Now tui meh :)

"See you later"

Two months ago I landed in Yangon, knowing no one, and feeling exhausted after a stressful and often disheartening first year of law school. I was excited to work with Justice Base, but also a little nervous about being so far away from everything I knew. I’d never traveled for so long on my own and never been to South East Asia. If anything, I figured I’d do some interesting work and get to travel to a totally new and exciting place. These last two months have been so much more than that. 

Sitting in the Bangkok airport waiting for my flight to DC, I wanted to write down a few of my thoughts and my “see you later” message (since everyone who came out to Karaoke knows my real-life speech didn’t go so well).  

First - to everyone I hung out and worked with, I’m so glad to have met all of you :) Thanks for the fun times, the great conversations, the singing, salsa dancing, and traveling. Good luck with all your work and please stay in touch. 

Second - I really liked working in Yangon and Burma and I think there are some really cool opportunities right now as the country is opening up. However, since it is in a pretty fragile state, I think now is an especially important time for foreigners to be mindful of their influence and actions in the country. Political and legal institutions are slowly developing and there is an opportunity for Burma to have an accountable, fair, and stable future. However, Burma also has the potential of modeling after many other developing countries and continuing on a semi-authoritarian and deeply unequal path. I hope we all remain critical about the institutions and ideas we and our organizations promote and ensure that locals benefit sustainably and equally from our work. 

Third - I’m going to miss Yangon. I loved living downtown and wandering through incredibly busy streets and markets. I loved choosing a new adventure with Sophie every other night and just hopping on a bus to explore a new place, or getting desperately lost in a taxi just so we could find a perfect view of Schwedaggon pagoda (ok I didn’t like the getting lost part at the time, but the number of times this happened to me in the last two months now seems pretty funny). I loved sitting at tea shops and hearing all of Ben’s crazy adventures, while simultaneously worrying about how development was happening in Burma. I loved working with everyone at Justice Base/Attack and learning about how incredibly complicated even the simplest legal issues can be when laws are unpublished and often date back to the 1800s, court decisions are also unpublished (and often arbitrary), and when everything somehow ends up being political. 

To the people I met, and friends I made in such a short time, I’ll miss you guys.

Till we meet again,

Xo