End of Myanmar

The last couple days in Myanmar I went out in the mornings and took some pictures of our neighborhood. I realized that it was probably my last chance and that just as I had no mental picture of where the Garrisons were living, you guys had no mental image of where we were living. So here are some photos. I got distracted along the way a lot, so they're not the best. I'm going to give kind of long captions for all of them.

This lady's shop was just down the street from the gate to our lane. She sold fruit and flowers (sometimes are unreasonably high prices). She was very excited to have me take a picture of her and her stand.

Hens, chicks and roosters ran around all over our street (U Lun Maung) and the lanes and alleys that branched of of it. I once saw some of them eating styrofoam... no wonder the local eggs we ate sometimes looked and tasted a little funny.

The boy in the red came and took our trash. He strapped the bags onto his bike and pedaled them down the nearest city trash pile. There's no official recycling in either Myanmar or Thailand, but I have come to realize that the garbage collectors go through all the trash and pull out what they can sell (glass, aluminum, etc.), creating a type of recycling system. This kid had one of the nicest smiles I think I've ever seen.

This shop is where we bought eggs, potatoes and onions. The seamtress we had make many things for us also worked in this shop (she is the one in front on the left). She gave us the local price for her work which was amazingly cheap. We liked her a lot.

Down at the end of U Lun Maung, a bunch of guys would play Chin Lone (trans. Cane Ball), a game similar to volleyball but played with a ball made out of cane (go figure) and you can only use your feet and head. The net isn't quite as high, more like one used in Badminton. I now wish I had spent more time down here hanging out with these guys in my spare time.

Just before our street butted into Thalawaddy vendors would set up shops and lay out their wares in the mornings. We often did not get up early enough to catch much activity. They usually were set up by sunrise.

Along Thalawaddy was the main market we went to. There were about 4 or 5 times the number of shops shown in this picture, along with a number more on U Lun Maung. We got veggies, flip-flops, cloth and more from these little shops.

I took this picture because I felt that it captures a little of what Myanmar's infrastructure is like. It also explains our skull-numbingly slow dial up connections.

We miss Myanmar a lot and wish we were still there some of the time. I hope this lets you see a little piece of where we lived... believe me though, these pictures don't show a quarter of our neighborhood.

Temples and Pagodas of Bagan

Because of the move we didn't get around to putting up pictures of Bagan while we were in Myanmar and since then my picture have all been on Craig's computer and I've been elsewhere (they live about 15 minutes away at the moment). So now I'd like to share some pictures of the temples of Bagan. There are several types of architectural styles in the Bagan area. Temples (buildings that have rooms, several floors, doors, etc.), Pagodas (one large, basically solid, conical stupa), libraries (for holding religious writings, these look a lot like an old brick church minus the steeple) and monasteries (none of which actually survive since they were wooden). So here are some of the temples we saw.

A Temple (Sulimani, I think?) framed by an arch in it's surrounding wall

Looking west towards the Irrawady River, temples sprout out of the Bagan plain. (Between Old and New Bagan)

A golden Buddha at Ananda Temple near Old Bagan.

Looking west across the plain from the terrace of a pagoda. (between Old and New Bagan)

Catherine and a big Red Buddha. (Catherine told me afterwards that it is culturally inappropriate to take pictures with Buddha...)

View from a second floor window of Dhammaya Temple. You can see Shwe San Daw Pagoda (the big white one).

Dhammaya Temple at sunset. Dhammaya is one of the largest temples and is located in the center of the plain. (Taken looking west from the 5th terrace of Shwe San Daw Pagoda)

Sunset from the 5th terrace of Shwe San Daw Pagoda.

Chiang Mai and other things

Friends,

We are settling in after the move to Chiang Mai, Thailand. The city is very westernized and is taking some getting used to after Yangon. The comparative lack of modesty, the amount of advertising, and the numbers of choices you have when you want to buy things is, at times, quite overwhelming. We are also starting to realize how limited our access to things was while in Myanmar. However, the weather here is lovely, upper 70s to low 80s during the day and 60s at night with low humidity. Blue skys and puff white clouds abound. The city is surrounded by mountains and yesterday I (Ben) went with a couple guys on a drive up into the jungle and mountains south of the city--the views were beautiful. Chiang Mai seems likely to be a more expensive city than Yangon. In particular transportation will be an increased cost, partially because of our location father outside the city.

We are starting to get involved here in Thailand. Last week I went to a Men's small group (amazingly like a men's group in American only with all missionaries) and this weekend Catherine has been attending a conference on prayer. We meet with the director of a children's home to discuss volunteering with their organization. The week after next (18-25) we are helping out with a conference in southern Thailand (Pattaya). We will probably be working with teens.

Some of you know that my Grandmother has been struggling with bone cancer over the past several months. On Christmas she decided to go off dialysis and my parents called on Thursday to tell us that she died Wednesday night. I was able to talk to her twice this past week, most recently the morning before she died. The ability to communicate with her was a blessing that I am very thankful for. Although she was my step grandmother (my Grandmother died when my Mom was in college), I felt close to her and have many good memories of her. She is the first person close to me that has died and it is hard to process this kind of event from so far away. The funeral is on Saturday afternoon and my whole family will be there except for us. I ask for your prayers for my family and I during this time.