“I’ma bitch, I’ma boss”

26 July 2020

[Above photo:  A few of us discussing a Zoom therapy session. ]

It was so moving to hear AOC’s considered reply to Rep. Yoho’s raving insults, as she  instructed the Congressional Cromagnons who secretly smiled when they heard he’d called her a “fucking bitch”.  Of course, he denied it; it hardly mattered since he had already called her “disgusting”. And then he’d defended his “passion” as coming from his “love for God” etc. I’m old enough to be her grandfather.  I find her brave and articulate and fair.  She can breathe a fire hot enough to scare the shit out of the Old Boys Clubs.

See this strut: https://twitter.com/i/status/1285692799812341760

Of course, she won’t always be right. Of course, she is human and fallible. But what a smart and right-minded messenger. We have waited so long for her, it is hard not to freight her with unreasonable hopes.

Kelly and I had another memorable meal/chat. On my ½ hour walk to the bar, Father’s Office, a dark, dingy, smokey affair from out of the Burmese past, I saw a trishaw driver—-a trishaw is a three-wheeled bicycle with a sidecar, so perhaps he’s more a trishaw engine—who had affixed a vase in which he had orchids to his handlebars. I almost jumped on except that I needed the exercise. Then, ascending the pedestrian overpass I saw three large umbrellas on the concrete walkway with young couples concealed underneath them, smooching and talking. This is common around Inya Lake, a more romantic scene than above the noisy, gaseous intersection of Maha Bandula and Shwedagon Pagoda roads, but these city dwellers have no other place to be romantic. Each member of a couple lives with their entire extended family in a room or two. At first I felt sad for them but quickly I realized they were as activated and happy as could be.  If for anyone, my twinge should be for myself, matelessly off to dine with my buddy, no hormones activated.

We seem very well-met, Kelly and I. He described spiritual pilgrimages to Palenque, those fabled Mayan ruins in the jungles of Yucatan. I loved travels with my wife in the Yucatan and in northern Guatemala. We talked about the guilty pleasure, truly low-hanging fruit, of being foreigners with needed skills in a developing country. I used to look down on friends for wanting to be “unique” in such an effortless way. Now I think it is great! I do the work here because I love it and it is desperately needed; the “specialness” is just a side benefit, and who am I to reject that? It is always being corrected anyway; I am regularly being jerked back into reality by my awareness of my cultural gaffes. I’m never in danger of believing how extraordinary I may seem to others here. “In the land of the blind……”

We’re thinking about in-country travel, since it is beginning to open up here and there never has been much covid.   I mentioned visiting Kawthaung, at the southern tip of lower Myanmar. It is the primary gateway to the Myeik Archipelago, 804 largely uninhabited islands with great diving and snorkelling. We both also want to go to Putao, the northern-most town in the country, 1200 miles away, tucked into the tail of the Himalayas. He has been to Hakha in northern Chin State; he says it looks like Tibet, all tilted shale and quite barren. On a steep hillside and prone to slides, in 2015 a team of German geologists determined the town, the capital of Chin State, was “too dangerous to live in”, given the likelihood it would all slide away someday soon. And it is very cold, being at 6100 feet.  I suppose we’ll await holiday weekends after the monsoon passes. I’m also eager to trek again, but further than previously, from Hsi Paw into the hills of Shan State with my guide, Omaung.

The Myanmar Mental Health [read “Psychiatric”] Society gave a lovely dinner in appreciation of Dr. Khin Maung Zaw, the Burmese-UK child psychiatrist who is helping with my course, and myself. Requisite speeches. I was concerned I’d be under-dressed, since I decided to wear my beige taikpon (jacket), rather than my black one. I needn’t have worried. None of the men wore one, coming from work in longyis and rumpled shirts. The women, of course, were dressed to the 9’s and all looked magnificent. They always do. Students and graduates of last year’s program were at one table, the old-timers at another. The Sedona Hotel put on an elegant feed.  I always want to bring zip-lock bags to these affairs to take home the left-overs but I am sure they go to the kitchen staff for their families.

KMZ and I were each given large blue bags. In the top of mine was a brown leather purse—“pleather”, I later discovered—and another sack of stuff below. When I got home I looked and found a small bag with a beautiful jade bracelet and a paper bag stuffed with bundles of money, fresh from the bank. Thousands of dollars! Since it was heavy, I had imagined it was pickled quince from Lashio or another ethnic treat.

I know how difficult it is for doctors to earn money here. I think my gift represents gratitude—Prof. Tin Oo’s or MMHS’s, I don’t know—for my efforts. Also, it is perhaps a response to the fact that my request for a salary from the government was turned down. In any case, I am very grateful and have used the money to open a separate account at CB Bank earmarked for Child Psychiatry needs in the future. I tried to open it where I have my first account, at Aya Bank, but was told foreigners could only have one account at a given bank. Also, I tried to put Prof. Tin Oo on as a co-signatory for the CB account but was told that if I did it couldn’t be atm-accessible. Trying to head off what? Corruption? Confusion? Complications?

We’ll continue with our webinars today with one on Assessment. How does one manage a full assessment in a clinic bursting with clients? One of my students has clinic in the morning and appointments for her assessments in the afternoon. You cannot rush a child, nor parents. Yet we need to know as much as we can before determining a management plan. As is said, “Driving faster won’t get you there any sooner if you don’t know where you are going.”

I read a wonderful opinion piece in the NY Times today about re-opening the schools. The ravages of the coronavirus have seemed like a horror film here, scary and heartbreaking but distant. Somehow the Times piece brought home to me the incredible worry and suffering this illness, and its mismanagement, has wrought. How many lives lost, businesses ruined, families shattered? What is the combined weight of the anxiety of the parents, unable to provide stable food and shelter for their children? How many small primary care medical practices will go under? Rural hospitals will close? How many children have been beaten by stressed, decompensated parents? With what will we as a nation be left? I hope, given the stress, that we can think smart and clearly and consensually. And, at last, we can elect thoughtful, inclusive leadership. The path out and upward is obvious; we just must choose it.