Vietnam Revisited

After a week of visiting classes, giving my informed opinion on teachers and curriculum, I was really looking forward to renting motorcycles and spending the day in the countryside outside of Ho Chi Minh City seeing the Saturday weddings and funerals and speaking with the ordinary rural Vietnamese people. I was given a quick lesson on the scooter, told how to accelerate and put on the brakes and quickly made a U turn in this quiet neighbourhood where we rented the scooters. I obviously misjudged something and ended up going up the opposite curb, through someone’s flower garden and luckily almost hit a tree which slowed me down. After lifting up the motorcycle, Peter told me it was no problem, dust yourself off and keep practicing before we actually start on our ride. Good idea, I thought, and took off on the straightaway to practice acceleration, braking and so on. After about five minutes I returned to where we rented the bikes and I tried to slow down, hit the curb again because I was accelerating instead of breaking and ended up on the ground again, along with the scooter I might add. At that point, the two principals told me I might be more comfortable riding on the back of one of their bikes. I agreed with alacrity and off we went. Luckily, I was still in one piece and there was no blood.

The ride continued uneventfully as we negotiated potholes, rocks and mud, to say nothing of the animals, traffic going the wrong way against us and trying to keep our balance on narrow bridges. As I think back, sitting in the same waiting room at the airport as our Christmas visit, the day was as expected. We had drinks and meals with local Vietnamese, kids who spoke English practiced with us and everyone kept smiling. If you look at the pictures, you will see what the countryside looks like. Needless to say, it was just the opposite of Saigon as we traveled through rice paddy fields over narrow bridges and even narrower roadways leading to people’s houses.

The four day interview, dinners and so on went great. The students were absolutely phenomenal as they line up to get in to this school. They only take the very best.The Vietnamese kids and parents are absolutely driven and like elsewhere in Asia, they start their day with some kind of lessons before school, attend school till around until six or so and they spend five hours studying. I was shocked at how outgoing these students were and called me by name, laughed and fooled around with each other during classes and worked cooperatively with each other. I could not get the Myanmar kids to say boo. I am not sure whether it was the teachers, curriculum or just Vietnam kids.

I now have to make a decision about next year…the Science School run by Mahidol University, RV academies or the American School in Vietnam. I told each of them I would give them an answer in a few days. Daniel says I should do something else entirely different to give myself a fresh challenge , Josh says I should take the job that gets my heart pumping the most and I wonder if I should take the job that pays the most! ( just kidding). This past month has been absolutely great for my ego as I see how valuable schools consider me and how desperately they have pursued me. I am sure the actually working part will not be as satisfying.

Next week I go home, so I presume, unless some pretty exciting things happen in the next few days that this will be my last submission since I am writing this basically for my friends and family in Toronto. Over the next few months I will see you and fill in any more details you wish to hear about any of these stories. Since I will be seeing you, no use continuing this blog but I will continue when I return to Asia next fall.

I look forward to seeing all of you and thanks for sharing this journey with me!

The Killing Fields

I guess the most memorable part of this trip to Phnom Penh was the visit to the Choeung Ek Memorial or the so called killing fields. When you enter, there is a tall memorial stupa that houses nothing but skulls. There are probably about 10 stories and at each level, in encased glass, there is nothing but skulls. There are no words or plaques, just the harsh reality of the thousands of skulls staring at you with empty eyes. When you walk around the grounds, you can see the depressed earth where bodies were thrown, a marker where the trucks unloaded the victims and so on. Frankly, it was rather understated if thousand of skulls can be deemed understated. By that I mean there were no bookshops, fancy movies, pamphlets and so on. There was no Spielberg effect.

I then went to S21 Prison ( Toul Sleng) , a school turned in to a torture chamber and interrogation centre. Each classroom was a prison cell and as you can see from the pictures the prisoners(or at least victims) went through many tortures. It was an added abomination that they used a school for this terrible work.

