vaga #3 / 23 some politics

Mandalay's surroundings near “U bridge”

Part XXIII

In this chapter the photos are very precarious, most of them were taken in a moving car, others in the temple where I felt I was  desecrating the privacy of the parishioners. I was surrounded by the faithful in seclusion and I took the photos very quickly, and finally I think the lens had dust on it, which I discovered much later, my apologies, and I am most annoyed being an artist, but the story deserves it. Myanmar (formerly Burma the name was changed after 1989) after the crude student protest (1988) it was changed to Myanmar by the military regime and many do not recognise it. Something about the politics because it was important for me, in the process of recovering "real" democracy, and so I hope it will be real  there will be an understanding between indigenous people, both among themselves and with the military, it has been a civil war. The dictatorship since 1962, was based on violence, corruption and poverty. It is the third-poorest country in the world, the average income per person is less than a dollar a day.

 Win Myint

I landed in a good resort at the end of March to rest a little and recharge in Hoi An, Vietnam, where I had a TV, I rarely have one, and I'm curious about it, I say to myself that it is entertaining, to see what is happening in the world, because I have all of them watching movies on Netflix, (the best in the world), but my curiosity with TV did not last more than 15 minutes, I no longer watch any news or current debates, that I liked to be aware of what was happening at home in the world. What happened to my interest in the news, interviews or knowing who won the US Open (I like to watch tennis)?  I do not know. Apparently the life that I am leading is so busy, entertaining and, filling myself all day with new images, information, new colours, smells, landscapes, rituals, habits, religions, castes, cultures that are foreign, political situations that I did not even suspect and that were unknown to me. It is fascinating, and I am totally absorbed because I am living them day by day.

Well I return, it was the end of March 2018, and I turned on the news and I find that image, Whaaat? It caused me a lot of laughter, that hat please… how? it was the live declaration of the president of Myanmar. It turned out that I was travelling to Myanmar in two weeks time, and it interested me !!! But that hat…. !!!   Nobody can be serious, and yes, I am absolutely politically incorrect, irreverent, but with good intentions. I had never seen that type of model with a fin on only one side. That was what caused me so much amazement, !!! it is asymmetric  !!!, the visual aspect made it impossible not to laugh at the speech. so fundamentally alien and far from my understanding. That was definitely what it was, it was about visual balance. After laughing to myself, as always, I told myself how little I know about the world. I was only attached to my limited western culture. I emphasise that I have notoriously expanded my cultural and political horizons in this area. I sent the photo to Rafa telling him that he was the new president of Myanmar and with that hat !!!!. he was wondering if there was a Wi-Fi signal, no, I corrected it to receive a Fax signal ....... Not only that, but I knew, and he did not, Myanmar opened up to the international world and to avant-garde technologies a little over a decade ago. I cannot stop being mischievous, but my comments  are generally kept to myself, it is part of my permanent observation of everything. I enjoyed the chat I had with Rafa on WhatsApp. We are both ironic and quick, and time to time we WhatsApped back and forth for a long time with witty comebacks, and we had a lot of fun.

From a sympathetic anecdote to demonstrate the harsh and painful reality that the country lives in. A minimal and superficial summary that I share because it is unknown, and it hit me. A country with more than 60 years of military dictatorship, totally isolated from the world. That on the one hand, is the tragedy of the country the permanent and bloody struggles between its ethnic groups and against the government in turn. The reason for this is natural resources. Each of the ethnic groups say that it is their land and the natural resources are theirs, and it is their right to exploit it, the government says that they are from the country, and it is their profits.  there about 173 ethnic groups in the north which is a field of war there are many conflicts and other minor ones in the rest of the country. The most crude situation is against the Muslims was the huge massacre in Rohingya. August 2017

I  have copied information from Google:

On 1 March 2019 Bangladesh announced that it would no longer accept Rohingya refugees . An August 2018 study estimated that more than 24,000 Rohingya were killed by the Myanmar military and local Buddhists since the "clearance operations" started on 25 August 2017.

I have not followed up on the facts, but the government has gone out of their way to ignore it and there was a large gathering of international leaders in Sittwe (near the conflict)  recently in order to ensure that everything is in order. The refugees are still in Bangladesh.

Aung San Suu Kyi

An excerpt from Google:

Myanmar general elections were held on 8 November 2015. ... The resounding victory of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in 2015 general elections has raised hope for a successful political transition from a closely held military rule to a free democratic system.

