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| That last sunset in Y-town |
I had been avoiding piecing my thoughts together for a long time now. Frankly, I don't really know where to start. Where do I start?
Let's start with the 184 days of Coupvid. And there is a lot to process, especially in the last 4 months, and I had not really allowed space or time for the processing. This had started chipping away at my mental and emotional strength, and I had hit an all-time low in the final month.
So, really, where do I start?
Maybe I start with admitting the fact that I am in a state of mental and emotional distress, which I cannot even begin to really understand yet, I guess. I've never really been through this nor experienced any of this in my life. At times, I questioned why I was hitting an all-time low mentally and emotionally? I am blessed with the privilege of "having." Don't get me wrong, it's not that I am not thankful for my blessings. I am. Everyday. I have my health intact, I have food, bed, shelter, my loved ones are all safe and well. That is one reason why, at first, I couldn't fathom why was it I had hit a mental low. How could this even be possible?
Looking back, I remember a lot of anger when the whole coup took place and turned ugly for the people in Myanmar. I guess I need to understand myself as a human being. Even as a kid, when I saw injustice, when I saw a poor person with no food, when I saw an elderly person with no family, my heart crumbles. Even as a kid, I've hated the sight of suffering. I remember once when I was 8yrs old, and my family went to make a donation at an old folks' home. One of them had missed the lunch bell and was crying that she was hungry. I ran and hid and cried. I couldn't bear someone so old and frail and hungry at that with no loved ones next to them. This is, in essence - who I am. I wear my emotions on my sleeves. I would rather hide behind my Enid Blytons than read the news because the world was just one big hoolabaloo drama. Of course, as I grew up and I matured, I learned to control these better and better.
One Thing After The Other
I would say the real downhill started from the mass massacre on Army's Day in March. Over 800 killed in one single day, and images and videos were floating about social media. How could anyone witness this and not feel anger? To be right smack in the middle of it, to have to keep quiet about it, to know you have people you cared for on the ground, to go insanely crazy hunting down those exact people because you desperately needed to know that they were safe. The worse part is - there was literally not much that I could do. Short of throwing myself in front of a rifle. That day, I remembered that we were at the gym. My first breakdown was on this day. I went to the toilet and cried. And then washed my face and came back out pretending everything was ok. I had not mentioned this episode at all.... until now.
It wasn't just witnessing these on social media. On Black Wednesday, shit went down near my apartment. I happened to be on the way out. The smell of tear gas in the air and those fucktards destroying cars and barricades and properties along the road. I did whip out my video and caught 8secs of one of them pointing a rifle in my direction and fired a shot. Well, you would all think that the first reaction was to run and hide. No. The first thing that happened automatically was for my legs to turn into jelly. I think it was a good 10secs before I jumped behind a car, and that was because I heard people shouting at me to do so. (Pretty sure my Mom and Dad would be in shock if they found out about this!). MOH said I cannot go to Syria if that was the way my legs behaved. There were two other instances where my stupid legs turned into jelly when it was supposed to run - one was when a bomb exploded next to our apartment carpark just as I alighted from the car. The second one was when I was stopped by a bloody fucktard with a gun at a checkpoint. These damn legs, I dunno why I train them so hard for them to become jelly at crucial moments.
The massacres continued on and on. And then the revolutionaries started regrouping and fighting back. Intermittent bombings and shoot-outs that escalated. Youngsters taking up armed training and going into the jungle. Some of them, my students. Again, how heartbreaking it was to know that this was their solution. That I had lost contact with ALL of them. I had no way of knowing if they had survived or were they out or what. Let me make it clear that I genuinely cared for and loved my students. Once again, nothing I could do but to pray.
Meanwhile, I buried myself with work despite the mobile data blackout. MOH and I went to leech the WiFi at the gym at Melia Yangon. This was where we stationed ourselves every day for work. Instead of Enid Blytons, I now hid behind my workload. Work kept me busy and kept my brains busy. Every single new project, I raised my hands. At the climate action job (which Day 1 coincided with the first day of the damn coup), I took on every new project possible. I worked on eBooks, eReports, editorials, editorial planning, etc. My boss, T said I had raised the bar for speed of eBook production so high that nobody could ever reach up to that.
