In Myanmar, getting there is half the fun, whether on their hand crafted roads or on the river. Especially the river. Even though Thingangon was a major village (it even shows on Google maps, but in the wrong place) it was accessible only by boat. The nine in our party were based at Pathein, and required a fast boat to reach the island and return within the day. The only boat fast enough was a 20 knot 120 foot river ferry that normally transports 160 people. This allowed us a one way time of five hours. It was a bit pricey for Myanmar, about the same as renting a 19’ runabout in the North Idaho town from where I come, but our price included the fuel and the crew!

Our boat was too long! Throughout the trip I tried to get a photo of the entire boat. I never could back up enough to do it without buildings or too many trees getting in the way.

Even so, we had to start at four AM on December 14, which turned out to be a great time. It was still completely dark by the time we got away from Pathein. There were no lights of any kind along the river, and no light pollution visible anywhere in the sky. This is one nice thing about being in a country which has large areas without electrical power. There must have been a meteor shower going on, because some in our party saw six. I saw four, as many as I saw near Waco, TX when I went out to see the Perseid shower earlier this year. I never could get away from the light pollution of Waco or nearby towns that time.

I just checked on the internet, and found that the Geminid shower peaked the nights of Dec 13 and 14. How about that? The first time I’m in good night seeing in years.

The first few hours in the dark were definitely the high point of that trip. I could see many more stars than I could even in Thailand. I don’t remember stargazing like that since I was a kid out in the country in North Idaho. The weather at that time was a bit cool due largely to our 20 knot speed, requiring a windbreaker. Once the sun was up for awhile we no longer needed the jackets.

Coming into the village where we took a morning coffee break.

Inside the village “coffee shop” on the pier. Clockwise from the foreground. Dave Leuthold, Carolyn Leuthold, Sue, Lyda Adair, Bill Cochran, Dennis Taylor, Daw Ah Win. Arm in the lower right supplied by Dr. Thant Thaw Kaung.

After sunrise Sue took a nap on deck. We passed a few small settlements, but only one or two of what I would call a small village. We stopped at one of these for morning coffee and a snack, after which we resumed our trip to the far south.

When we got to our destination there is only one boat landing which already had a boat at it, so we tied up beside and debarked through that boat to the pier. After a short walk out Nargis Library Recovery group arrived at our first new library building, which I describe in the previous post.

Thingangon Village. We landed through the open area in the center of the large boat on the right.

Our captain and crew.

The return trip got us back to Pathein after dark, in time for a late candle lit dinner under the stars and then to rest for our next day with World Vision to the east.

It’s time for us to leave Nang Rong. There are already some hot days in late February this time, although there are number of cool ones as well. A few things have happened.

Regarding restaurants and chain stores, it appears the local KFC may make it (refer to previous blog entry). I do often see it empty, but on a hot day the air conditioning is a draw. I remember two years back when I first brought my wife Sue to Nang Rong. I think it was a hot day in March. I can’t remember what we were doing, but when lunch time rolled around she just had to go to an air conditioned restaurant. At that time there was only one choice. We ended up standing in a corner in Seven Eleven with a hot dog and a slurpee.

Anyway, Sue has hauled me over to KFC in Nang Rong three times now. They now have the complete KFC line of food. In addition, rumors are floating about that the large area of land being prepared on the highway seven kilometers west of Nang Rong is going to be a new Lotus Tesco, which is a large discount store with groceries.

The new highway 24 just went all four lane as far east as Nang Rong last year, and development will come more quickly along its route. This will be at the expense of the old east west route 50 km north of here which passes through the capital cities of Buriram and three adjacent provinces.

Times are changing, but it will take years for change to get into Nang Rong once you get off the highway. Land rights and existing buildings will keep the old layout. Roads are narrow and corners are sharp, with most turns made at 1 – 2 miles an hour. The growth will be east and west of town along the new four lane road.

We have a foundation board meeting this Monday, then we leave for Bangkok the next day. We have a few doctor appointments there (we are certified medical tourists) and then we’ll leave for Singapore. We’ll be back in Nang Rong by early October for sure.

What we do with many of the books we bring in is give them to the Buddhist monks. I’m not sure whether we make any merit in the Buddhist sense, but many temples in Myanmar have libraries that house our books and are used by their communities. The monks also distribute the books to these at little or no cost to us. They run a number of schools that can use our books as well.

Things are done in the Buddhist way, with appropriate ceremony. Several of these presentations have occurred in the past in various parts of Myanmar but this is the first that I have attended. The monks are in front, the adults facing them in the audience, and the children from the temple school are behind. The banner of Myanmar Book Aid and Preservation Foundation, our counterpart organization in Myanmar, is over the front area. The boxes on either side between the monks and the audience hold our books. The brown boxes are primarily English language children’s books while the white boxes are Burmese language books purchased from the proceeds of selling some of the popular fiction and non fiction books we bring over at book fairs in Yangon.

The actual presentation occurred when Hector, Thant and I handed a small stack of books to a monk. We did this several times to about four of the monks.

After we had presented the books to the monks and the ceremony was over Sue presented a book to to the children. The way they quickly got into position around her on the floor indicated they sit with a teacher this way often. It worked better than I would have thought. I suppose her experience teaching kids in the Indian slums English in part by reading to them helped. Also the book “Goodnight Moon”, like most of our children’s books, has many pictures and few words. I think this helped, and hope it will help the children to learn English as they use these books in their schools and libraries.

I got distracted by Sue reading to the kids but still managed to catch part of the distribution network before he got away on his bicycle taxi.

We stopped at several libraries on this trip. The Saya Zawgyi Centinary Library in Pyarpon on the way back stood out. We met with the library board. These men represent the “grass roots” people that we deal with. They are essential to our success and their country’s education. We went over records, check out proceedure, etc. and saw that circulation was substantial for a library of that size. Many of our books were already in this library, with more to come.

I don’t go to the library much. I buy books I read from a bookstore or online. It was an eye opener for me to realize how important libraries are in Myanmar. They don’t have the money to buy a book, and if they did, where will they get English language books, even in Yangon? Even if they could get online Amazon does not deliver in Myanmar. Fortunately for us, with the help of American President shipping lines, Thriftbooks does.

The magazine described a little about my wife Sue’s and my work with both foundations and included a picture of each of us. They made the pictures monochrome for some reason. I reproduce the one of Sue reading to kindergarteners here. This has created some interest and a number of emails to our Opportunity Foundation Thailand website. Some have expressed interest in donating to our work and we are talking to others about volunteering.

In the article six people/families had their work profiled, among them Greg Mortenson, author of “Three Cups of Tea” and famous for his courageous work opening schools to educate girls in Pakistan and Afganistan. Appearing with someone like that was quite an honor.