At a temple during a late night walk through Laputta with friends Binay and Sai "Baba" |
On my last day in
Laputta, most of the office stopped what they were doing and attended
the funeral of a project officer called Mya Zaw Oo; he was a
thirty-nine year old father and a devoted husband. He had worked with
Merlin for less than 4 weeks.
Almost every day in the
office I had heard a cart being pulled along the road, with a bell
ringing and a man speaking words I could not understand through a
speaker. When I heard it that day my colleague U Zaw explained to me
he was reading out the details of the recently departed, in this case
for Mya Zaw Oo.
Thirty-nine years old.
Father. Worked for Merlin. Died on Sunday morning at 2:20 in the
Pathein hospital. Heart attack. Funeral today at 11:00.
Later on that day I
joined a procession through the streets of Laputta. There were
hundreds of people joining a crowd that twisted through the streets;
colleagues, neighbours, friends, well-wishers. Some people were
walking beneath umbrellas, some were on motorbikes, some (like me)
were on trucks. The man next to me explained how this was a normal
response – people in Laputta give a huge amount of respect and time
to the departed and their families, at least during the first few days.
The entire procession
walked out of town to visit the home of Mya Zaw Oo's wife, which for
me was my second time in three days. We all met with his wife, who
bravely held back the tears and hugged her young baby daughter. The
family even gave each visitor a bottle of water and some shampoo. I
wasn't clear on the reason for the shampoo, but I imagine it was something to do with cleansing oneself after the funeral. As we left the house to
follow the body, which was encased in a wooden box within a rich
glass case, I stood not far from his wife who looked up at her
husband and fell into quiet tears. His body had rested outside their
home for two nights and now it was finally ready to move on to its
end point.
The funeral struck me as being not unlike a church service, there being a
religious focal point talking and leading the service, with the
occasional mass reply of religious words in perfect familiar union.
It lasted only forty-five minutes and then Mya Zaw Oo made his last
trip, just a few minutes away, to be cremated.
We went back to the
office, back to work. There was little expression of emotion anymore,
and the mourning time was over. Four days ago he had been in the same
office, introducing himself to the team at his first meeting. He had
complained that day to a colleague of chest pains, but he had
dismissed them. The day after that he was vomiting and it was only
just before 2 on Sunday morning that he reached the hospital, too
late to fend off what should not have been inevitable for a
thirty-nine year old man.
I returned to Yangon
and tidied up my things. The end of my 6 months had come to abrupt
halt and I quietly thanked the team and made my last few walks into
town, introducing some new staff to a few of my favoured coffee shops
and reasonably clean restaurants, the sort of things I found
necessary to stay sane for an extended period away from the UK.
And was it worth it? I had a lucky opportunity to be away in a very exciting
country and to explore a part of the world I hadn't visited before. I
learnt a good deal of things and I have met some fine individuals.
But I had two other responses to the whole trip I hadn't expected: I experienced neither a feeling of success, nor of accomplishment, nor
of having added value; and I realised the best experiences were the
brief times I had with my family and friends. On the former issue, I
am reliably informed this is a normal response in humanitarian work.
There is generally no reward and no glamour attached to sitting in an
office, speaking in acronyms, and making sure you remembered your
first aid kit for the car. And on the latter issue; well, I think I
should have known that before.
So I returned home,
grateful to be able to do just that.
At the local tea shop, called Forever |
Empty streets at 9:00pm |
Wearing less than appropriate footwear on an early morning walk with Binay, Zaw Win and Asok |
Near the expat house |
Sunday lunch, food looks great. |
Stopping off at a tea shop on a lake, somewhere along the road to Yangon |