HOPE :-)/:-(

24 May 2020

[Above random photo: I have no idea how the birds get in and out. On the way to Mvuu Camp in Liwonde National Park, Malawi, 2017.]

The idea of a woman VP, running for President in 2024, is thrilling for me. And that Elizabeth Warren is a possible choice is fantastic. She is brilliant, accomplished, principled, honest, a workhorse, and gets things done. It is good that she is to the left of Joe; he’ll reassure people, she’ll move stuff ahead in a humane, sensible, and progressive way. It also is very exciting to me that Joe is forming task forces to develop a campaign platform, task forces filled with smart, honest, principled people.

It has been a hideous 3+ years, living among the swamp dwellers, under their power. It reminds me of the time my distant cousin, Sim, was visiting. He was a couple of years older than me at 11yo. We were playing on the lawn after a swim and he grabbed me by the testicles through my bathing suit, squeezing them just hard enough that I knew I couldn’t escape or fight back. I was paralyzed and surprised and frightened and enraged. No one had ever done that to me before (or since).

We’ve never been in this position as a country before. Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth by Washington Post journalist Glenn Kessler—https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-lying-to-sway-his-reelection-and-democrats-arent-paying-attention/2020/05/22/60c79e4a-9b80-11ea-ac72-3841fcc9b35f_story.html —documents and examines the patterns of the 16,241 lies DT has told since Inauguration Day. That averages out to be 15 per day. And the dismantling of government oversight, the dismissal of all whose primary loyalty isn’t to him, appointing unqualified people to cover his schemes and blunders. It has felt like he had us all by the balls, squeezing just hard enough, and we could do little about it. Reckoning time approaches, thankfully.

A switch to local issues. My war with the black ants continues, although I am beginning to feel a bit for them. They are incredibly athletic, whizzing around at amazing speeds to avoid my thumb. Maybe I’ll just live and let live. That is not so with the weevils, or whatever the creepy-crawlies are in my rice. Happily, they are easily washed out when I rinse it, since they float. If it is dried corn—say, popcorn—they are more difficult to exterminate. They eat their way into the kernel so when you think you have finally removed the last one, 6 more appear. You then realize that 50% of the kernels house these critters. It must be some experience for them when the kernels pop. I suppose they’ve expired from the heat but it would be exciting to be nibbling away in your home when it suddenly explodes, like a meth house, perhaps. The last local issue is the drain in my bathroom sink. It has gotten slower and slower. I don’t see Drano in the grocery store. I know when I have cleaned out sink drains in the past they are filled with hair as a basic matrix; then goopy stuff adheres, fills up the spaces, and the sink is plugged. I’d dissemble the trap but it is a pedestal sink with the trap concealed and I don’t want to try to do it blind. So, I heated an electric kettle of tap water and poured it down. Voila! The goopy stuff relaxed its grip and the drain works again. For awhile. I can always call the landlord but I think one task at a time is enough for him. I’m working on the TV antenna now; it has taken a month so far.

I’m planning to start, with my students for sustainability, a For Children and Families column in local newspapers. Facebook may reach more; I’ll check with my students. It would include both basic information on child/family development (including developmental needs) and serve a Q & A function. I want to address bullying, corporal punishment, intellectual disability, behavior disorders, psychotherapy, sexual abuse, sex education, and myriad other topics. It could be a fun and useful advocacy arm for child mental health. A friend is working on the newspaper angle for me now. My students can translate and keep me culturally-attuned and I can provide some experience, good writing,  and a progressive nudge to it. It can help to insure our momentum.

Now every student in the Child Psychiatry course has a therapy patient, either a child/adolescent or a parent. Naturally, the parents are the most difficult to engage. Privacy is an issue with Zoom, since so many families live in a single room. Happily, some of the kids are fluent in English and their parents are not.

So much for final decisions. After deciding “definitely” go to Maine in July, I’ve reversed course. 35 hours flying from Yangon to Boston, 6 hours driving from Boston to Brooksville, 14 days quarantine on the mainland, the same travel times in reverse, and between 14 and 28 days quarantine in a hotel upon arriving back in Myanmar. Uh, not a lot of sense to it. The pre-Island quarantine is because there will be at least 3 elders on the Island and the pump, boats, etc. all are possible vectors of disease. It just isn’t worth it.  I’ll miss another summer away from the Island, as well as visits with friends and family.

I did, however, receive notice that my proposed presentation on “The Dawn of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Myanmar” was accepted for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry annual meeting in San Francisco.  My kneejerk was, “Oboy, I’ll get to see my friends, fly to Maine and see family, and return to Myanmar by circling the globe”. It is most likely that the meeting will be virtual and I’ll present from my living room in Yangon.  I can then easily assemble a panel of my former students who can participate. I want everyone in ethnic costume, like Dr. Hnin Aye at graduation in her brilliant Karen traditional outfit with the cute little hat. I was planning on wearing formal Myanmar garb in SF, anyway, for a little local color. I love that virtually everyone here wears traditional clothing—-one-sets for the women and longyis for the men—rather than succumbing to Western dress. Keep that culture. Plus, longyis are so much better for this climate: cooler in the heat, quickly dry after a monsoon downpour. They are colorful and inexpensive, as well.

Miscellany. My pizza crust was pretty good. The topping was less than I’d hoped: a marinara sauce with added capers and sautéed onions and garlic. I was out of cheese. I just read that in 30 years the mass of plastic in the ocean will outweigh the mass of fish and mammal life. And cows are the single largest producers of methane in the world. Plus they use a lot of water and oil (for tractors to grow and haul the feed), so decreasing our meat intake is probably the most effective thing most of us can do to decrease global warming. That and flying less. Which, I’ll note, I’m doing.  Oh, we’re in for it.

The Covid-19 tales out of Latin America are horrifying. Lots of young people are dying. Lots of cheek by jowl living in poor areas of Rio and Sao Paulo and Lima and Quito and Santiago, causing multiple exposures in a not-so-healthy population with poor health care.  I suppose this is what it looks like when the ship sinks.