Our second weekend in Rangoon, we attended a cooking class sponsored by the embassy’s Community Liaison Office (CLO) at a local organic farm. We were excited for a chance to learn how to cook Nangyithoke, a Burmese chicken thick noodle salad which originated in Mandalay.
The CLO warned us to bring insect repellant — and for good reason, as it turned out; the farm hosts its cooking classes in a beautiful outdoor kitchen.
In early August, our first weekend in Rangoon struck the perfect balance of downtime at the pool, making new friends, and exploring a few sights outside the embassy grounds. Thanks to the embassy’s hard-working Community Liaison Office (CLO), V and I were able to enjoy a guided shopping trip before we’d even figured out how to order a taxi on our own.
We moved to Burma (also known as Myanmar) two weeks ago, at the start of my fifth diplomatic assignment. It quickly became clear that we had traded summer in the United States for the height of Burma’s rainy season.
When V and I deplaned in Seoul after the longest flight we’d ever taken, we had one goal: to find a pet relief station for our poor cat. He had already been holding it for exactly 24 hours since V had packed him into the carrier for the taxi ride to Dulles. Since then, they’d flown to Atlanta, where they met me, and we’d flown together on to Seoul.
We weren’t sure how much longer the cat could hold it. We’d tried to get him to pee in Atlanta, but he’s a cat. It’s not like we could explain to him, “Hey, we know there’s no litter in this makeshift box. But this is your last chance for a very long time, so at least give it a try.”
And still, before we could search for a pet relief area, we had to proceed through Incheon Airport’s international transfer security check — a surprisingly chaotic process.
Our PCS trip to Rangoon last week broke records for each of us, including longest consecutive air travel time and longest individual flight.
When you add up the 2,731 miles it took me to cross the United States by car, the additional 879 miles I motored around the west coast before dropping off my car at my dad’s, and the 11,649 miles traveled by plane, you get 15,259. Fifteen thousand, two hundred and fifty nine miles of total wear and tear on the body for what will be both our farthest-away and our shortest tour yet.
In late July, after leaving Virginia and driving almost 2,800 miles by myself, I arrived in California. I think my friends and family used to be in disbelief when in 2022 I first started driving across the country alone to see them, but now my wild stunts have become almost expected.
My original plan had been to drive directly to the home of my nana in the San Francisco Bay Area. But when I’d looked at my route, I’d realized I would drive right by my mom’s in the Sierra Nevada Foothills on the way there. It made sense to stop at my mom’s to avoid arriving at my nana’s—about three hours farther away—at night. I got to my mom’s right around dinnertime, just as I’d planned.
After our grueling three-day packout ended late last month, I spent the following day preparing to drive across the United States by myself. Ideally I would have left first thing in the morning. But as the final day of our packout had stretched into the evening, I realized some tasks — like going to the bank and post office, returning newly purchased aerosols the movers wouldn’t pack, and making one last run to my private storage unit — would have to wait until the following morning. This would delay my departure until later in the day.
V spent the day cleaning the rental house where we had lived since early 2022, while I repacked all my suitcases at our temporary apartment. Once I finished, I loaded the car and ran a few last-minute errands before stopping by the house one final time to say goodbye. It was only a temporary goodbye to him, but a fond farewell to the only home we’ve known since we left Ciudad Juárez three and a half years ago.
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