I know Jews have done an amazing job with our Holocaust Centres to use them as an educational tool to teach anti-discrimination education. I am thinking specifically about the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, the Holocaust Museum in Washington or even Toronto’s Holocaust Museum. The purpose is to do more than describe the blood and guts. I don’t know why Cambodia is not there yet, whether it is because the wounds are just one generation old and it will come in time or there is a different mentality at stake at this juncture. It is obviously not for me to judge and I do not know enough or in fact, anything about Cambodian politics do wonder about the political motivation of the party in power and why more is not done.

I can tell you that the scenes from the former school will stay with me for the rest of my life. I obviously have to read about the Khmer Rouge and this period in history to try to get a grasp of what happened. From what little I have read, the cities were absolutely cleaned out with only a few thousand left in Phnom Penh. Once the infrastructure of a city is gone, it takes at least a generation to get back on its feet.

It is still hard for me to understand the sense of the Holocaust where so much manpower was wasted on killing Jews and the same thing obviously happened here for no gain other than terrorism. Pol Pot was defeated within a few years but it has taken a generation to get back to where they were. There were no families spared as I spoke with many Cambodians about this time in history and everyone had someone loved one lost or more accurately, killed.

No problem on spending money on symbols though. The palace, as you can see, is magnificent. The throne room is awe inspiring with its large rectangular hall forcing your eyes to the throne where the king was crowned. No money was spared on the ornate buildings surrounding the throne room and the grounds are magnificent as you look at the pictures.

I was just watching the news about South Africans beating up and killing immigrants from Zimbabwe and elsewhere. When I was taking a boat tour on the Tongle Sap river the shacks on the river that I took pictures had Vietnamese people living in them. Even though this is an extremely poor country where the tuk tuk’s and motorcycle guys accost you by name as you walk out of the hotel they are so desparate for business, there is always a people or a country that are poorer. In this case, it is the Vietnamese.

By the way, I now know how females feel when they are constantly accosted on the street. As I walked out of my room going down for breakfast this morning, three chambermaids touched me and said handsome man. I presume they are looking for some extra income but it certainly makes me feel uncomfortable to be accosted in this way and I am sure women feel the same way all the time. I wonder if I would feel the same way if they were young and gorgeous?

I am at home now and thinking about packing for Vietnam, or should I read a book and relax?

World Class

I keep thinking about what it means to be a world class city and wonder if Bangkok measures up? I remember speaking with a colleague early on who lamented that fact that there really were not any museums and art galleries to speak of in Bangkok. I also remember a conversation with Tim about what it means to be a world class city and he included universities, transportation systems, sports facilities, and cultural institutions and Bangkok certainly has all of these which I can get to later.

I did go to the National Museum the other day and now I know what the colleague was talking about. Like all architecture in Bangkok and Thailand in general, the museum and the area around it are absolutely awesome. In fact, the museum is right by the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Keo so what more needs to be said? I don’t know of anything in the world that is quite so unique as the Grand Palace although others who have been to the Taj Mahal or Versailles might beg to differ.

Having said that, the buildings, statues and shrubbery of the museum are all outstanding, no less than one would expect. However, the inside is not quite what you would expect to see in this world class city. Being a history teacher, I started out in the history building naturally. There were a few plaques at the front talking about the historical record; except, they had obviously made some changes in discoveries and wanted to backdate some facts. Instead of making a new display, they shockingly put a little sticker over the old date using old fashion pen and paper. The displays were also of very poor quality and did nothing to capture the imagination. In fact, some of the students I have taught could have made a more interesting display( and did!)

One of the buildings that did capture my imagination was the display of huge funeral pyres used to transport the ashes of kings and queens. In fact, they were working on one of them as I was there and I presume it is for the ‘pie sou ‘of the king (older sister) who is yet to be buried even though she died over 90 days ago. They were quite awesome but they would not let anyone take pictures inside any of the buildings which is why I only show you the outside of buildings in the pictures. Right next door to the museum is the National Arts Centre. Wow, this is great, I thought. I wandered in only to witness building construction going on. Perhaps one day there might even be performances.

Across the street was the art gallery. After risking my life to get there (crossing about 6 lanes of traffic) and negotiating a Thai price to get in, I was impressed with the building, but there were literally about 10 pieces of art on three magnificent floors. Having said that, there are tons of art galleries all over Bangkok but since I have no interest in art I never go.