Then my MMA fight gym got bombed, and my beloved fight coaches disappeared. Well, one was bombed and hospitalised and is now in prison, another arrested, and the rest are .... in hiding somewhere. The one place where I could say I was the happiest training. Gone. Poof. Just like that. In the morning, I was there training, and that night itself, it was bombed. No chance to say proper goodbyes or whatever. Just poof, gone. These were literally brothers who had my corner.
But I continued training on my own. Punching sandbags, whatever. My morning habit and routine were really what kept me up and starting on my feet each day. For someone who was so planned, so organised, and so routined, (did you know that highly sensitive people [HSP] thrived when they followed a strict routine? And what's funny is that they do not like structures set by others. Only their own! Me in a nutshell) the repetition of changing routines over and over again since the first wave of Covid-19 - lockdown, open, lockdown, open.... must've also silently taken its toll on my brains. At that time, I was so proud of myself for being so "agile" and changing with what needed to be changed. Couldn't even hear my brains silently screaming away. Maybe I did, but I told myself to suck it up. The world is in an emergency. I kept up my usual bitch-mode on and told myself over and over again, suck it up. Gotta keep my head low and gotta do my work. Outwardly, I displayed positivity. In group calls, I still made jokes like, "last one to arrive buys drinks when we ever get a chance to meet again!"
Then the surprise news of MOH getting a job offer in Cambodia and would be leaving in 2 weeks. I took it in my stride and just thought that we all needed to do what we all needed to do. But I guess the first cracker was really this move. We never spoke much about it. After he left, I was obviously expected to join him. Obviously, no one was encouraging me to be in this "don't-know-what-will-happen-next" place alone. After the first two weeks apart, we started fighting. It was unpleasant, to say the least. Everything was so vague and unclear, and it just threw me off. I realized now it was because we were not aligned - unlike when we both left Cambodia back in 2012. We had our first real communication breakdown as husband and wife. During the fights, I realised in the past year or so, we had totally really been "together but apart." We lacked communicating our thoughts or feelings of the whole fucked-up situation. I refused to leave, and he wanted me to get my ass over as soon as possible. How could I leave when none of the people in Myanmar that I cared about was ok?
On top of that, the SoyAi boy that was arrested (for no good reason except to be standing in line waiting for a stupid bank token) still had to go to court every two weeks. Apparently, that's just how it works here. They have all the tools to make life as difficult for you as possible. Every two weeks, bribe money had to be paid. Htet Shine reassured me that he was taking care of it and was still trying hard for the SoyAi business. In the end, I told MOH, end of July. End of conversation. I felt like a coward for leaving. I felt like all of my privileges were used to keep myself safe. Trust me, it was not a nice feeling at all.
Meanwhile, I continued to bury myself in my work. But signs were showing that I was cracking. Yet, I was in denial. T mentioned my careless proofreading during one of our weekly one-on-one meetings. I noted it and blamed my poor eyesight. Ugh. I buried myself deeper with work and used up extra energy to ensure I took care of that "problem." Another day, I uploaded the wrong content onto the wrong platform. Can one even imagine - someone who's always got her shit together for work can make such a terrible blunder? I blamed it on the digital tool instead. I spent extra hours and energy to ensure I got things under control. But there would be days where I had, for example, done a full copy-editing and had no recollection that I had done it. Alarm bells were dinging. But I ignored them. I was telling myself, I've got this!
Fear Of Arrest
In this place of "don't-know-what-will-happen-next," where nothing made sense, the idiotic fucktards will always come up with something to curb the rising revolution. As we all know by now, the banking system and economy are at the brink of collapse (or maybe it already has, with more than ten international businesses pulling out of the country). Well, I, for one, had no bank account whatsoever here. My cash was literally under the mattress! And then those fucktards announced that it was illegal to hold over USD10k in cash, and by doing so, it means you are part of the revolution, yada-yada-yada....
So when I decided that I would leave, I had a huge problem - I couldn't risk carrying all my hard-earned cash with me to the airport.
Worse of all, the fucktards also announced that all airlines must provide the flight manifest 10-days prior to flight departure. This was what everyone assumed to be a background check of passengers so that they could make their arrests. People who made donations were high on the target list. So you can imagine that my fear wasn't unfounded. On top of that, I was also in fear of some possibly incriminating SMS-es sent to my fight coaches at the start of the coup. They were on the frontlines of the revolution.
Digital surveillance was also brought up a few notches. I no longer posted on social media. When I did, it was just about my training or some random shit like song lyrics just so to bury the previously vocal posts to the bottom.
