Year end - Looking through the lens of a foreigner

December News - a point of view 

December consisted of weddings, luncheon celebrations to Christmas gatherings; Instructing a new set of ESL classes to making some progress with the Resource Activity Book known as ‘English Voices of Myanmar’.  From looking through the lens of a foreigner over the last 6 months in NayPyiTaw to our usual theatre of humanity  in  our local neighbourhood.

Our neighbours across the road continue to endlessly entertain us with the usual theatre of humanity.  What with the older sister and brother holding, dropping their large woven garbage bamboo basket, alternating between picking- up  fallen garbage to racing behind the navy blue garbage truck with other children teasing one another, while Kevin right behind them watch the ins and outs on the way – taking part of the charming chaos; To grandpa’s new diverting scheme in keeping his grandson busy with this and that, taking a risk in cajoling him only to find that his family has already left for school, quietly, wide eyes watching them drift by from a distance… While mom still bellows Myanmar words that we still don’t understand.  This time not at her son, who by this time is at the end of the dirt road far from her, but hollerss at another family whom they share their little compound with … :)

December began with a luncheon celebration to welcome new parliamentary staff, bestowed and organized by parliamentary officials,  which I gladly attended with  the office staff.  Everyone raved about the Indian chicken curry with chapatti especially prepared by talented parliamentary staffs for this special occasion.

On the weekend, in early December, we celebrated another special event.  Kevin and I attended my colleague’s wedding at the SweShiDaw restaurant where, on our arrival, arm in arm with one of the hostesses, we were ushered to the parliamentary officials’ tables rather than having the opportunity to sit with my colleagues, which I would have preferred; simply, to reconnect with them and to introduce them to Kevin.  The bride and groom, fixed smiles, were donned in beautiful attire and tirelessly walked from table to table for snapshots.  We had a lovely time and food delicious.

For Christmas, we  Kevin and I had a festive BBQ dinner party with friends and had a delicious decadent unique meal. Definitely mouthwatering range of flavours and textures that consisted  primarily of several meat dishes: Italian sausages, pork chops, steak, spareribs with wine, beer, cocktails  to ring the New Year in – the 2018 count down …The company, the food, and relaxing ambiance was more than I can say.  We’re so lucky! 

As for work, my old class, though previously agreed by the officials that I were to have them for one full year - 2 terms,  was dissolved for reasons  I will never know and 2 new sets of ESL classes were constructed.  However, something good always comes from something that one may naturally be disappointed with at first.   

Initially with this sudden change, it meant that I had little time to hold my small parliamentary group or my MPs’ English conversational group or in developing the Resource Activity Book that my former students and I began to write from the grassroots up.  However, my new classes are just as smart and geniuses and talented as my former 2017 parliamentary class!   

That is to say that although the Resource Activity Book ‘English Voices of Myanmar’ is progressing at a slower pace, with the consent of the big boss,  I was able to touch base, reconnect with some of my former students for the Myanmar translation.  I have also been given the consent to work with some of my present students to work on the book.

As for looking through the lens of a foreigner over the last 6 months in NayPyiTaw, we had some very good times and some challenging ones.

We feel very fortunate to have landed in a local community, living among the locals to experience the special things that we would never otherwise have experienced, if we had stayed in a hotel where other expats are expected to stay .  By day end, a surge of excitement rushes over me, down my spine as I enter our little dirt road and pass children squealing with delight, neighbours waiving and chatting and Kevin sitting on his red chair awaiting for my arrival from a hard day’s work.

 

Though we have a TV with one channel, TV is the last thing on our minds.   To date, I’ve read 19 books (different genre).  Normally, at home, I might be lucky if I read 6 – 7 books the most in one year.   As soon as I finish reading one, I’m already excited to start working through another; another story of people’s lives, love, friendship, their hopes, wants, etcetera.  That's when you realize how lucky you are to have the life that you have.   I’m in the process of reading ‘Hotel on the Corner of Bitter Sweet’ , Jamie Ford.  Look it up – it's a good read about love and friendship between an American-Asian couple.

Yes time has indeed past quickly. NayPyiTaw, often referred to as the perplex city from bystanders, after a time, does grow on you: the gentle people, their warmth, support   has had an optimistic effect on my work and me.  So far for us, collaborating, building the capacity of both parliamentary staff and parliamentarians have been most encouraging.  We've seen progress and milestones.   My new students, as my former ones were, are wonderful, respectful, eager to learn and super smart.