I thought about this distinct lack of what we might call culture in the nation’s capital, yet all of the major historical sites have their own fantastic buildings and museums which I have shown you in my pictures. Ayyutya, Sukkotai, were just outstanding, as was Lop Buri. The museums are where they should be, on the actual sites and not in Bangkok. Does Bangkok have everything else Tim mentioned. I certainly think so.

Yesterday I went for another interview…what else is new? There is a science school for the gifted where the best science students from across the country are invited to study and it is associated with Mahidol University, a private university in Bangkok. Bangkok has literally dozens of private as well as public universities. Education is of the highest quality and I am looking forward tomorrow to visiting this special science school. They want me as an international advisor but I am not sure what I can do for them.

I am also invited to Vietnam next week to look at a school where they asked me to be a principal. Life is good. Which job should I take or should I just keep looking? I think looking is probably a lot more fun than working.

Final Thoughts on Myanmar

I am sitting in my hotel room in Yangon quite excited about getting back to Bangkok tomorrow morning. I have received so many e mails from people in the west telling me how crazy I am to still be here. Thankfully the Chinese disaster has finally put Myanmar off the front pages for a while. I only wish that if the Chinese disaster had to happen that it happened earlier in the week to save me from the barrage of e mails telling me to get out of Myanmar.

Yes, Myanmar is a fascist state. It is run by a junta of generals through fear and intimidation. Yes, people felt that they had to vote yes in the referendum or face serious consequences. Yes, they do everything they can to centralize power in their own hands such as controlling the relief effort and not letting the outside world take their supplies to their destinations, enforce quotas on gasoline, issue licenses for all gatherings of more than a few people and censor e mail and so on but the Myanmar people are resilient and purposeful. I went for a walk last night on the main street of Yangon and frankly, the same stores and hawkers that I met the last time were still there selling their wares. Individuals were sitting on the sidewalk cafes drinking their coffee and talking. Restaurants were full of people watching the soccer game on T.V. I was in an Internet café and I was shocked that the Myanmar guy beside me opened a sports site on football and was carefully examining the latest scores. The only difference was that the generators were working overtime because there is still very little electricity, but even when there was electricity a few weeks ago,it went out every few hours anyway so this is not much of a difference. Life simply goes on.

I did meet with a British Embassy official last night who finally took an hour off to have coffee and she talked about her frustration of organizing relief and on the policy level figuring out how to get the Myanmar government to allow foreign relief to even enter the country. After I finished, I asked here whether it would be safe to walk downtown and she just looked at me quizzically. Yangon is the safest city in the world she said to me. I was accosted by beggars and little kids chasing after me asking me for money, but that happened the last time I was here also.

One of the eternal questions for me is if Buddhist philosophy contributes to the ability of the fascist government to exist. The philosophy I am referring to is the notion of fate and the belief that the more good you do in this life the more merit you build up for the next life. Does this lead to passivity? From what I have read and discussed with people here, the answer is no. There is lots of resistance, but you have to be on the inside to know about it. You will read a great example in one of my earlier blog entries about the saint that I met.

I am excited, as I said to be leaving, but believe that the work I did here was critical. Education is obviously the key to progress in Myanmar and our five or six sites are furthering that cause.

Last night, I did sit with some Israeli’s, Sri Lanken and Americans as they were discussing their plight. They finally got in to the country and were prepared to help by delivering rice to the monasteries, helping in hospitals and so on but no foreigners are allowed into the impacted area. There are road blocks and trespassing is not allowed. Clearly the government wants to remain in control and put them in the best light, perhaps wants to coordinate distribution but the charities also want to be getting political as opposed to humanitarian credit for what they are doing. For example, in the news last night I saw goods being put on a plane in Bangkok that had a huge American poster tagged all over it.

Finally, when I got tired of hearing their complaining, I gave them a way to donate their money through our Singaporean organizations. They did not even want to listen, since they wanted to do it ‘their’ way. Isn’t it too bad that lives are being lost as politics is being played.

