Learning How to Be Co-Inhabitants

Hello family, friends, and surprise guests! Well I have safely landed in Myanmar. By my rough estimation, I was on a plane a total of 26 hours. Which could also be estimated by one whole bottle of moisturizer, one incredibly sore bottom, and some serious jet lag. But we landed in the wee hours of the morning to a customs queue welcomed not only by an adorning PC Myanmar staff but a swarm of mosquitoes. Trust me you can always find time to put on bug spray. It is difficult to explain the instantaneous friendships, culture shock, and climate adjustment all in one blog post. So I’m not even going to try. I will, however, share with you both the stressors I’ve experienced but also all of the “aha” moments, which I want to commit to memory from my first two weeks stay here in Myanmar.

Let’s begin with the stressors shall we? To begin, from the moment you land you start your busy Peace Corps training schedule. Pre Service Training or PST is known as an intensive 10-week process and the most intensive part is easily the hour-by-hour set schedule you receive on Day 1. My Type-A personality skipped a beat when I saw such a beautifully typed schedule; however, this easily leads to some stress, as even free time must be scheduled. You also find yourself in a constant state of worry. To begin, you experience a lot of physical stress as you adjust to the heat and changes in food, which results in, you guessed it, unexpected and unappreciated diarrhea. You then are on constant alert that any and every mosquito bite could cause a whole host of problems like malaria, dengue fever, chikungunya fever, or Japanese encephalitis. So not only do you douse yourself in bug spray morning, noon, and night, but you also found yourself subconsciously ranking the severity of these mosquito-borne diseases in terms of which one you’d prefer. This is all quite irrational of course as the mosquito doesn’t ask for our preference but if we are going to get a disease it might as well be the one you THINK can handle, am I right? (I promise Momma I'm wearing my bug spray and taking my malaria medication).

And now for the tumultuous joys of PST that deserve to be celebrated and triumphed.

Being surrounded by people who start out by not knowing anything about you and quickly realizing you have never been in a room with so many people, who despite coming from different backgrounds, are so like-minded with similar goals and ambitions.

Simultaneously feeling like you can understand a place like Myanmar and then feeling like it completely surprises you multiple times a day.

Deep conversations that begin with “If you had x budget, where would you live?” and end with “Does a straw have one hole or two?”

Peace Corps Medical Officers giving a food preparation seminar that quickly turns into the Peace Corps Trainees stuffing their face with all of the fresh fruit and vegetables we haven’t seen since we left the States.

Being Snow White by calling and naming all the frogs, geckos, and yes, even spiders, who become your new friends, and yet quickly being grateful that there is a mosquito net in between them and you when its time to sleep.

Laughing so hard from a mispronunciation in language class that your cheeks hurt all afternoon.

Incredible staff that encourages you and asks you questions like “Can I trust you with my heart?” Then feeling all too overwhelmed by the sincerity and generosity of the Myanmar people.