Those that were annulled by the constitution were adjusted with the military at the time of having the excuse of being married to a foreigner, and she is a widow.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her fight for democracy, the most important and relevant person in the country over the last 3 decades, the daughter of a pro-independence highly ranked militia Aung San who was assassinated in July 1947  She spent years in jail, was put into exile, received death threats, and her home was bombed during the time that she was under house arrest. This photograph was taken during a speech to the United Nations and is seen with a face of deep sorrow, like all of them, it moves me. Lately she has been an advisor to the government and has had a lot of criticism. The peace and democracy achieved are not such, it is still under the military power. The history and situation is extremely complex.

I go on to narrate a personal experience that happened in May 2018 in which I was caught up in the bad reality of the country, one of many hidden realities, freedom of movement. Since knowing the ethnic groups which is what I am most passionate about, I wanted to meet the women who tattoo their faces in the Mrauk U ethnic group, in the west of the country. And I  make it clear that my book LP (lonely planet) mentions it as one of the interesting ethnic groups to visit and it is practically unknown, and it was not an irresponsible adventure of mine. How do I get there ? I asked at my hotel in Bagan, only by plane ... OK, so how do you do that around here, I asked to buy a ticket at the hotel heading to Thandwe, (west of the country) since there are no travel agencies or those that are very likely to be banned.

I requested the return ticket, the next day would they give me the answer    ? !!! ?    the next day they told me that they can only sell me a one-way ticket. And the return ...? You see that there at Thandwe airport ... rare, it will be... I had also asked to buy a plane ticket between Thandwe and Sittwe (north of Thandwe), then I had to take a boat for 4 hours upriver, always moving north until I reached the Mrauk U ethnic group. what was there to handle in Thandwe. I took the plane to Thandwe, it was bigger than I thought, with about 150 passengers there would be 90 passengers, 80% were local (which made it clear that there was significant traffic between Bagan and Thandwe) As soon as I arrived I went to the counter to buy the ticket to Sittwe, for the same day. There was one flight a day and the time was perfect for me. The one who attended to me spoke very bad English, he told me to wait, disappeared for about 20 minutes, and on his  return he told me that it was full , then I asked about the next day, the operation was repeated, he came back it is full too, and I kept asking, finally on Wednesday there was space. I would have taken it and with a return ticket, he disappeared again for about half an hour.  No, there is no return ticket, on some other date perhaps?   I was ready to immerse myself in their times, and he told me:    There is no return ticket at all   How ? I do not understand, there is no return, period. Well, I wanted to take the outbound flight anyway, and I'll return by bus. I told him, he answered No, tourists can't take buses in this area, it's forbidden.   I am catching on that you cannot go because there is no return by any means, at all. Rare, !!!! What a big disappointment, missed trip, missed flight, nobody warns you of that either. I went back to the counter, furious, I wanted to return to Bagan, I had arrived almost two hours before that I spent at the counter. I had to go back to Bagan because I had left my big suitcase there. He disappeared the character returns and tells me:    there is no plane to Bagan,  well then tomorrow,    nothing then either,   the excuse was that  the flights were suspended,   "out of season“, But the morning plane was full, my good attitude was lost, he with a minimum amount of English was to speak to the walls, so I asked for a ticket to Mandalay which is east of Bagan, then I would have to take a bus for 7 hours to Bagan. Then a ticket to Mandalay please. His absences were repeated behind in an office, his answer when he returned: there are no flights to Mandalay not today nor ever… .. How is there  no flight to Mandalay…. ???? Mandalay has 1.5 million inhabitants, the second-largest city in the country in the off-season to Mandalay I could almost understand Bagan because it is a tourist city, but there is no reason for Mandalay. There I absolutely lost what little patience I had left. But even cursing was useless and more frustrating with not dealing with a competent person, the boy who did not understand much English slipped past all my complaints and never gave me the chance to talk to someone in higher management. There were no computers in sight, or anything, just a boy standing there, everything is done behind a wall. My level of anger, anger and a helplessness that I had not felt for a long time. What I do ? he told me I had to fly to Rangoon. Yeah, Rangoon! the big city, meaning I would be  travelling south for more than 4 hours, then take another plane back to Bagan or Mandalay as soon as possible to Mandalay for another 5 hours to the north, connection times etc ... .. and then 7 hours by bus to Bagan to pick up my suitcase, I no longer knew when I would get to do it. It would have been cheaper to buy a suitcase and new clothes anywhere than to go around the country by plane,  but I had things that I couldn’t stand to lose in that suitcase. I had no choice but to lower my voice, and accept it, so I did it in a mental state bordering on madness. I settled in the waiting room for the plane to Rangoon, with the anger vibrating all over my body I was not 100% alert, when suddenly a young woman alerted me at the signal point, she made me  understand that the plane to Rangoon is on the runway and boarding, they were closing the boarding gate   Whaaat? Not only that, but I ran, to the plane, and she was right, it was the plane to Rangoon, there was zero information on the loudspeaker in English, much less an information panel, I was the only foreigner, I think that the woman decided that it could be my plane. I almost missed my flight sitting next to the gate. I was overwhelmed.