More will be posted at later time ....:)  In the meantime, wishing you fun reading and lots of laughter for January 2018....:)

Happy Holidays ....

Wishing all you in Cambodia, Myanmar and around the World a very Happy, Healthy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year 2018 – We wish you a year filled with love,  joy and much more  !

We miss you and often talk about the good times that we had together ...

Kevin, (my accompanied partner, my husband) and I have ventured off once again across the Ocean.  This time to Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar ... !

We look forward to sharing our ongoing adventures with you.

More will be posted at later time ....:)  In the meantime, wishing you fun reading and lots of laughter for the rest of December .... Alice / Kevin Chandler xo

Yamin Mg Mg

About Me – Brief Biography

 I am Yamin Maung Maung. I was born in 27^th of March, 1991. I have five family members. My father is an officer working at the Myanmar Railway station at  the Ministry of transportation. My mother is a good housewife. I have three siblings including me. I have two younger brothers. They are University students

As my saying childhood, I started school at the age of 5.  I was a primary and high school student at the No. (3), B.E.H.S Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township, Yangon.  The schools are located on the Upper Pansodan Road and a school for only girls.

In 2007, I passed the matriculation exam and received an A.G.T.I Diploma in 2009. Then I joined the Eastern University of Yangon and specialized in Physics starting with 2^nd year. I didn’t need to attend from the 1^st year as I got the A.G.T.I Diploma.

In 2011, I graduated with a Bachelor Degree of Science in Physics. In 2013, I got this job as a Lower Divisional Clerk at the Speaker’s Office of the Pyithu Hluttaw. After my 1^st year, I was promoted to as an Upper Divisional Clerk 2 years later I was again promoted as a Deputy Staff officer on  2^nd June, 2017. I still work at the same office with 4 years experience at the parliament here in my section.

More will be posted at a later date … 🙂  In the meantime, wishing you fun reading and lots of laughter for December and the New Year …. :)

ကိုယ်ရေးအကျဉ်း

            ကျွန်မ၏အမည်မှာ ယမင်းမောင်မောင်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၁၉၉၁ ခုနှစ် မတ်လ ၂၇ ရက်နေ့တွင်မွေးဖွားခဲ့ပါသည်။  ကျွန်မ   တွင် မိသားစုဝင် (၅) ဦးရှိပါသည်။ ကျွန်မ၏အဖေသည် နိုင်ငံဝန်ထမ်းတစ်ဦးဖြစ်ပြီး အမေသည် မှီခိုသူဖြစ်သည်။ ကျွန်မတွင် မွေးချင်းမောင်နှမ ၃ ယောက်ရှိပါသည်။ ကျွန်မအပါအဝင် တက္ကသိုလ်တက်နေဆဲဖြစ်သည့် မောင်လေး ၂ ယောက် တို့ဖြစ်ပါသည်။

            ကျွန်မသည် ကျောင်းနေအရွယ် အသက် (၅)နှစ်မှ စ၍ မူလတန်း၊ အလယ်တန်းနှင့် အထက်တန်းများကို အ.ထ.က (၃) မင်္ဂလာတောင်ညွှန့်၌ တက်ရောက်ပညာ သင်ကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ ကျွန်မတို့၏ ကျောင်းသည် အထက် ပန်းဆိုးတန်းလမ်းမပေါ်တွင်တည်ရှိပြီး အမျိုးသမီးများသာ တက်ရောက်ရသည့် မိန်းကလေးကျောင်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။

            ၂၀၀၇ ခုနှစ်တွင် တက္ကသိုလ်၀င်တန်းစာမေးပွဲ အောင်မြင်ခဲ့ပြီး ၂၀၀၉ ခုနှစ်တွင် A.G.T.I (IT) ဒီပလိုမာ ရရှိခဲ့ပါသည်။ ၂၀၁၁ ခုနှစ်တွင် သိပ္ပံဘွဲ့(ရူပဗေဒ) ကို ရန်ကုန် အဝေးသင်တက္ကသိုလ်မှ ရရှိခဲ့ပါသည်။