I was literally worried and frightful of being arrested. It killed my brain cells trying to think what I could do with my cash in hand. Nobody outside Myanmar would understand this issue or the banking system's collapse. Just as my Papa said: "It doesn't make sense!". I know nothing makes sense. It is what it is. I have no way myself to make sense of it either. It killed my brain cells worrying about being arrested at the airport. This fear - this was probably just a portion of what the Myanmar people were going through. Meanwhile, the fucking CIMB bank in Malaysia was annoying AF and offered absolutely zero help. On top of that, gave me more trouble with my accounts. I wanted to literally punch them in their faces. The next time I get a chance to see them face-to-face, I would.
Did I already mention that I couldn't sleep at nights? For many, many months at this point. Looking back, I suppose, it was my sleep-talking that MOH recorded nightly that should've been another alarm bell. I shared mostly the funny ones. But in between those, there were many aggressive and angry ones of me killing some fucktards. Anyway, despite insomnia, my morning routine must get done. Otherwise, I felt I might spiral downwards out of control.
As an introvert, I didn't want to see people anyway. I didn't want to put on a mask of positivity and that everything was ok. On the occasion where I did catch up with a friend or two here and there, it literally drained me as I needed to put on such a tough pretend front for a few hours! I also didn't feel right about reaching out to anyone. I mean, hey, grow up in an Asian household, and you would know that one was always brought up to be "strong." Stiffen that upper lip up, and don't stress about it. In Chinese, we have a saying: "Even if the sky fell down, just treat it as a blanket and wrap yourself warmly with it." Not being able to deal with struggles and stress is a sign of weakness. Hence my denial that I was hitting a mental rock bottom. At work, I kept up my gangsta-bitch mode.
Strange Spookiness
After MOH left, I took to sleeping out in the living room on the sofa bed. That lets me hear of any emergencies, if at all. About 2 weeks after he left, one night, I heard knocking on the iron grill of the window. At first, I thought I was dreaming. But it was loud and clear. Windows were all shut, with no wind; hence I couldn't really rationalise the sound. But I didn't wanna think too much about it. Because I still had to live there!
Then, there was this one night where I had drifted to sleep, and all of a sudden, I was woken up by something tapping hard on the armrest of the sofa bed that I was sleeping on. I kept my eyes shut although I was awake, and the tapping continued. I was like, you've gotta be kidding me. I chanted my prayers all night long.
I was beginning to think that I was going a little insane due to my insomnia. I tried every possible way to rationalise the knocking and the tapping. I let my brains think that perhaps it was the wind or I was actually really dreaming.
And then, yet another night, to confirm all of my fears,..... in the middle of my fitful sleep, I heard a loud effing crash. I jumped up and switched on my torchlight, wondering what the hell crashed like that. To my horror, it was the chair from my working table. It had fallen over backwards onto the floor. Now this, this I absolutely had no explanation whatsoever. A 4-legged chair that I had pushed in properly after use just fell backwards like that. I didn't get out of the sofa bed. I closed my eyes, chanted my prayers, and I hoped to God that maybe I was actually dreaming. Maybe the chair will be in its rightful position the next morning. No such luck. Next morning, I got up, and the chair was literally still on the floor, on its back in all its glory. I picked it up. And then I found myself negotiating. I said, "Look here, I have to live here, so please don't disturb me, and I won't disturb you."
There was one more night of knocking - this time at the alley door that led to the kitchen. Once again, no wind, no nothing. My mental health was deteriorating, and I wasn't sleeping well, and ugh - my weight. If I had been on a weight-loss journey, this would have been one good news. But I wasn't. I ate; it wasn't that I wasn't eating. In fact, I even started eating carbs, drinking alcohol, although on the weekdays, I still generally tried to eat decently clean. But I was losing weight. Before Covid-19, I was 53kgs, ripped AF with popping abs that looked like chocolate bars. Day 184 of the Coupvid, I was at 44kgs, still ripped, though. Can't even qualify for minimum fighting weight for MMA! I couldn't understand this, but I reckoned the mental duress and emotional stress contributed to this. Granted, I didn't have a big appetite, but I ate. Because I still wanted to get up and train like a beast. Who knew straight-up mental duress would equal weight loss!
I had also started speaking to my grandparents. I just thought, maybe it helped that I had "people" on the other side. Besides my prayers, I spoke to them. I asked them to please look out for me, you know. Ah Por, Por Por, Kung Kung, Ah Kung, please look out for me.
