I can’t help it, it’s been almost three months since the
last entry, and I’m starting a new retreat this afternoon. Not enough time to
write a real blog entry describing what’s gone down since May, so it comes down
to this: bullet points.
* I spent just under a week in Pyin Oo Lwin living the fat expat
life of good restaurants, a cheap guest house with a big garden, and reliable
wi-fi at a café around the corner.
* I met a young Aussie whose country count is in the 110-120
range, and he’s only in his 30s. He visited all of those places working for some
NGOs and during NGO vacation time on six continents.
* We shared a taxi from Pyin Oo Lwin to Mandalay and spent a
couple of days seeing the sights. I had very little interest in Mandalay from
what I had heard and read, I couldn’t figure out the attraction. We avoided the
main palace and the most heavily promoted pagodas, and instead visited a couple
of beautiful teak meditation halls in outlying neighborhoods. We climbed
Mandalay Hill, saw the Mustache Brothers’ political humor act, ate a few
memorable meals on the street and a couple of forgettable ones in restaurants,
and had a good time. Now my impression of Mandalay is that it is much more laid
back than Yangon—and maybe a lot more fun, but I didn’t get much below the
surface.
* He went his way to Colombia via Miami, I took the
overnight bus from Mandalay to Nyaung Shwe, where I’d been invited to teach
English for a while. I thought the classes were supposed to start the second
week of June. Turns out I was almost 3 weeks early. It was the first of many
instances where there was a large gap between what I was told and what the
situation was.
* I got sick for the first time while I was waiting for the teaching
program to begin. It was a combination of some kind of stomach
flu/virus/bacteria and bronchitis. Four days in bed, three days afterwards
toward full recovery. I wanted my next reincarnation immediately. I discovered
the SAN Pharmacy on the main road in Nyaung Shwe. Drugs, drugs, and more drugs,
many of them requiring prescriptions in the States but over-the-counter here. The
woman who runs it may have a degree in pharmacy, most likely not, but she sure knows
her drugs. Over the 10 weeks I spent in Nyaung Shwe she prescribed the right
drug for me three times. I bought an asthma inhaler for my lungs for about
$3.50 US. In Seattle I paid $24 for the last one I had, back in 2000.
* I recovered in time for some more surprises regarding the
teaching program. Originally said to last for 1 month (4 weeks), it got
expanded to 7 weeks. Instead of 40-50 students for 4 teachers and 2 teacher
aides, it was 90 students. I had 19 all to myself, so did one other teacher; the
two lower-level classes had 1 teacher and 1 aide each. It sure makes a big difference
when you’re responsible for 19 students all by your lonesome.
* I got sick for the second time at the end of week 1 of
teaching. This was the Big One—a stomach bacterial thing that caused me to lose
10 pounds really fast. My fellow teachers told me later that I was really scary
to look at, gaunt, drawn, pale. For the better part of two weeks all I did was
teach, prep for the next day of teaching, have diarrhea, and sleep. I finally
went to the doctor and got a couple of killer anti-bacterials; it took me another
few days to be able to keep something in my gastrointestinal tract for longer
than a few hours.
* Fortunately, I had no editing assignments while I was dealing
with the Big One. In hindsight it is the main regret of my Nyaung Shwe
experience: when I had zero editing assignments I was too sick to go hiking in
the nearby mountains, or to build relationships with monks at two nearby
monasteries. Once I recovered, my editing clients sent lots of projects,
motivated by an email I sent to them letting them know my plans for another
long retreat in August/September.
* Weeks 3 through 6 were kind of a blur because of all the
work I had to do for teaching and editing. Originally the plan was to have two
teaching hours a day. That changed to
two teaching hours plus a third hour that was vaguely labeled a “conversation”
hour. Conversations between 1 teacher and 19 students tend to turn into
monologues pretty quickly, so the third hour morphed into another instructional
hour. That meant prepping for 3 hours of class time 5 days/week. For someone
who hadn’t taught in 15 years, that was a lot of prep. For the other teachers,
all of them with public school backgrounds but no ESL experience, it was also a
lot of prep.
* On my 60th birthday we took a trip to Kakku to
see the 2,478 stupas there. It is a special place, one that has real presence
in terms of Buddha dharma.
* I got sick for the third time at the end of week six. This
time it was a garden-variety cold, the kind that all teachers get while facing
classrooms full of coughers and sneezers for 3 hours a day. This one only
lasted 4-5 days. I only had to spend one day in bed, and the woman at the SAN
Pharmacy once again came through with flying colors, recommending a medicine I’d
never heard of before but worked really well.
* It’s been a long time since I taught and lived in China
and Taiwan, so I had forgotten about the tradition in Asian countries that when
you have a guest teacher for a period of time, and when that teacher is getting
ready to leave, everyone wants to take him out to lunch or dinner, or invite
her to their homes for lunch or dinner, and give gifts in appreciation. So much
kindness! So many invitations! So many gifts! I’d forgotten how exhausting it
can be to say goodbye in Asia. Thankfully, as I’ve mentioned before, I am
taking a year off from drinking alcohol. If I drank all of the glasses of wine
and beer that were offered to me during the last week of teaching, I may not
have survived as well as I did.
* Now I am back in Kalaw, tying up loose ends with my
editing clients and buying a few things for my retreat—a straw mat to do yoga,
a couple of bags of cookies to satisfy illicit cravings while I’m eating only
two meals a day, toothpaste. My wish: to regain the momentum that I lost because of the health problems and long hours teaching
and prepping that got in the way of a steady practice in Nyaung Shwe. At least that’s
my excuse.
* I know I will be in retreat for at least two weeks, and I hope
to do four full weeks if possible. After that, I’ll rent a room somewhere and
work on editing. I’ll be sure to take the time to write some real blog entries
then. These bullet points will have to do for now.
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