            ၂၀၁၃ ခုနှစ်တွင် အငယ်တန်းစာရေးအဖြစ် ပြည်သူ့လွှတ်တော်ရုံးတွင် အလုပ်စတင်ဝင်ရောက်ခဲ့ပြီး တစ်နှစ်ကြာသောအခါ အကြီးတန်းစာရေးအဖြစ် ရာထူး တိုးမြှင့်ခြင်းခံခဲ့ရပါသည်။ အကြီးတန်းစာရေးလုပ်ငန်းတာဝန် များကို ထမ်းဆောင်ခဲ့ပြီး ၂ နှစ်ပြည့်သောအခါ ၂၀၁၇ ခုနှစ် ဇွန် လ ၂ ရက်နေ့တွင် ဒုတိယဦးစီးမှူးအဖြစ် ထပ်မံ၍ ရာထူး တိုးမြှင့်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ ကျွန်မသည် ပြည်သူ့လွှတ်တော်ဥက္ကဋ္ဌရုံး တွင် လွှတ်တော်ရုံးဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ် တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်နေသည် မှာ ၄ နှစ်ကျော်ခန့်ရှိပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။

Haute couture made to measure ...

November news
The rain has stopped!  It’s the dry season and it’s turned cool, cool enough to enjoy (wearing) a cardigan in the evenings and early mornings.  One might even think about getting another blanket to warm up from the 17℃  evening chill.     By noon, by day however, with the warm sun,  temperatures quickly rise-up to 30℃ to 35 ℃.  

With the dry season,  each morning, straw hat ladies and men  beside our house, lay 3 large heavy plastic sheets, green, blue, red tarps across the narrow dirt road, covering both sides of the road to spread, arrange dried rice on them .  Every 15 to 20 minutes or so, in unison they rake the rice, sit around the raked rice to pick out unwanted husks and then begin the same meticulous raking motion over again, taking great care not to miss any gap, to erase footprints of any sort.  Families of roosters, mother hens and their young curious of this new event, looking for a bit  of action,  for a bit of rice for themselves, manage to walk across the sets of freshly raked rice to pick out a morsel or two when no one’s looking … :) 

November was a month of weddings and haute couture made to measure …Talented couturière are busy stitching beautiful wedding dresses, longyis for the guests. Equally special, wedding invitations are forever beautifully adorned in colourful Myanmar glitter letters wrapped in ribbons, sequences; typically a reflection of the bride and groom’s attire.   It’s been a month where weddings are now in full swing with loudspeakers plunked in the middle of roads everywhere in town, blocking and redirecting traffic.   Loudspeakers of course are set up for everyone to hear the throbbing 'loud' music, for anyone to take part in this unique experience …? 

As for work, parliamentarians have returned to their constituencies, to their villages for six weeks and are expected to return to the NayPyiTaw parliament next year – the second week of January 2018.   As a result of the MPs absence, all cafeterias are again closed and will re-open on their return.  Further, during the MPs absence, parliamentary staffs here at the parliament spend time going through more files to rip and shred.    Could it be  that highly talented, skilled and  highly qualified parliamentary individuals, with law, economic, IT skills and much more, could be of  benefit to each other: MPs to parliamentary staff and vs ?   Instead of spending countless, mindless time shredding files?    

MPs could potentially hire highly qualified parliamentary individuals to work directly with them for vital administrative support:    Parliamentary staff, with their skill set could potentially  make some or major political decisions etcetera  that will evidently positively effect and profit both parties in their jobs and keep them both in this high profile, profitable business instead of quitting early?

Before the MPs went home, for 2 weeks, I had the opportunity of working with 3 MPs , 2 women and a man who had sought me out for conversational English and to play catch-up in general. They said that ‘they missed me and enjoyed talking with me in English.  It was good practice for them … :)’   During one of our many conversation, one of them mentioned that he was overworked needing personal paper work assistance at the parliament and, with his constituency. The other two, both women doctors simultaneously agreed that it would indeed be most helpful to have personal parliamentary assistance when in session, if not  to receive parliamentary assistance in both places part of the time: at the parliament and at their constituencies.   

In Canada, in the West and in other parts of the world it is common for all MPs to receive subsidy with personal parliamentary assistance.    In this case, PMs could potentially employ a team of two or three personal parliamentary assistants, who’s tasked, could be from administrative responsibilities relating to legislation to research, media relations, lobbying and much more ....     According to staff , some MPs already receive some limited inconsistence assistance from committee staff members based at the Lower and Upper houses:  Amyotha and Pyithu – MPs working stations.

How could these MPs be funded?  Potentially they could receive funds from International donours’, instead of subsidising expats who receive high salaries and who’s money could be better used for the MPs , And, the parliamentary staffs’ overall well being.

