Yesterday, I took a stroll around my neighborhood, Myanigone. I grabbed my camera and a quick vegetable salad and headed out. Before leaving this beautiful country I wanted to make sure I had pictures of everything I would want to remember. When the only goal I have is to take in the sights through my camera lens, I feel like I start to notice so much more. Quirky writing on the buildings, stray cats hiding between cars and on aluminum roofs, friendly faces that I pass every day without notice. All these things filled me with joy, things that soon wouldn’t be a part of my daily routine. Walking around, it finally started to hit me that I’m leaving in 3 days.
Throughout my four months here, there are so many things I’ve come to love that will be painstakingly difficult to leave. For starters, where we live. Not necessarily the apartment, with it’s dysfunctional toilet and occasional power outages, but the surrounding area. Directly below my apartment and a smidge to the left is the place I get breakfast at few times a week where I’ve learned to successfully order fried rice with a fried egg. Keep walking in this direction around the slight bend in the road and you’ll walk through the daily market. Bustling in the morning and comfortably busy in the evenings, here you can find fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish–sometimes so fresh that they still wriggle around on the silver trays. If you turn left after the market, you’ll find our favorite restaurant that we affectionately call “mingalabar” which means “hello”. That’s definitely not the actual name, but it’s on the sign so since our first week here, that’s what it’s been. I will fervently miss their tomato salads and vermicelli with tofu.
If you head the other direction from our apartment, you’ll come to the main road. From here, basically everything you could need is within a short walking distance. A movie theater, restaurants of all cuisines, rooftop bars, barbecue beer stations, salons, supermarkets, parks and pleasant greenery, malls, and more. It’s so unbelievably convenient. And it’s become so comfortable to spend my days wandering around our perfect little neighborhood. I can only hope to find another place to live as energized and fulfilling as Myanigone.
I’m also going to miss the people. While on my photo pilgrimage, multiple people stopped me to say hello and wave for a picture. Myanmar people are filled with endless kindness. They want to engage with you, are curious about your being, and are generally appreciative that you’re there. Last night, I had a wonderfully friendly cab driver who told me he was a seaman and wanted to take more english classes. I told him all about the school that I worked at and he told me about his travels. We introduced ourselves at the end of the conversation before I left the cab. It’s moments like this that I think are hard to come by in other places.
Not only am I going to miss the friendly strangers on the street and the restaurant owners who recognize us now, but I’ll miss the people I’ve made genuine connections with. One of the hardest struggles of this whole experience was not having a constant support system of friends. I missed the college way of life, where almost everyone you loved was within two blocks of each other at all times. I’ve come to realize this isn’t possible even if I was at home right now and I’m beyond glad I’ve pushed through the rough patches here because the humans that I’ve found and created bonds with are pretty stellar.
One thing I’m not going to miss is the heat. It’s getting progressively cooler, but if the suns out, it’s usually too brutal to want to do anything outside. So. Much. Sweat.
Besides the aggressive temperatures, I could keep going on about the things I’ll crave when I leave Myanmar. I’ll miss the tasty (and often quirky) food and the three dogs that live outside our apartment that excitedly greet us whenever we come home. I’ll miss the boat parties and the many nights spent at Winstar, the best beer station. I’ll miss the bus rides to school and the kids goofy faces when they ask why I always wear my hair like this. I can’t really imagine what life would have been like if I didn’t come here. I love Chicago and I love home, but this was 100% the right decision.
I’d like to think that I’ve grown from my short time here, became more independent and broadened my horizons by taking the leap and moving abroad alone. I still don’t have a direction in life and have loads more to learn about myself, but being here I’ve started to understand what is going to make me happy. And thankfully, that doesn’t have to end! In two weeks I will be moving to Vietnam with my boyfriend, James. We’ll be headed to Hanoi, jobless and full of adventurous spirit so if you have any suggestions, recommendations, tips, or encouragement do not hesitate to send them my way! And this blog will continue to grow with all the explorations to come.