The Mother Of All Shit Show
The bombings and shootings continued. Sometimes, I can hear the bombs from my place. Sometimes, I don't know if I'd roll over one by accident and be collateral damage. But it got to a point where I was also angered by it. It's like one fucking small bomb here and one fucking small bomb there isn't gonna do no shit, you fools. There's no plan, no strategy whatsoever. When will this end???
And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.
Covid-19 third wave struck with the Delta variant. And all of a sudden, the days turned dark as hell.
People were dying left, right and centre. Every five minutes, you could hear sirens. How ironic that there was a time ambulances were shot at, now they were allowed to transport the dying to the hospitals. However, with hundreds of doctors arrested for taking part in the protest movement, hundreds more in hiding, and even hundreds more vowing never to work under the boots of the tyrants, the medical system had already collapsed.
Suddenly, Covid-19 was staring everyone in their faces. Social media became an obituary. Up until now, I can still hear the sirens in my head. And the stench of death for some reason, I am not sure if I am imagining it or what, but I can smell the stench of death. People I knew started falling one by one by one. Everyone was losing their loved ones. It was very, very dark days. For someone hyper-sensitive like me, it was too much for me to take. I stopped looking at social media.
I had begun to lose more of my shit. Literally. I lost my computer pen, I lost my watch. Those who know me would know that I'm not someone who loses things. The TIMEX watch I had with me since my first triathlon race more than 10yrs ago would tell you I don't lose stuff. Thankfully, these were found again by the gym staff - I was still camping out there to work using the WiFi. Also to avoid the goddamn power cuts. The only setback of not being home is having to travel back before curfew. (I once got carried away with working, I totally missed the curfew hours. It was a very tensed and extremely stressful journey to get home for me that night. Every road was blocked!)
My students and friends alike were telling me to get out and get out now. They were adamant. In fact, a few of them told me that worrying about me is stressful for them! Since when did I become a burden?? Even Htet Shine was telling me to leave if I could. I told them there was no need to worry about me. I am fine. But I finally made the decision to change to an earlier flight. First, a decision to leave. And then a decision to go earlier. It was grating me. And then Singapore decided to close its borders, and my flight was cancelled. It was a stressful, extremely stressful period of trying to sort out another flight. Seemed like the whole world was trying to get out too, and there were no flights available till August.
The night the flight was cancelled, MOH and I had another fight. He said, "I don't want to blame anything or anyone, but I told you to leave earlier." That cut. It really wasn't like I didn't want to leave because the air here was fresher. I refused to speak to him after that, and at this point, I knew I had hit an all-time lowest of low - both emotionally and mentally. I told him I no longer had the mental capacity to brain what he said or whatever. And no mental capacity to make him understand anything anymore. I closed up and clamped up.
While I could stop myself from looking at news and social media, unfortunately, I couldn't for my work here in Myanmar. Colleagues were falling left, right, centre. The manpower resources were crippled. In the BCP meetings, I could see the leadership teams crumbling in pain as they lost their staff or when staff's families were affected. Someone was losing someone every day. As one of them rightfully put it - "This is not what we had been trained to do. We are now fighting to save lives." Damn right. The internal communications work I needed to do was stretching my limits. I knew I was no doctor. Not even a nurse. My solution for a flu was to do burpees. It was frightening and depressing. There was one instance where we had managed to get an O2 concentrator to a colleague. However, there was a power cut because it's Myanmar, and due to that, she didn't survive. I was put on the task force for counselling of staff members who were grieving. I really didn't think I had the mental capacity to do this. But I didn't want to be a baby - everyone was fighting to put out the shit fire. This task completely drained me. I still got my work done as well as I could. I saw my team members too, were losing their marbles, handing in shoddy work filled with mistakes. And when they did, I told them I'd cover for them and forced them to take an hour's break to get their shit together. I don't know why I never told myself this. I should've done this for myself.