Ironically, elsewhere at the parliament, The JCC  a.k.a. the Joint Coordinating Committee  (made up of a local eclectic  Pyramid team: a Chair, 3 MPs, 12 Parliamentary Officials and Staff)   have asked for another emergency meeting with the UNDP, a branch of t he UN.  The first, in September to ensure their renewal contract with the parliament was indeed still in progress; a sudden realization of potentially imposing international aid restrictions on the parliament due to instability in some part of the country.  

In November, the JCC called for yet a 2nd unexpected meeting with the UNDP and all NGOs and diplomats, who sat at one end of the room facing  Parliamentary officials at the other end to enquire the UNDP’s 4-year strategic scheme, yearly and monthly budget.   It transpired that the UNDP  didn't have a plan, spending close to 2million US dollars a month on  ‘little projects, on Shopping lists without tangible long term evidence or sustainability that MPs claimed was indeed impractical’.     What's more, they were also reluctant to share with parliamentary officials how the money was spent.   Apparently, the some 100 UNDP employees are moving from Yangon to NPT sometime in the New Year with a  new restructured plan?   

At the meeting and again recently, I had the pleasure, the opportunity of meeting some of the local UN-Yangon staff who appeared competent and eager to assist the people at the parliament.   As a result, I’m very much looking forward to working with them, with positive thinking individuals.  With their presence and talents, it looks that they will make a difference in the parliament!  Besides, it means that jobs will be given to the locals instead of the expats.   Cuso has it right!  They are indeed well prepared!  Cuso volunteers are on the ground and work from the grassroots up giving the people the right on job support: workshops, strengthening and building the capacity of the Myanmar people and much more ....

November  ended with some memoirs of our Cuso May cohort and a new Cuso Volunteer.  Our wonderful Cuso cohort, who arrived here in Myanmar with us last May 2017, all left Cuso prematurely for one reason or another.  As for me - for us Kevin and me, I have endeavoured to start my placement on a clean slate and to remain open minded despite some ups and down that one naturally encounters with any situations.   

November ended, here in NayPyiTaw, with a fresh new pair of Cuso eyes who’s joined the parliament.  Geoffrey is the ICT Advisor for the 4 ICT parliamentary units.  We ride to and from work together, which is a time to play catch-up and plainly enjoy each other’s company!

More will be posted at a later date ... :)  In the meantime, wishing you fun reading and lots of laughter for December ....

We are Here in Cambodia!

October News 

Time goes quickly.  It’s hard to believe that Kevin and I have been here in NayPyiTaw for almost 6 months.   It means that we are still having some enjoyable times … taking several trips around NayPyiTaw to get my laptop, that crashed recently, fixed, again. Celebrating newcomers, different groups of Parliament UK staff who have taken shifts, since I’ve been here, to work at the Pyidaungsu Parliament; while sadly biding farewell to a Cuso volunteer couple who left NayPyiTaw prematurely, a theme all too familiar.  Connecting with colleagues at work for a communal delicious lovingly prepared Myanmar picnic, a fusion of ethnic cuisine displayed on one of the leader’s large desk.   The sound of la vie quotidienne from our little community in our neighbourhood is still going strong. The two-year old brother, with grandpa by his side to comfort his grandson, continue to wail while watching his dad and his 2 older sibling leave home for school on the family’s motorcycle.  While the boy next door, hunter green longyi with a well pressed white shirt sets off to school on the family bicycle, shoots a glance, a wave, a pleasing smile our way.  Though we’ve had many activities on the go, I have no real excuse for not writing.  My motto is to procrastinate until guilt creeps in to tell me that it’s time to put pen to paper.

Kevin and I  spent our first part  of our anniversary in Kalaw which is a cool hill station and in Inlet lake. They are both located in Shan state about 6 hours by bus to the east of NayPyiTaw. We have had some tasty Asian food including barbecue duck and dim sum and some crispy fresh baguettes. Inlet Lake is a tourist destination but it is still the low season. We went on a private boat trip that was interesting but deafening because of the longtail engine.  The engine sound echoed in our ears thereafter before we were able to communicate again. 

