Yangon: Postcards, Mister?

Submitted, July 15, 2009

I've been reading some good words from professor and theologian Karen Baker-Fletcher, an African-American author. In her book Sisters of Dust, Sisters of Spirit, she describes the middle-class flight from the inner city and urban areas to the suburbs. She notes that urban areas, which have become populated by African Americans, Hispanics, and other people of color, can often be accompanied by the descriptive term blight or bleak. I wonder about the spiritual blight in predominantly middle- and upper-class urban neighborhoods, she writes, where people have forgotten their connection to folk in other classes.

I've been pondering her words about spiritual blight, a bleakness describing the lack of connection to classes, races, and ethnic groups different from my own. Perhaps on a larger scale, as an American I have often not been involved in events on an international scale. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed but what I am not able to do for people hurting throughout the world, that I would prefer to shut the world out rather than engage with it.

The beauty of this trip to Burma is that I am forced to engage with a beautiful group of people in a context much different than my own. I am forced to think about their joys and sufferings. I am challenged by something as simple as where I might choose to shop at the market, and the comfort of thinking that if I had any money it would be much easier to throw money at their problems than to walk in the midst of them. I am, and we are a people who are spiritually enriched because we choose to engage with each other.

Today Rick and I met some children at the market place; a young girl and boy selling postcards and speaking impeccable English. We had already been approached several times at the market to buy various items. But there was something about these two beautiful children that tugged at our hearts. Now, I had a pretty good sense, having regularly experienced the market on the streets in Bangkok, that because we were foreigners, the 3000 kyets they wanted for these postcards was a huge mark up. But it was our first opportunity to really engage with anyone on the streets, and they were beautiful. We spoke quite a bit of English with them. Asking them questions like how old they were, what were there names, and of course the slightly scolding question of why aren't you in school?!

We were endeared to them. So yes, postcards in hand, at a rate especially just for us, we encountered a glimpse of hope on the streets of Burma this afternoon. It was so hopeful to encounter these two young entrepreneurs. Hopeful to see their bright smiles. Hopeful to realize they had the opportunity to be educated. Hopeful even to realize how sharp they were as they haggled with us. The streets, the market, the heat, none of it seemed quite so bleak today.