On top of all that, the fucktards continued their nonsense. While people were dying due to lack of oxygen, they closed oxygen plants or arrested people waiting in line for oxygen. And they issued another ruling which made it illegal for any private hospitals to take in Covid-19 patients - even though they had no resources to care for any patients. How can anyone not be affected by news like this? I secretly wished I wasn't in those meetings. It angered me because I was helpless. The sheer injustice, the impunity, the sheer INHUMANE nature of the fucktards really, really angered me. I wanted to shoot them all, like seriously! But nobody could do anything! We wanted to do a CSR donation drive to bring food to people affected economically by this whole shit show, similar to the White Flag campaign in Malaysia. People were starting to put up white flags/yellow flags as a call for dire help needed. This was also hampered because the fucktards were forcing people to remove the damn flags from their homes. As a large organisation, we also couldn't take the added risks of going against the fucktards. Due to a collapsed healthcare system, organisations had to look at providing their own quarantine centres. Our efforts were also hampered for reasons I won't even speak about. So tell me - how can anyone not be affected by these? When you think you could be at least useful, and then you're not. Just angry and helpless.
After one of these meetings, I had another breakdown. I literally turned to the skies and cried out to my grandparents. Are they looking out for me? I was so desperate I even pulled out my "good granddaughter card." I had been, I had always been the most filial granddaughter to them all. I know that. But I never expected that I would play this card ever in my life.
Lockdown
The fucktards, for some reason, declared a week-long public holiday which was extended and extended instead of calling it a lockdown.
One morning, as I was leaving my apartment, I saw my neighbour outside her apartment, moaning and crying in pain. When she saw me, she hurriedly went into her apartment. When I got back that evening, the lift was not in service, and I could smell bleach. Immediately I knew we had positive cases in our building. MOH told me to get my ass out of there and go check-in to the hotel. I had zero sleep that night. I could no longer smile even. Energy levels were low, everything was at an all-time low. I did still continue my morning routine. I needed that. But my brain couldn't think of proper programming for my training. I repeated each workout every day so that the brain didn't need to think too much. Just get it done.
I did check-in to the hotel. Just as well cos otherwise, I wouldn't have access to the gym. The gym was only accessible to in-house guests, and literally, no one uses, it so I'm good. Anyway, I had no appetite, and everything tasted bland. But I ate anyway. I shoved food down my throat because I needed to keep alive. The Melia team, though, for whatever reasons, was hell-bent on giving me huge ass portions of food. And because I didn't want to waste it, I gobbled them up. I had to repeatedly tell them I couldn't finish that much food, so please downgrade the size. I needed only enough food to keep me healthy and fit.
On another morning, I was finishing my training with my usual swim. And I think I had an anxiety attack right in the water. My chest suddenly constricted, and I couldn't breathe, and I thought I was drowning. In fact, in my head, I thought I had the virus. For the first time ever, I had to stop midway through my swim to calm myself the fuck down. I didn't know what it was, but I knew it was time to admit I had issues. After I calmed myself down and started breathing normally again, I finished up whatever distance I had set out to do. I must finish, be it training or work. Otherwise, I won't even know how to explain the lowest of low feelings if I don't finish.
By divine intervention or what, I don't know. But that same morning, after four mornings of pretty meh coffee from the breakfast crew at the hotel (all restaurants were closed and they only delivered food to your room), they must've realized I was staying in that room because they brought me mocha - in the exact perfect way which I usually ordered my mocha! I didn't even ask or complain about anything. I didn't think it was right to complain about anything during these times. But someone noticed it was me in room 1721, and someone remembered how I like my mocha. I literally cried. Because these were Myanmar people, struggling with their own shit as their country crumbled to the ground. Yet, they remembered something as insignificant as a guest liking their mocha a certain way. But that mocha made my day. And every day after throughout my stay. Something so small, but I would never imagine it would hold me up further.
Again, when I mentioned divine intervention, it was also during this day that I watched the episode of Masterchef Australia where Brent Draper quit halfway from the competition because he needed to "sort himself out." He was doing so well too, especially in the Nigella challenge. And I finally realized it was ok to be not ok. I finally got over my pride and accepted that sometimes, we just can't deal with so much shit, you know. In fact, in one of her calls, my BFF, Sharm, told me, "the world around you may be collapsing, but you need not collapse along with it." A breakdown could happen to the best of anyone. It's not about being strong or being weak. It's acknowledging and healing. Sometimes, it is your "strongest" friend who might need checking in with. While I had pulled on the brakes for biting off more than I could chew at work, I wouldn't stop working. Obviously, my overly ambitious target of producing 2 eBooks every month wasn't realistic.