As I speak, we are here in Cambodia for 2 weeks visiting with friends and colleagues in Phnom Penh, Kep, Sihanoukville.   We plan to visit Mondolki at a later date.    Though we were warned that Cambodia, in particular Sihanouk was not only becoming highly developed, becoming a zoo of high rises, a jungle of concrete: casinos, hotels, et cetera that were in the midst of being constructed, and, being taken over by approximately 5 million Chinese entrepreneurs, overnigth?   we still welcomed it with open arms, despite this revelation however ....  catching up with news, and the general Asian life style and most importantly with friends and colleagues that we so much missed.  It is indeed a nice break for us and it's the very place we wanted to spend our ongoing anniversary celebration in.

Our favourite place is Kep.  Kep is known as the ‘little French Riviera’ of Cambodia.  It’s a popular place for tourists and it is the place to relax, sleep and soak up the sun on a sleepy afternoon.  The best part of the day is taking a stroll to the sailing club with wonderful friends for a glass of wine and to end up with at the crab market to watch the sunset while eating crab slathered in Kempot pepper sauce.

As for work, on our return to NayPyiTaw from Cambodia, the MPs are back at the parliament!  With the MPs arrival,  extra security has been placed, so it appears. The large tattered set of orange pylons, line across the road just before the turn off to the Parliament, were restored with a number of police guards that sat at their station taking count of the number of cars that squeezed through the narrow open spaced pylons!  What’s more, extra police guards and parliamentary guards were at their gate stations to welcome the MPs return.   The cafeterias, open to MPs and staff,  are now back in full swing.  One of the cafeterias was set up closer to the Pyidaugnsu wing for easier access to staff and to save time walking the 'mile-long' hallways ....

With the welcoming of the MPs, 28 new parliamentary staff joined the parliament.  These new staff had successfully passed their last month's entry exams to work at the parliament.  During their week long orientation, they visited  all 3 houses: Pyidaungsu, Phyithu and Amyotha.  They read their contracts, listened carefully to the leaders' regulations, expectations et cetera.   At the end of the week, fully inducted, the new staff were given two longys each, their parliament uniform to wear for work.

Other news, the dry season has returned and brought with it ants that have returned to our house.  It's now the burning season so you can imagine the smoke and smell that we’re about to encounter Our humble neighbour, spent hours cleaning our front garden and driveway and, conscious of the smoke, burnt the dried vegetation at night so that we could escape the smoke.

Photos will be posted at a later date. 

More will be posted at a later date ... :)  In the meantime, wishing you fun reading and lots of laughter for November ....

If I had any tree planted in my garden ...

September news

If I had any tree planted in my garden, in Canada, I would have a flowering bougainvillea.   Our bougainvillea in our little courtyard has flowered since our arrival here in NayPyiTaw, since May 2017. What a treat! To me, overtime, bougainvillea flowers have become significant. It means life, joy and renewal.
A celebration for Kevin and I is indeed in order! September is an exciting month for us, because it marks our 38^th wedding anniversary. Kevin and I met traveling in India; and together we continued our travels throughout SouthEast Asia.  Since that time, after a number of years at home, in Canada, raising a family, watching our children leave the nest and beginning a life of their own, finding themselves on the threshold of a new life that awaited them, we’ve decided that it was time for us to embark on new journeys across the ocean; to live and work in developing countries. First, in Cambodia for 3 years, and now we’re in Myanmar for a year.

 
Throughout September, we had a series of invitations both from my Myanmar colleagues and from parliamentary staff celebrating birthdays, farewell parties, and various other events, and, visiting one of my colleagues, in her office.  KathyAung was transferred from the Pyidaungsu Hlataw to the Pyitu Hlattaw.   As for events, Parliamentary volleyball, football and table tennis teams received a logyi for work and their rightful trophies: some semi transparent, some opaque glass plaques with a sport symbol etch in the centre of each plaque.   What’s more, pleasantly surprised, my students and staff brought me a series of stunning colourful longyis that I now wear on different days of the week.

Here in Swe Kyia Bae district just around the corner from my house, La maison haute couture nestled in a row of this and that, that I’ll talk more about on my next post, were highly accommodating and couturier some of the longys that I got from various Myanmar people, to fit with perfection!

Here at home, across the way from us, tightly squeezed on the motorbike, was the usual family of three: the Tanakha boy at the front, dad in the middle and sister at the back.   Today, however, there was an extra passenger on board.   Today, there was no usual wailing from their 2-year-old brother; there was no usual comforting necessary from grandpa or a usual bellow from mum in the background. Today was an unusual day!  Their 2-year-old brother was squeezed in between his older sister at the back of the motorbike and his father in front of him. Their 2-year-old brother was taking his big sister and his big brother to school with his father!   On this special occasion, on this special unusual day, the family of 4 roared their usual roar to school happily waving a ‘Ta ta” bye bye in Myanmar.

