67.5 Miles and Counting

Back in September of 2018, my cp expressed a concern: “Kelly my doctor wants me to eat differently and exercise.” Immediately I thought wow I can’t believe she shared such personal information with me. Myanmar people are hospitable, warm, and caring but one thing they are not is information giving or probing. I can’t tell you how little my closest colleagues actually know about me and vice versus. I took this bit of information as her gaining confidence with me. I hatched a plan. On Sun, Sept 30 I messaged her this: “Hello, I would like to start exercising in the morning on my holidays. Would you like to go walking around Kan Daw Gyi lake Tuesday morning with me?”

The reply: “Ok ba.” 

To this day I have a few suspicions as to why she said yes. The two top contenders. 1) She truly wants to get to know me. 2) She, like most Myanmar people, would feel “an na deh” {a strange feeling of guilty} if she said no. And a less likely contender 3) She truly wants to improve her health (I don’t mean to be harsh but if she truly wanted to improve her health she would have changed her eating habits by now) but then again does her reasoning have to be so exclusive? Why can’t you as the saying goes kill three birds with one stone? 

Day 1 of walking came. I wasn’t surprised when my invitation to my one counterpart unexpectedly grew to two other teachers. Nor was I surprised when we stopped for mohinga (breakfast soup), le phay yei (milk tea), and then the market after our walk. I was surprised by how accepting these women were of me. They strolled to my house at 5:50am in their skirts and flip-flops and I answered the door in my tight exercise clothes because I thought if there were ever a moment to push conservative dressing culture, workout attire would be the most acceptable way right? Their looks gave me some concern. I immediately asked: “Is this okay? I can change, its no problem.” Their response: “No Kelly you are cute. We want to be dressed like you.” Thus, we were a posse of 4: 3 very traditional senior Myanmar women with their flip-flops and hta mains and then me, a young 20 something American woman with yoga pants, sneakers, and Princess Leia buns. How odd we must have looked to the early risers of my town. And yet these women walked boldly beside me ignoring the odd looks we were getting and letting our conversation flow between English and Myanmar. How will they ever know how welcomed they made me feel in that moment? 

I was worried. They seemed tired after our walk. We had walked close to 3 miles in one morning alone. I thought surely their hospitality would have some sort of limit. As indirectly as I could, I figured if they were unhappy with the walk and didn’t want to do it again they would say nothing. So I approached the situation as indirectly as possible. Say nothing, be prepared for something, and then see what happens. But to my dismay, my counterpart approached me so directly. Five mins before the bell rang leading to the weekend she comes running up to me from out of nowhere. “Kelly, tomorrow, we walk, is it okay?” she said with a twinkle in her eye. And there you have it. This has become my 6am morning routine every off day from school. I traded in lazy sleep-ins for early sunrise connections with some of the coolest Myanmar women.

Something else amazing happened as I walked with these women. My confidence and independence in my town grew. I learned new cut through roads, met the monks and teachers who hold the free tuition at my neighborhood pyoung gyi kyaun {monastery} that my neighbors have all been telling me about, and saw a new alley way market smashed between a monastery and a brick wall that has one of the coolest aesthetics of my town. I met other teachers who walk every morning and eagerly invited me to join them next time. I heard town gossip, which teachers are hardworking, which are bossy, and which are lazy. I took what I once thought was an impossible trek to my cp’s house on the other side of town but it could actually be a manageable walk given an early morning start and motivation. Of course, I strengthened my legs because who wants to be out walked by women almost 3x your age? And I’m not kidding one of the teachers that walks with us is 59 and will retire next year.

When you walk by yourself, you get from point a to point b. You mostly do your business; maybe keep your head down, other times you possibly explore. But when you walk with others, you may start at point a but you zigzag around because someone is hungry, or curious about a new shop, or wants to show off their town, or you meet someone new along the way. And then you might even completely forget about point b. But that’s okay because when you walk with others, they become friends. And when you go on a walk with friends, well the destination was never really the point now was it?