Speaking of my best friend calling, well, MOH had put her up for the task since I refused to speak to him. He asked her to keep my spirits high till I leave Myanmar. (Ya, he thought it'd be a secret, but we gals got no secrets between us!) And Sharm and Anu both did, and Sharm made it a point to call every single evening. One good thing that came out of this was making us realise why we took it for granted and only called when we were in trouble? We should catch up for the fun of it, really. We've all let our lives and troubles get in between. We didn't wanna "impose." But we are supposed to impose! That's what friends are for! Nevertheless, I am so thankful to them for propping me up till now.
Final Hurdles
So it was, the entire floor of my apartment building was infected with Covid-19. To err on the safe side, I continued staying on at Melia. I guess, in a way, I was practising for my upcoming quarantine period.
My insomnia continued as the impending travel stress loomed. There was the worry of borders closing. There was the worry of arrests. There was the worry of testing positive. It was just one helluva nightmare final stretch.
One other thing that MOH did was to ask one of my students to help me with all the travelling and Covid-19 testing arrangements. Khant, a boy I've seen grown from nothing to something, one with no knowledge of marketing to one now heading up a team and running a business (I would like to use the word "thriving," but unfortunately, the time is not now to say that). A boy who turned the tables on me, and instead of me being the adult, he was the one taking care of me with "Do you have food? I'm sending an oximeter your way. You need vitamins? I can get you vitamins. What do you need? DO NOT come in contact with anyone! Must you still go to the gym??!!" And amidst all of these, he had sick family members to take care of at the same time. Somehow, I guess in my past life, I had done things right.
Travelling during the Covid-19 period was no easy feat (and neither was it cheap). I had booked the PCR Fit-To-Fly test with the International SOS, and they scheduled a teleconsultation session the day before the testing. Let me tell you that doctor, I want to shoot him now thinking about it. He was of absolute zero consolation, only all about covering asses. He told me that the tests will pick out any exposure in the past 3 months and that testing could also be false positive. WTF. Exactly what I needed. NOT. Again, my brain went into a meltdown. After all that preparation and crazy stress to get a flight, to be tested positive would be quite shit. I couldn't keep calm. A million scenarios played in my head. In the end, Khant and I decided that we would get a second test just to be sure.
Morning of the test, which I did at home, the doctor or nurse, I don't know, from ISOS was late. And they didn't seem like they knew what they were doing. Seriously. My confidence in them just went down even further. After that, I went all the way out to the Yangon Molecular Lab to get a second PCR test. I've never had my nose and throat poked at so many times in my life.
Both my tests turned up negative. See? This was why I wanted to shoot that doctor. Maybe his message was in good faith, but his delivery lacked empathy. This was Monday, the day before I was due to fly. I worked half of the day and learned that the fucktards had announced a new government and that they would continue to rule until 2023. And then the Central Bank had announced the ban or the new regulation on hiring foreigners and all these ridiculous other restrictions. So sad for this country. It was crumbling further down every minute. Literally, it was watching what you helped build come falling apart.
And then a new stress cropped up. My flight was at 7am, which meant I had to be at the airport by 4am to be on the safe side, as I didn't think travelling these days meant you could rock up to the airport one hour before flight time anymore. 4am arrival meant that I would have to leave the apartment before that, which would mean I would be on the road during curfew hours. FML. My Papa and my Godma even suggested going to the police station to request a travel permit - like, ok, I cannot blame them because this might be a solution anywhere else in the world. But just not here. "Doesn't make sense", I know. Anyway, after a few more scenarios with Khant, we decided that we would only leave at 4am just to avoid the curfew hours.
I didn't say my goodbyes to anyone. At this point, I was on full robot-mode. I only wanted to get through my impending travel ordeal. It was as if my body was on survival mode and instinctively switched me to robot-mode with only one focus. But that night, I did send a message to my brother. It was just in case there's a possibility of any shit going down that he's gonna be the one taking care of Mama and Papa, and I told him I love him and that I think he was a fantastic father to his boys.
20-Hours Ordeal At The Height Of A Pandemic
We actually left the house around 3.45am. Httoo and Mie Mie came to pick me up, whereas Khant and Nyi headed straight to the airport. They had actually loaded all my luggage into the car the evening before. It was a tense ride all the way to the airport. However, at the final checkpoint near the airport, we couldn't see where the barriers were due to poor lighting. Httoo stopped the car a little far from the checkpoint, and that meant the fucktard with a gun had to walk to the car. By this time, it was no longer curfew hours, but that fucktard made life difficult. You wouldn't believe what he made us do. He asked us to make a U-turn and come back and stop exactly at where he was standing. I knew Httoo was fuming mad, but she did it anyway because the aim was, after all, to get me to the airport safely. But can you just imagine?? They can do as they wish and at their whim and fancy with no fucking implications or consequences. To think that I could ask them for curfew hours travel permission. I hope they all burn in hell.