The Wedding

There are certain perks that come with this job, and one of them included going to a staff member’s wedding today in Yangon. I am trying to think of the differences to weddings I have been to in Toronto. I guess the most obvious difference is I heard a lot of “mengale ba’s” as opposed to the usual “mazel tov’s”. All of the guests were wearing traditional outfits and there were not tuxedos! The men wore the lengyi wrap around with the traditional Mao jacket and the women wore a double knit wrap around. You can be sure I was the only westerner there wearing a tie. In fact, I was the only westerner there come to think about it.. However, I think I will be in more pictures than the groom since our table was at the very front and we were in all of the pictures since I was sitting beside the bride’s boss who seemed to be a very honoured guest. Another difference, I noticed, is that we sat in the heat for about one hour before anything happened. This, apparently, is part of the tradition. There was food and drink on the table but we did not touch it until after the ceremony.

Finally, the bride and groom walked down the aisle of this large hall, sat in the front on a nice sofa while a few honorary guests including my boss gave speeches. They wore traditional dress which I wish I could show you but the battery for my camera is up north in Mandalay which is another story on its’ own. I gave workshops in Mandalay every day after school including Friday. Since I was leaving Saturday morning to come to Yangon, I told them jokingly that if they were interested in hearing more, they would have to come to the hotel at 6:30 am for the last lecture since I was leaving for the airport at 8:30. Believe it or not, two of them actually showed up! Since I ended up speaking with them, I only had a few minutes to pack and left the battery pack ( which I was charging) in the bathroom electrical outlet and won’t get it back until tomorrow afternoon. I was making sure I would have no problems taking pictures in Yangon. By the way, when I did get the battery pack delivered by express from Mandalay to Yangon, about 500 miles, it cost $2.

As I came into the city from the Yangon airport, I saw thousands of uprooted trees, but they were all bulldozed to the side and there were armies of soldiers cutting them up and clearing the area. I was amazed that the general populace were still smiling and carrying on as best they could. I saw some windows blown out of houses, some corrugated roofs on the ground and large billboards on their side, but there was no water in the road or dead bodies lying around, as I am sure I would see in the Irawaddy Delta about five hours south of here. There is no electricity and all the power is being run by generators. I am staying in a first class hotel so you would not even know from the inside or outside of the hotel that there were any disruptions.

I absolutely hate the broadcasts on BBC and CNN. They are using this story to make political points. For example, they keep referring to what is happening in “Burma.” This really grates me since the country is now called Myanmar and has been called that for almost twenty years. The reason the British called it Burma is because one of the ethnic groups in the country are Burmese so if they are looking for the real name it really is Myanmar. There is no doubt that Myanmar is a fascist state and the generals control everything but I do not think a natural disaster of this order is the time to play politics or manipulate the news.

To-night, in the lobby of the hotel, I met two Scottish guys who were volunteers from the rotary club who had flown over with at least 100 huge tents with all of the paraphernalia to help in a disaster. They were not allowed to deliver and set up the tents where they were needed but were asked to hand over the tents to the military who would distribute them. I am hoping to have dinner with the British second secretary to-night so hopefully can update this from the political perspective later.

The case of the two million Kyat

I knew that as a principal in Myanmar at this time of national tragedy I had to do something to encourage compassion, global citizenship and responsibility .I spent the week encouraging our kids in Mandalay to do something to help their fellow citizens in Yangon and the Irawaddy Peninsula. Ultimately, what they decided was the best approach was to donate money.

It is now Friday afternoon and I have about two million in Kyat and since I am going to Yangon tomorrow to do some work in our schools I just take the money with me…right? Do you know how big kyats are and what two million would look like? The money would almost fill my suitcase and then where would I put my dirty laundry? O.K, not a problem…get American currency and take the two thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills; however we do not have that kind of money in the school and even if I could take the money in Myanmar currency, which is perfectly legal, my secretaries felt I would be so hassled I would end up in jail somehow if they happened to see the money in the X ray and started questioning me.

O.K. plan two. Let’s go buy 60 huge bags of rice and transport it down to Yangon. A few problems…how to transport it? If we send it by bus or train, it could get stolen. Problem two is that the government wants to be the point player on this one and control all the movement of goods and services for distribution. A monk is starting a fund with his own money, but then how do we get credit as a school and business( the second political problem) if we just give the money to the monk’s organization.