At work, my students continue to inspire me so. I’m in endless awe as I discover more talent in their workplace and in class.  As I speak, they are in the process of developing, translating the activity resource book;  lessons that were tested, reviewed and refined with my class, that is at the moment very much at its infancy.  Still, the introduction and  the first units : 1 to 4 are progressing well!

Now that the MP’s are away doing some good work in their constituencies, the cafeterias are closed and work reduced?  Parliamentary staff in all departments, collectively congregate in groups, outside their department station to share their delicious lunches with their colleagues, and with guess who?  that they’ve lovingly prepared and brought to work from their hostels.  What’s more, during that same period of time, throughout the parliament, parliamentary staff spent a good part of their time sorting through large piles of duplicated files.  They collectively sat on their office floor systematically re-organized files, ripped and threw out a good set of documents in large rice bags that almost mounted to the  departmental ceiling.   These files, a staff claimed, ‘There are no longer useful for the parliament, for the officials’.

Other news, at the end of the month, approximately 50 potential new parliamentary staff, young men, only a few, and the rest women in rainbow-colour fitted tops draped over their chic-vibrant longys, came to Pyidaungsu Hluttaw to be tested for law, economics and IT skills.   Lined in the hall outside the research and training department, like school children in Cambodia, they patiently waited for officials and helpers (parliamentary staff) to instruct them to sit at a designated computer desk.  Each desk was approximately 2 metres away from each other, carefully and precisely set apart, closely supervised by the IT parliamentary staff who walked up and down the rows to monitor them during their test.  Some appeared nervous and certainly humble, ducking, bowing at the waist as these shy individuals passed their potential leaders on the way to a computer desk.

By the way,  results of  the hiring process; exams and successful new parliamentary employees will be publicized within the next couple of days – by the first week of October 2017.

That is all for now.   In the meantime, Wishing you fun reading and lots of laughter for September …More will be added at a later date … :)

Sweepers, groomers …

Painted patterned pavement curbs, red and white intermittently cut through yellow and black-curbed streets for entrances or side roads.  Yellow and black-curbed pavements on main boulevards, on unmarked roads with no landmarks, with no speed limits carries transport of different sorts that scurry here and there to go somewhere ...

Large metallic blue parliamentary busses, large white-tusked ministry busses and minivans hold white shirts and white blouse workers. Their longyis are colour coded to suggest the ministries they belong to.  Ocean blue, large and small open trucks follow suit.  Unlike the white coloured workers, labour workers clad in rainbow wear; hang on tight with their lives, on wooden frames of their truck. Rain or shine! Motorcyclists in 2s or 3s, some in helmets and some without, balance long bamboo sticks or wide fishing nets on their shoulders while they attempt to outrun the white coated - white hat police guards, to get through the morning’s on going movement at the main round about.  Cows have already proclaimed their spot and sit on side roads under shaded trees, in the capital city, leaving little room for cars to manoeuvres around them!

On the surface, on the hour, on the minute, life carries on as normal.  Children sit on the yellow and black curb waiting for their ride to school; others pick flowers from the neighbour’s garden and tease one another, while their mothers balance themselves with their babies in one arm and their fresh produce on their heads. Buffalos get their daily baths in the creeks whilst their master, chewing betel watch over them.  The soft breeze, the cool morning air, the soft sound of chimes from the young monk gives little indication that they’re maybe something in the air?

Still, life continues!  In the heat, in the rain, sometime on empty avenues, sometime in the midst of traffic, sweepers and gardeners, the unseen few, line side by side in 3’s:  2 to 300 meters apart on both side of the road.  The sweepers sweep away in unison, the clinically immaculate streets that bear no newspapers. cigarette buds, coffee cups, history of any sort or memories.  Gardeners cut from the same cloth, groom the flawless yellow and black; red and white curbs of NayPyiTaw’s highways; they hoe away new weeds that tend to creep through the cracks now and then.  A guard, every meter or so, walk up and down the neatly manicured boulevards, the grounds to ensure that history is no more, that all memories are washed away!   

More will be added at a later date … 🙂 In the meantime, Wishing you fun reading and lots of laughter for September …