I had to don on a full PPE suit, and believe me, even before I arrived at the check-in counter, I was already drenched in sweat inside that sauna suit. Now, at the check-in counter, MAI had entered my connecting flight details wrongly, and in their system, it showed Emirates, whereas my printed ticket was for Korean Air. And they had the audacity to ask me which was the correct one! OMG. I said I don't care, as long as I can fly. After 30mins of waiting and soaking in my sweat, they finally corrected the system error and checked me and my bags in. My bags were to go all the way to Phnom Penh. I wasn't hopeful, considering what just went down, but I prayed.
Next stop - immigrations. I don't know if the immigration officer was fucking with me or what. He asked me a lot of questions and even asked to see my old passport even though all my visas and documents and stamps were on the new passport. Everyone that was behind me had already gone past me. After more checking and clicking, he finally stamped approved for me to go through. What ridiculousness, seriously. My heart was pounding. I seriously hope they all burn in hell. I was so drenched in sweat. Thankfully, customs was a breeze.
After boarding the flight, it was delayed for an hour, so literally, I sat in that flight for an hour and additionally another 5hours of flying time. I could only imagine the virus circling inside the plane. MAI - I didn't know if I could trust their hygiene levels. With the Covid-19, trust nothing and trust no one. Especially when many of the passengers were already not observing proper SOP with their masks. I was mortified. I had taken a bottle of alcohol spray with me and had already used up a quarter of it by this point.
Then midway through the flight, the dude in front dropped his handphone under his seat. His friend stuck his head right in front of me to look for his phone! You can bet I screamed! "Can you please not come so near to me???!!!!" WTF was he thinking?? And then he asked me to pick up his friend's phone. I was like UGH, touching other people's stuff. I made a grand gesture of spraying my hands after that. I would've sprayed him too, if not for the fact that I needed my alcohol spray to last my journey.
Upon arrival at Incheon (yes, I flew halfway across the world to get to neighbouring Cambodia. It was the only route in), an airport staff basically waited for me at the airplane door and escorted me halfway through while explaining that I needed to get myself to Terminal 2 to get to my transfer counter. I had to catch two different shuttle trains. The last time I was at Terminal 2 was when we travelled to Gunsan for our triathlon - this was with my fight coaches S and PT where as a team, we placed Top 7 against all the elite athletes from the Korean Triathlon Academy. What a feat!
Anyway, more issues at the Transfer Desk. They told me that I didn't pay for my extra baggage. Lucky me - I printed every god damn document that needed to be printed. Showed it to them, and ugh, every time someone touches something and hands it back to me, out comes my spray bottle. Actually, even before Covid-19, I had issues with people touching my shit or me touching their stuff. So imagine the kind of ugh levels we are talking about these days.
Final boarding after a 2hrs+ transit - and once again, only after boarding, it was announced that the flight was going to be delayed by 40mins. OMFG. So dying in my PPE at this point. I changed my mask, but I didn't have an extra PPE so.
After another 5+ hours of flying, I finally arrived at the Phnom Penh International Airport. The whole arrival process is no longer what we once knew. Upon arrival, there were all these tables with plastic dividers set up. This place was for all your document checks, including your guarantee letters, residential letters, visas, etc. and Fit-to-Fly cert. Again, luckily I had all of these printed out. I don't know what kind of trouble I would be in had I thought digital copies would suffice.
Immigrations here was a breeze though. Less than 5mins and I was through. But they kept my passport - to be returned only upon completion of quarantine. Straight through to baggage collection. I waited, and waited, and waited, I wasn't holding my breath though. But my luggage - including my bike came through. OMG. So thankful!
Next, you're directed to another area with doctors and nurses in full PPE garb where the first test was done. More poking of my nose and throat. And then I went straight for the Sokha Hotel table. You see, previously, it all depended on your luck on where you would be assigned to for quarantine. But 2 weeks ago, the Cambodian government allowed for 2 hotels to be pre-booked for quarantine. So, I booked the cheaper one. More checking of documents, and then I boarded the hotel bus. Before that, I discarded my PPE in the bin at the airport. There were 6 others going to Sokha, and 2 of them were late, so I ended up waiting 45mins on the bus. Literally dying by now. It was already 11.30pm.