What to do? There is a referendum tomorrow so everything is closed and there will be no stores open to buy anything. Secondly, even if I were to take the money down south, there is apparently nothing to buy so we have to buy it here in Mandalay. If we buy things in Mandalay it will have to wait until Monday and may not get to Yangon until about Wednesday. Once it gets to us in Yangon, how will we distribute it? Who will get what? How do we stay under the radar? Are families and individuals still going to be needy? I presume the last point is yes.

So you think giving or acting charitably is easy? Think again.

Forty-Three Degrees...ZZZZZZZZ

I went for lunch yesterday and foolishly asked my driver what the temperature was. He told me it was over 40…why count when it is that high? I did some quick calculations which weren’t really that quick because I could not believe what I was coming up with…over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. No wonder I am hot. No wonder I am bathed in sweat and cannot find a place in the school to cool down. I go into a room which seems air conditioned but find myself too hot in five minutes so I go and seek another room. Luckily, I have a number of offices I use. For some reason, when I walk into a new room it does seem cool for a few moments at least.

The driver took me to a Myanmar restaurant yesterday and everyone seemed to be there. It was the local hangout. Without having to say anything, they brought out copious amount of rice, their traditional salad and more condiments than you can imagine. They also brought out a towel which I did not understand until I saw everyone eating with their fingers as they probably have been doing for ever. The women also wear thanaka on their faces which is really a weird sight. You are sitting in the restaurant ( with a tie and shirt on in 100 degree weather) eating with a fork watching these, what appear to be ghosts because of their white powdered faces, eating with their fingers and loving every minute of it.

At school, all the staff, and I am not talking about teachers but the 60 staff members who clean the toilets, act as guards, financial officers, marketing people etc. have to bring every decision to me. For example, yesterday I had to spend 30 minutes with some woman approving her signs for each floor and a map of the school she had created. She needed my signature before she could put them up. I find that whenever I ask for something, which I am loathe to do because they stop their work immediately and tend to my needs, I get first priority. I am wondering whether it is because of my title, Dean of Schools, or the fact that I am a Caucasian male from somewhere else. Frankly, I don’t like it.

Whenever I go into classes it is also very difficult. All I really want to do is slip in, observe the class for five minutes and slip out but there is such a rigmarole when I walk in. The students have to get up to greet me and say good morning Mr. Michael etc and the same thing happens when I leave. Frankly, it is just better to hide in the office where no-one has to make a fuss, (except my three secretaries.)

When I do the after school workshops, I see teachers writing down every word I am saying and I mean every word. It is an Asian mentality I think where the teacher is held in such high esteem. Teachers come after the Buddha and parents in their hierarchy of respect.

I did find the only driving range last night. It turns out to be right behind my hotel. The caddies sit on low stools and place the ball on your mat. For this they get paid one dollar. Considering they had no left handed clubs to rent, I did quite well hitting right handed.

As I wondered around Mandalay University last night, a monk student approached me and showed me all around. When we went to the library, all the books were locked up. This huge library has about 300 books all of which were inaccessible. Perhaps it is a metaphor for Myanmar where the government of this fascist dictatorship wants to hold knowledge behind lock and key. Knowledge is king.

Some of the teachers had to go home today to prepare for the referendum on Saturday. I asked how they were going to vote and they looked at me like I was crazy. Their names are on the ballot, they said…any guesses how they will vote?

Another interesting thing I did yesterday was take part in a number of interviews. I guess taking part is a misnomer. They asked me to ask all the questions and make all of the decisions. One question I did ask four candidates who were going to work in the accounting department “ What would you do if you did not agree with the job your boss asked you to do” I wanted to find out about their conflict management skills but they all looked at me like I was from another planet.. For their 60 dollars a month they do exactly what they are told.

By this time I have heard about Yangon and the Irawaddy Delta. I am collecting money at school and tomorrow will buy food stuffs to take to Yangon. Apparently the prices there are out of this world. It will be interesting to see.

Getting out of the heat!