I had to kill 3 hours until the flight to Rangoon left, and I went to recharge the SIM and have a beer because the unbearable heat and anger were screaming for it, I crossed the street to an eatery in the open air. With the woman in charge it was impossible for us to understand each other and I did not contribute with my bad vibes either. A man sitting with his back to me smoking and drinking tea listened, then turned around and solved everything. I asked him if I could sit with him, there was no one else in the eatery, and we shared a cigarette, over and over again the magic of a shared vice. It turned out the control tower operator was on his break. A man in his 50s, very skinny and with an astonishing calm or frightening submission. Perfect English is how it should be for a flight operator. He was a nice man, Cultured, and he gave me the feeling of being reserved but wanting to talk, and welcoming, He told me how he obtained his operator's licence since Myanmar had no contacts abroad, he had to go to Malaysia, become a resident, then take the course there and then return to Myanmar to work at the Rangoon airport. Close to his retirement he had asked Thandwe for a change to lower the stress levels of the job. He had 3 years left before retirement. I had the opportunity to tell him about all my bad experiences, my frustration, anger, fury that I had on the surface. Gaining a bit of amenity and on my part with the intention to get to my questions answered: to know if passengers are checked by the government even if they travel on commercial lines. And perhaps they are limiting our movements. I asked him in the most discreet way, but I tugged at him in turn, his reserved attitude was already clear to me. Of course, he did not say anything, silence, but at the same time he said everything to a suspicious mind, the attitude of the face or to turn the head the other way in some more obvious questions and difficult to avoid. He didn't say a single word to me, my questions were left unanswered, just silence. Being one who knows the dictatorship, understands everything. He got up, kindly said goodbye, shook my hand and asked me for forgiveness, without saying why. He left crestfallen, slowly and with the feeling of having had to shut up once again.

Back in Mandalay I stayed a few days and I went to a restaurant that I had previously located, an English one, the only one in the city, once I found it I never left it again. An independent newspaper in English fell into my hands. And I found the answer. In short, the massacre in Rohingya, 6,000 Muslims were killed in ten days and 700,000 were immediately expelled to Bangladesh and are  refugees in camps assisted by Amnesty and other international NGOs to this day. The conflict zone was next to my intention to visit the ethnic group. The Rohingya massacre took place at the end of August and on December 2 local journalists were jailed for going to investigate the area as well as an international reporter, (I recently read that they were released after 500 days in jail, thanks to tremendous international pressure) The government blamed the Buddhists, but it has been infiltrating the press like the one I was reading about it was the military. The reason is that there is no tolerance for the Muslim religious minority, no government acceptance, but they have lived in those lands for centuries. In April the plot was just being uncovered, and I was right there. It's so secretive that I could have been warned not to go to the area, but even they don't know what's going on. Everything moves under a cloak of lies, cover-ups for the international image, so as not to fall into economic sanctions. The corruption of military power in every sense, this country is unapproachable. They continue to recruit 14-year-old boys to the militia, a boy who spoke out ended up in jail, there is no freedom of the press or of movement, I say because of how close it got to me and from there how much more…. and I won’t keep on with this boring speech, but I can't keep quiet either. Such was my impression of what I was reading that I took photos of the newspaper articles and shared them with Gonzalo. The first thing he told me !!!!delete them now !!!!, don't ever save those photos. Now I deduce a possibility of what could have  happened to me, I was detected as a possible undercover reporter, an older woman alone, in the conflict zone at the time the truth was being found out, with a passport from a totally insignificant country, which should lower my guard alert. I still moved through certain parts of the country, but they don't give you a return ticket, so you can't say that they don't let you move, but they box you in so that you don't move, and when travelling by bus there are passenger controls. These are the conditions imposed by the UN for free movement. It made me remember the years of dictatorship and to feel that dread in my chest again. Creepy

