A Proud Accomplishment: Learning Burmese, Weeks 43-44

Since last September when I began studying Burmese at FSI, I knew the finish line was at week 44. It seemed nearly impossible early on to imagine studying Burmese full-time for 44 weeks. Yet, I have. Imperfectly, but I have. I didn’t study as much as I should have. I missed too many days for health reasons. Maybe I didn’t spend my free time listening to Burmese language podcasts and daydreaming about different ways to say something. I definitely did not master the language in any impressive way.

However, I arrived at the end of the program. I didn’t give up, flame out, or quit, even though I thought about it during several rough patches. I felt dread, discouragement, even disinterest at times – but also elation, hope, and gratitude for the chance to receive training many others went to post lacking, and for the small wins I earned. Despite the curriculum or experience not being exactly what I expected, we are approaching the inevitable time to shift professional gears once more.

Reflection

I sometimes remind myself that most people wouldn’t even attempt to undertake this kind of study. And if they did, they’d be satisfied simply to learn to decode a couple of Burmese letters.

Among my cohort, expectations for ourselves are high. If we can’t clearly and professionally discuss such topics as U.S. visa policy, conflicts in the Middle East, and complex social problems, or understand people who speak to us, we feel like failures. I cannot comprehend how far I’ve come unless I stop for a moment and look back to the beginning.

The march accelerates

Next week, we will spend a few days reviewing and consolidating what we’ve learned. At the end of the week, my last remaining classmate and I will take our End of Training tests.

The following week, I will be at an off-site training.

The week after that, we will pack out our house.

Once the packout is done, I will drive to the west coast to see my family and drop off my car to my dad’s house.

Then my husband will fly in, he and I will say “see you soon” to family, and we will fly on to Rangoon with our cat.

---

---

While pretending to study Burmese…

During the last two weeks, as uncertainty and rumors of imminent layoffs at the State Department swirled internally and in the press, I still managed to cross quite a few things off my to-do list.

• I attended several doctor appointments and ordered most of the prescriptions I will need for the next three months.
• I got us a hotel to stay in during our packout, so we don’t have to camp in the house as our belongings — like beds and silverware — disappear.
• I put my second car up for sale.
• For my primary vehicle, I renewed the registration and safety inspection, scheduled an oil change, and purchased a car cover.
• I cleaned, inventoried, and packed up dozens of purses for safekeeping in private storage while we’re in Burma.
• We bought a soft-sided pet carrier for our beloved cat to be comfy traveling in as an airplane carry-on.
• We sat down and made a list of items we want to purchase and put in our consumables shipment, and then started accumulating these things.
• We did a virtual packout survey with the company handling our possessions that are going into government storage.

---

---

• We met with our social sponsor, who is our future neighbor in Rangoon. He sent us some videos of our yard, and we saw mango trees and cute stray kitties.
• We were disappointed to learn we won’t be able to move into our house immediately upon arriving in Rangoon, because the only thing worse than moving twice in a year is moving three times in a year. Of course, our initial accommodations will be just fine. It just makes me tired sometimes to think of one more change, and one more set of things — keys, commute, routine — to figure out. I would rather just get settled quickly and focus on my work.
• Also during the period, I checked off five more consultations with DC colleagues who support our work in the field.
• V and I completed our pre-departure immunizations. So we should be safe from Japanese encephalitis and other nasties — if not from mosquitos themselves.

Constant challenges and distractions

And during the entire past two weeks, unfortunately, I have had one health problem after another while I have been plowing through my studies and task list.

First was the return of a recurrent infection in my nose that has become chronic over the years. It recently got so bad and painful, I missed a day of class to have a DNA swab at my ENT doctor’s office because no treatments — prescription or OTC — have yet been effective.

It turned out that my nose has been colonized by a particular type of fungus and four different bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant staph. Lovely. Now I have 30 days of sinus rinses to do containing half a dozen different types of compounded medicines.

As I filled the prescription, it dawned on me that 30-day treatment meant I would be having to deal with this while in training, while at FACT, while on my road trip, while traveling to Rangoon, and for my first few days in Rangoon. But better that than moving to SE Asia with an out-of-control infection.

While I was dealing with my nose, I got pink eye. First in the left eye, then it spread to the right. I treated it immediately with prescriptions I already have and kept going to class. No one else caught it from me, including my husband.

Finally, I got a nasty flu. I was throwing up, congested, sick to my stomach, dizzy, and exhausted. I missed a couple days of class, but again, no one caught it from me. After a week, I felt better… except for the coughing. And coughing. And coughing. Which continues today.

This is the life of an immunocompromised person. It feels like whack-a-mole sometimes, knocking down one problem just for another to arise. Like death by a thousand cuts. Like exhaustion that does not abate from adequate rest. Like wanting to take a monthlong snooze to try and recover from all of the things wearing you down, but not having any possibility of doing so. Like society questioning why you can’t show up better while failing to recognize that its activities have an outsized effect on people like me.

---

Un-settling in

We reconnected with a friend we had served with in Australia and gave her a rocking chair. It had originally been hers, but it was accidentally left behind during her packout when she wrapped up her tour and returned to the States around 2018. I had bought it from her for $20 — her loss had been my gain.

I liked the chair. But we’d had it for several years across three countries, and I could tell back then that she’d been sad to part with it after owning it for many years. I noticed on social media she was back in DC. So rather than put the chair into storage before we leave, I asked her if she wanted to reunite with it. She immediately said yes.

---

Point of no return

During every tour, there comes a moment when you realize the PCS process has visibly taken hold of the house — and nothing will ever be the same. It marks the turning point between a calm, ordinary life and a period of disruption and adjustment. In truth, the shift begins long before it’s visible to anyone else. But once it is, it feels irreversible. The picture-perfect home is gone. Now it’s time to dismantle it, piece by piece.

Over the last three-and-a-half years, this has felt like home. Our kind of home. With a place for everything and everything in its place. We’ve welcomed guests and company and celebrated holidays. Over 1,200 days have passed, some memorable and some routine.

It took some time to settle in, as it always does after a PCS. Particularly because we moved into an empty house while most of our household effects were still in transit. And particularly because we moved into a house that was cleaned in a half-ass way and with heaps of things left over from prior tenants that never should have been our problem to deal with. But once all of our things arrived from Mexico and we finished unpacking, we were able to make this house a home.

The perfect, “permanent” look in the house right before company arrives: that, that is over. I knew when I walked into the den and saw the empty space where the rocking chair used to be. I hadn’t wanted to start staging consumables in piles prior to that. But one disturbance inevitably breaks the ice for all the other things that need to start shifting.

The removal of the rocking chair made it somehow easier for me to remove the master bedroom bedspread for dry cleaning. It came back zipped into a plastic-square shape. I tagged it for storage, never now to return to our bedroom. It made it easier for me to finally remove two dried-out oil diffusers whose reeds still smelled good. They looked nice, but they were done.

I have pictures and videos of how it used to be. We are trading it on faith — for the next great thing.

And so it goes.