and the sea and all), but I’m BACK!! Coming to you live from Cape Town (WOO!!)…
P.S. If you haven’t read my Vietnam Day 1-2 where I trek Sa Pa, click HERE…and Vietnam Day 3-5 where we go to Ha Long Bay, click HERE!
P.P.S The pictures are at the bottom if that’s more your cup of tea (or coffee).
Day 1: Yangon
Okay, here we are on day 1. This place is H-O-T, HOT. I know I say that about everywhere, but it’s hot everywhere okay. So we ported in Yangon right, but we were 1.5 hours away from the city center (yeesh) because of construction.
I use the term construction very loosely because you never knew if there would be actual work happening or not…also please note that the Burmese construction workers wore bright yellow rain boots as their construction boots and I got a real kick out of it (its not often you see a grown man in YELLOW RAINBOOTS).
So post our sweaty, bumpy, long (oh my!) bus ride to the city center, we made it to ‘downtown’ Yangooooonnnnnnnn! Queue shopping….. HERE. I know, you guessed it, we went shopping. For the record, this isn’t even my choosing (I’m more of an online shopping kinda gal if you’re wondering). And if you’re wondering if we’re spending all our money at markets, you’re probably right…
BUT— Hold up, this one was different. This one was the REAL deal, the REAL things that the Burmese people were making and buying themselves…some shops even had the seamstresses right there working. Obviously this is a lot different than the markets in China and Vietnam that we’re full of knock off designer crap…
You know its hot, I’ve told you already, but to reiterate, it was HOT. And in Myanmar, everyone is very conservative so we were all in pants. So we were desperate for something to cool us off. *Insert the Hallelujah noise and lights* We found a place we could get on the water and rent paddleboats or rather paddle-swans…
If you know Kyle, this picture is absolutely iconic (two swans, one pic)!!!
After that we ended up back at the ship because Josey, Kyle, and I (out of our group) had a field class (remember it’s like a field trip) for Psychology the next day and had on ship time (when we have to be back).
Day 2: Yangon
I don’t know if you noticed, but I didn’t make the first days post too lengthy (maybe you were happy about that, maybe not). Partly because it was kind of just an exploration kind of day and partly because I wanted the meat of this post to be about day 2 because it was an important day.
BACKGROUND: we are on a field class for my psychology class with about 25 students. The intention of the field class is that we connect our class to what we’re experiencing. Our professor, Dr. Christina Scott (one of the best teachers I’ve ever had) has two twin four year old girls on the ship with her. That being said she wanted to incorporate them.
That being said, we went to a single moms home (Dr. Scott is one by choice), a monastery school, and a nunnery school.
First up was the single moms home, Myintmo Myinttar Narkhoyar. Dr. Myat Sander Thant, who is a radiologist, started the home two years ago and has since helped over 160 mothers and their children. She started the home because she was approached by a 14 year old girl who was pregnant with twins as a result of rape and her family disowned her. The girl asked Dr. Thant to preform an abortion, but she refused. A few days later the girl committed suicide because she didn’t have a home to go back to.
How the program works is that woman who are eight or more months pregnant through the 45 days after the woman gives birth, have a safe place to go to ensure their health and their babies health.
About 60% of the girls come from families that disowned them and 40% are rape victims.
The average age of the girls who are in the home is about 15 years old. But the youngest who was there was 11 and had given birth 27 days before we had gotten there.
Part of the reason this was such a common thing, is because there is no sex education in Myanmar. Resulting in premature and unsafe sex and a staggering amount of rape (that goes unreported in favor of the male or cannot be challenged from lack of money).
For obvious reasons we didn’t take pictures of the girls or the children, but the whole experience was so impactful. How do you walk into a room of 7 pregnant woman ranging from 13-16 and relate? I’m 20 and can’t even fathom the idea of a child for SEVERAL more years (can you hear my parents celebrating).
Everyone struggled with the feeling of helplessness when we went there, so the bus ride to the next place was VERY quiet.
From there we went to the monastery, which was a school for all kids, but also novice monks. There we were able to participate and see what a school lesson was like. They sang us some of their songs and we sang to them too, but in
We were able to help prepare and set our lunch for the students…(I wish we were able to do more!!)
I WISH we could have spent more time with those kids…. playing and interacting with them is one of my favorite parts of traveling!!
While we were they we were able to see the novice monks prepare and pray before they ate, which was unlike anything I’ve seen (regarding Buddhism!). Fun fact: monks cannot talk to women only men so they talk to non-monk men to speak to women.
After the momentary, we went to the nunnery. Because of how much time we had left in the day, we didn’t get to do much besides a tour and a Q&A session with the founder.
Many of the girls who are in the nunnery, use it as a way to escape unsafe home villages. They live there 9 months out of the year, some all year round. And as I said earlier, the rape culture is HUGE there so 80% of girls who are in the nunnery, stay there because of that.
Overall, this day was heavy, enriching, and heartbreaking. Seeing the women and kids in some of the states they were in was hard to see. But at the same time it was incredible to be able to see into a religion so different from mine, in a unique way. Our class was able to learn SO much!!!
Note: when we got back to the ship our feedback to our teacher (who couldn’t go because her daughter was sick) was that we wanted more time to interact and to do something to help in some small way. It was awesome to hear how everyone grew from these experiences and how much everyone wanted to serve!!
ALSO! Myanmar day 3-5 is coming… at a later date. That post is a little more… let’s just say, complicated. It’ll come eventually & it’ll be a good one!!!
See ya later alligator,
Katelyn
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