With great sadness I read the Sunday edition of the NYTimes Week in Review, p. 7. I urge you to go on line and read it. “A Few Voices From the Deepening Silence” reports the individual stories, told anonymously for fear of reprisals, by men and women, monks and laymen, business people, and ordinary citizens who witnessed the atrocities piled on the innocent people of Burma during the recent protests. It is appalling! I now wonder if I should continue to put pictures in my Facebook album of the people I met during my four weeks there last January. The children and passing parade at the temple I shall leave, but I’ve already eliminated photos of some of the students with whom I spoke, and several monks. I have some wonderful pictures of guides who helped me in Bago and Mandalay, monks with whom James Wilson and I talked, a lovely lady who runs an orphanage on Inle Lake, and one college professor at Shwedagon who said, when asked how he could be happy when the future for his country seemed so bleak, “I have a choice. I can either be happy or sad. I choose to be happy. And I continue to have faith that things will get better.” This was an answer I often heard. I shall not show these people, even though their faces radiate the inner joy and fortitude typical of many Burmese I met.
After reading this report I realized that it would NOT be wise to venture into Myanmar/Burma in the near future. Any person you talked to would be suspect, if, in fact, you could even get into the country. I don’t know any more facts and I don’t know how I can help. If anyone has suggestions, please write a comment. And look at my photos from a happier time. There are more coming.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5607&l=c0270&id=584094331