The last thing that I have left of Myanmar, and it did not stop impressing me was going to Mount Popa more than 1 hour from Mandalay. I took a small sightseeing minivan as the only option. I went sitting next to the driver whenever I can, I do, have the landscape in the foreground and avoid the stupid conversations that can be brewed among tourists. It is the best seat next to the driver with the conversation they spend making better tour guides because they talk about their lives, families and current events in the country, for me, it is more interesting in what year a temple was built, etc ... but this driver did not speak English. After 40 minutes of driving, women, few men and children began to appear on the side of the road that consisted of a road of about 4 meters wide made from asphalt. Everyone was coming towards the van, I remember the average speed is 20 km / h. They waved and gestured with their hands towards us making a sign to ask for food. You could see the extreme thinness of all the people, the famine was unmistakable, I had never faced these images before. This was for the last 20 minutes of the drive, I didn't understand anything. At some point a small, white car passed us in that section the only car that circulated, the cars in those places are very scarce, they were throwing cash through both windows to the right and left without stopping for the 5 minutes that I saw  from the back before disappearing, and they ran to pick it up. I have some photos and a very bad video that I will not put in, but I recorded it, always without understanding, but it seemed very strange to me. After a while I took my cell phone out of the window uncomfortably in the last minutes because it was a sustained situation, and it was part of the life of the country. The dry landscape, drought and imminent famine, my heart clenched, an anguish to feel the despair, It turned me inside out. Our minivan that travelled very slowly passed without flinching in front of their hands and I, seeing their faces up close that were desperate, made an effort to smile and thus gain some sympathy and compassion, their eyes were full of deep suffering. I felt so bad, seeing myself passing by in the van, indifferent, oblivious, it still anguishes me just remembering these images. It is the poorest country I have ever set foot in. Then at the end of the day I found out that since it had just been “Thanksgiving” where they release fish and birds, as I mentioned earlier, I also now know that it is shared with the poorest. And that's what the white car did, He threw money through the windows and here the particular circumstance occurred on the road to Mount Popa, which is the most important pilgrimage centre in a huge region and many go on pilgrimage at that time. Obviously the passengers behind the minivan did not even know what was happening.

Monte Popa, the temple is on the top of a high rock, it is the most pagan that exists, full of fetishes, of spirit’s  which are the spirits and refer to people who have been guides, wise or very spiritual lives. They are cult images, even monks worship them, which my monk friend explained to me that it was wrong for monks to worship the Spirit's, and he told me that it was not correct, only the Buddha image, he explained to me, the spirits are very old, and it is part of popular culture. Some ensure health, others for a better life and so on, they are miraculous for their faithful. I see it somewhat like the saints in the Catholic religion as in  being the time of "Sonkran", it was crazy, hundreds of faithful and hundreds of insolent and aggressive monkeys. You take your shoes off at the start and climb  300 steps. After a week of intense pilgrimage it was disgusting, the stairs to say dirty and globs of stickiness when walking, drinks turned around, mud from spilled water, monkey pee. The monkeys maybe friendly at first, but then they become unpleasant. You turn a blind eye, you're there, and the mission is over. Inside dozens and dozens of niches or altars, each one has been improvised, and they are added in any disorder and as if they compete with each other, with more decorations, exotic lights, etc…. I saw huge sums of money being handed over to managers on many occasions as part of supporting Buddhism. A level of hedonism, far from being a place of spiritual retreat. Never like any of the beauties of previous temples, what is shocking is hedonism at its max expression. each one has been improvised, and they are added in any disorder and as if they compete with each other, with more decorations, exotic lights, etc…..

This image, like many others, show caregivers sleeping on altars, here the caregiver's bed is seen. Parishioners tip them for caring for and keeping fresh flowers and fruits.

this is an altar of women and for women, handkerchiefs and images of wise women.

curiosities: there are no surnames, they are names that are mixed, the feminine or masculine does not exist, words without senses, such as Oo that is used a lot and U means sir, and they know perfectly who their cousins ​​are, it comes down for centuries, and it is not a problem. I took 1,804 photos in 25 days (30% wasted 10% on the blog) and in Vietnam in 3 months 687 is it clear how I hallucinated  the surreal country?

I finish with this photo which is from far away, how I would have loved to see it up close, it is a tremendous bamboo scaffold, This is the most surprising thing that I saw, first the height, the curves, concave and convex in knowing that the bamboos are rigid and straight  How they managed to give it those curves, with a wonderful and elegant harmony, they are masters. Admirable.