When the bus arrived at the hotel, it wasn't the usual reception counter. I guess it must've been some sort of hall that they transformed into quarantine check-in with tables and plastic dividers. More document checking, and here was where the USD2,000 mandatory cash was handed over. OMG the hotel guy checked and checked each bill, and I wanted to tell him, do you think we are in Myanmar? I was so tired by then so I told him to hurry the hell up.
Letting It All Sink In
Today is Day 5 of my quarantine. Many of my friends back in Myanmar were surprised to see my IG of my workout done in quarantine. I didn't say my goodbyes. I didn't know what to say anyway. One final conclusion I can make of Myanmar is that while I had no intention of leaving this way, if I truly honestly asked from within my heart, I know 100% that I had not leeched off the country like how I leeched off the WiFi at the gym. I had done the best I could in my 10 years there, and I have to believe that they would work themselves out.
I'm still trying to process things. But I'm sure my parents are very thankful that I am now safely in Cambodia - I only have one more Covid-test, one final hurdle to get through. Their stoic strength throughout the whole pandemic and then the Coupvid had propped me up. I also didn't particularly want them to worry too much. As it is, Malaysia is already another fucked-up nonsense. I think all these greedy fucktards who are running countries and human beings down the ground should all be burnt in hell in the most horrible way. Anyway, their morning greetings held me up too. Who would ever thought that morning greetings - even if by text made such a world of difference! I think had they panicked, I might have gone under. Papa was always very solutions-oriented, and he'd look for one solution after another at any roadblocks. Sometimes, it can be really overwhelming when he drowns me with his solutions. But then again, it kept my spirits up because it gave me hope. Mama was all about sending positive vibes. All that weekly family chats helped.
No doubt, my BFFs for the nightly calls. It was about making time for me, not making me just a convenience. I'm grateful that I have friends like these. And of course, to my students who took care of me by way of errands and arrangements and sending me to the airport, ahhh, I don't know what to say. But I do know that you guys have grown and adulting is hard, but you're already doing it, so keep pushing forward. And of course, my climate action team who knew I was finally moving and had me in their prayers every day till I got here, and everyone cheered when I told them I had arrived. They just have no idea that seeing their faces on our weekly video calls every Tuesday had helped propped me up too! Looking back, I cannot even imagine how I managed this workload with curfews, internet blackouts, power cuts and whatever the hell not. Crazy unnecessary stress, that's what.
I'm thinking now about my grandparents - my Ah Por was pregnant with my Papa during the Japanese occupation. What must she have experienced and gone through? In fact, I don't even know if she gave birth to my Papa in the jungle! She had lived through that and also the war with the communists. And my Por Por was also pregnant when the 1969 racial riots broke out, and they had to run into the jungle to hide. Did they ever go through mental duress? Or as I said, like any typical old-school Asian families, they sucked it up and suppressed their feelings and thoughts? And then went about life as normal in survival mode? When things got better? How I wish I had a chance to speak to them about all of these.
I also think that I am going to have this anger inside of me for a long, long time. Until a time where I am able to voice out freely all the injustices, see people punished for their horrible actions of hurting others, I will be an angry person. From blatant killing to land grabbing to human trafficking to illegal logging, and at the centre of it - impunity. Maybe I shouldn't live in Asia because freedom of speech is almost non-existent. The blatant corruption, the big powers bullying the helpless, I could go on and on with this list. The world is too crazy, really.
Many have asked, what are my plans now? I have no plans. I'll take it one day at a time. But I will be working remotely - both jobs, so it does mean that I will have ties to Myanmar. The climate action team had been on my ass for not taking a single day's break from the job since I joined. I told them I needed to work to keep my sanity. But I will learn to take breaks here and there. At least with this climate change and energy transition work, I know I am doing something on my path to saving the world. You cannot take that away nor out of me. I also am full of doubt about ever setting foot in Syria. This was actually a planned trip for April 2020 but then the damn pandemic happened. Now, I'm not sure. Am I strong enough to go there?
As for the rest - according to what my Papa advised, "After all that hassle, just pray that you are safe and sound in Cambodia." 🙏
