Burma

Going to Burma was by far the most emotional thing I've done all summer. My visa was set to expire. Burma is the closest country. So off I went.

A little background: Burma used to be an English Colony. They gained their independence in the early 1940s, with the effort being led by Ang San. He was assassinated in 1947, and there was shaky democratic rule, but in the 1960's a man named Ne Win took power with a coup d'etat.

Since then there has a been an incredibly harsh government ruled by the military. The country is incredibly poor, and the people very oppressed. While the government is cruel, however, the people remain incredibly kind, and have fought back in non violent ways for decades. The country is actually made up of several different states, with very distinct cultures in each state. Two of these states have continually fought against he oppressive rule, the Shan and the Karen states. The government reaction has been to obliterate these states and the hilltribe people that live there. Essentially there has been a genocide for years. And so many of these people have fled to Thailand as refugees.

Now, to my journey. I left at 6 am in a Song Two. The trip is about 6 hours. As you can guess from the picture, it's not incredibly comfortable. A picture of me at 6 am.
The Song Two.

So spent a total of twelve hours traveling on the uncovered part of the truck. As I got in the Song Two there were three brothers sitting in the Song Two with their belongings in rice sacks. They were clearly Burmese, and looked to be about the same ages apart as my brothers. I immediately began to cry, as I thought of the lives that they've lived as refugees, and thought of my own brothers living that same experience. The next six hours passed much the same way. And the six hours back the next day. People jumping on and off. Some carrying chickens, others tree trunks. One couple carried a baby that couldn't have been older than a week. Many jumping off before the police checkpoints that were set up to catch them.

I choose not to take pictures of these people. It seemed wrong to take pictures of them in their plight. And so there are only pictures of what a beautiful country I traveled through as I talked in broken Thai, communicating primarily with gestures, and re-evaluated what my priorities in life are.