(Sunday)

I have been in the heat for so long I actually forgot what it was like to be cool. I do know that for the last four days I have been in a steam bath in Mandalay, and wearing a long sleeved shirt and tie does not help. When you walk out of the air-conditioned room, your glasses fog up and you begin to sweat profusely. My greatest pleasure at the end of the day is simply to loosen my tie, which I do on the way home at 5 p.m.

The registrar and marketing manager took me to Pyin U Lwin today, which they kept calling Maymyo and a whole bunch of different names. It is 42 miles north-east of Mandalay and more importantly 800 meters higher. Mandalay seems to lie in a huge bowl surrounded by hills or mountains so the heat just sits. When we got out of the car in Maymyo the air was cool, my glasses did not fog up because the air conditioning was not on in the taxi and I felt so refreshed. I can’t remember feeling anything like this in the past nine months. I have never escaped the heat but just never realized it until today. I could breath today. Will I be able to survive tomorrow in the sweltering heat? My air conditioning in the hotel room even seems too cool now.

If you look at the pictures, you will see I visited an enormous cave with all of the attributes of Buddhist worship inside, saw a fantastic botanical garden, visited the miniature village of the major sites in Myanmar, went shopping in the downtown market and various other things but this pales in comparison to what I learned again about the Myanmar people. Their generosity of spirit is overwhelming. When I visited the marketing manager’s aunts home, I was greeted with open arms (and a bowl full of grapes!) One of the aunt’s lives in Brisbane and was just home visiting. Her husband is a doctor who now does translations for Burmese patients because he can’t practice medicine and she was and still is, actually, an IT teacher. Her English was perfect. Of course she misses her 80 year old mother but she reiterated Jane’s comments about leaving Russia in the l970’s…to be able to live in freedom is worth almost any price to pay. She talked about reading any newspaper she wanted, watching any television station and being able to express her thoughts openly. Her niece had to whisper in my ear when we were talking about politics and the upcoming referendum. Clearly, the Myanmar people are in a prison where gatherings are not allowed, there is not freedom of the press and there is a black market for everything, including gas. What I can’t figure out is, if there is a black market for gas, where is the gas coming from? The government sets a quota on how much gas you can buy so when you need more you have to go to the black market. You can get gas ( at an inflated price) but my question is, if you can buy gas on the black market there is obviously sources of gas. Why does there have to be a quota?

When we did leave the aunt’s house, the marketing manager got on her knees in front of her grandmother and said a prayer wishing her well. Now I can’t wait to be a grandfather if this is what it is going to be like.

The Day I met a Buddha

May 2

When I was about to leave school today, the registrar asked me what I was doing for lunch. It was Saturday at 1:00. What can I tell you? This is Asia and everyone works crazy hours. Students start the day at 6am in their Chinese classes for two hours, then proceed to regular classes until 3:30, then back to Chinese for two hours. The teachers work every day at school till about 5:30 and Saturday morning until one. This is the norm for Asia. Anyway, what I had planned to do was walk up Mandalay Hill, through about three of the Pagodas that dot the way, come back down, go for a swim and then met some of the teachers for supper. However, given the choice of seeing a “site” or going to someone’s house, is there really a choice? This is why I am glad I am working by the way, as opposed to just being a tourist where I check off the requisite ‘sites’ and show the pictures to prove it!

Anyway, back to the story. The taxi, arranged by the registrar wound it’s way through the city and I saw terrific markets, women carrying goods on their heads, trucks crammed to the full with huge bags of merchandise and people spilling out the sides to huge traffic jams (cars waiting to buy petrol illegally ) since petrol is rationed on a monthly basis and people need more than the allotted number of gallons. Gas on the black market is something like $7.00 a gallon, in case you were thinking you had it bad. Earnings could be $2 a day you so you get the picture. When we had a meeting today about field trips we did not discuss any pedagogical issues surrounding the choice of sites, but how much gas it would cost to get there and could we afford it?

Anyway, back to the story. The taxi stopped outside what appeared to be a very nice home right in the market area. In fact, there was a pagoda across the road, a market just outside the gate in this bustling area. I was greeted by a very handsome man who welcomed me to his home with a two handed shake and told me his name. I will not share his name for two reasons. One, I cannot remember or pronounce it and if I could remember I would not tell because he would probably end up in jail.

After lunch and copious amounts of tea, I found out I was talking with the registrar’s uncle. Her mother is gynecologist as well as her sister. Her uncle, this gentle man I spent hours talking to is doctor who is a surgeon I can’t spell the kind of doctor he really is which is putting people to sleep in the operating room. Apparently I also have trouble with spelling as well as hearing.

Anyway, we spoke about the government, principles of medicine, Buddhism, resistance and so on. There is a government referendum on the constitution this May 10, but of course, the people have not seen the new constitution, nor can they get a current newspaper so I do not know on what basis they are going to vote. As we talked and he sensed he could trust me, he proceeded to tell me about the work he was doing. Eight years ago he could not stand the suffering he was seeing in hospitals by patients who could not pay for their own care, and seeing the dead stacked up in the hospital to be taken to the cemetery five at a time, as opposed to one at a time because of the cost of petrol.. They were then dumped in the cemetery for the dogs.

He now spends every day visiting the five hospitals in Mandalay, finding out what destitute patients need, buying the medicines and medical equipment for them and helping perform the operations. He also has 11 cars around Mandalay that visit the homes of the deceased and take their bodies to have them cremated, paying for the 3 gallons of gas which otherwise would be impossible for the poor to pay. He does this with just donations he gets and no longer has private patients. His whole life is dedicated to helping the poor, much like Mother Theresa I suppose. He was absolutely amazing to talk to and extremely inspiring.

He explained, with many examples from Buddhism, why he does this but if I told a number of his stories, I would have to write too many pages and Joshua already says I write too much. Eventually, he drove me back to my hotel in his Volkswagon Beattle, circa l960’s vintage ( I don’t think it went more than about 10 miles an hour); Bicycles were passing us on the road! I asked what I could do for his organization. For example, he has pictures of each patient his organization has helped and I asked him whether he wanted me to smuggle these pictures out to show them to the free world press. He told me his organization would just be shut down and he would end up in jail. When I asked him if he wanted me to get drugs donated from the west, he said the taxes would be so great it would not be worth it and he would not want me to jeopardize myself.

When I asked him what I could do, he simply said the next time I come back, bring him some books to read. When I asked him what authors or kind of books, he said to me…you now know me. Bring me books that will bring me more knowledge.

Dean for a Week

May 1

If I could write a blog and get it published, this is probably what I would say. Being a big shot is quite a lot of fun. When I arrived in Yangon, a driver and company manager met me. The driver left and the manager, a Myanmar native bought me breakfast/lunch while we waited for the flight to Mandalay. After she made sure my suitcase was properly weighed in and I was safely through, she braved the rain to return to work. I was never left alone for a moment until I was safely removed from one plane and put on another.

At Mandalay, the same thing happened. My driver met me with one of the office managers and I was taken directly to the Mandalay Resort Hotel, a five star property. Once the manager ensured I was comfortable, she left and the owner of the schools came to see me an hour later to share a drink. Whenever I go to a car, the door is always opened and waiting for me and I seem to be whisked away to my next destination. Like the president of the United States, everything seems to be done for me at all times. Lunch is taken care of, drinks are provided and people seem to run and do things when I even casually mention something.

Of course, this might have something to do with the fact that the owner announced both to the staff and at a parents gathering yesterday that I was the new Dean of RV enterprises in charge of all of his academies. Frankly, I feel a little uncomfortable being called a Dean, but hey, it seems to get me stuff and they love having an old white Caucasian fellow walking around the school in a tie.

I am not sure I am ever going to be left alone this week to just meander where I want. The chief administrator wants to take me to her hometown (can’t understand the name) Sunday and tomorrow, Saturday, I am working half the day so that will cut down on my free time. The teachers put in incredible hours here.

As you can see from the pictures, I am right next store to Mandalay Hill, a famous landmark and I am not even sure I will get a chance to walk to the top. We seem to get out of here at 5 or 5:30 and I don’t want to brave the hill in the dark. Can’t wait to see what the week or two holds for me.