And on the 7th day he rested

I think that all of the traveling finally caught up with me. My feet are swollen (and I’ve never seen them like that!!!), I’m tired, I have a headache, and I just don’t feel good. So today I am just staying around the mission house in Fang resting.
(I have to say something here, and I can only hope y’all understand. Mass this morning was an hour-and-a-half and I did not understand a single word. I now love my mother even more because through all these years of my world travels she would sit through Masses in languages she didn’t understand without even a small complaint. I know that Mass is Mass, but when it is in Thai and you don’t speak a single word of it, it is so hard to stay focused and feel prayerful for the whole time. Mom – I love you!! And now I understand what it must have been like for you!)

Kengtung, Myanmar to Fang, Thailand

This morning Fr. John Bosco picked us up at 7:30am and we once again went to the Bishop’s House and celebrated a private Mass in his private chapel. (I think I had forgotten to mention earlier that we do NOT have permission – nor would they give it to us – to celebrate Mass publicly. And to do so without permission might cause problems for the Bishop and priests of this Diocese.)


After Mass (Happy Birthday Dad) and breakfast we had an audience with the bishop (His Excellency Peter Louis Caku) and then we were back on the road for the three-hour drive back to the Maynamar-Thai border (a drive which wound up taking over 5 hours because of extremely heavy rainstorms.

But we finally made it, the Myanmar authorities gave us our passports, and we once again crossed back into Thailand. After two more hours by car, we were back at Fang for a good night’s rest.

Kengtung: Children, Lepers, and Performers

What a glorious night of sleep last night! The hotel clerk had warned us that occasionally the government turns off the power in the city “to protect us”, but God is good because last night we had AC all through the night. And it would have been quite humid without it.

The Bishop’s procurator, Fr. John Bosco, came to pick us up at our hotel at 7a.m. this morning. A priest of Shan descent, he is one of the fruits of PIME’s work in Kengtung. He was our driver for the rest of our stay in Myanmar, and I have to say that he was extremely helpful in all things. He really was a nice guy and he had such a happy spirit.

Let me just mention something about Kengtung. It is one of the big “cities” of Myanmar, but it seems worse than anywhere I have ever been. The roads are only poorly paved if at all, there are soldiers and policemen everywhere, there isn’t 24 hour electricity in the whole downtown area, and foreigners are closely controlled. However, with the natural spring lake in the middle it really is gorgeous. Really, from a distance it looks like paradise, but then when you get up close… Myanmar is an officially Buddhist country and the government makes sure that the Buddhists are taken care of. Here is a picture taken from the compound of the Diocesan offices. A couple of years ago the government confiscated some land from the Diocese (which they are allowed to do to anyone at any time) and built a Buddhist monastery right next to the Cathedral. To show just a little bit more disrespect, do you notice which side is facing the Diocesan compound?!
We celebrated Mass in the Bishop’s chapel, had some breakfast, and then we had a meeting with several of the priests in the Diocese. It gave them a chance to talk about their difficulties and ask PIME about potential funding (as well as continued funding) of some of their projects. A very interesting fact came out of the meeting: did you know that PIME in the United States were the very first ones in the world to begin doing long-distance adoptions? ! And it was to support these little ones of Myanmar (formerly Burma).

Afterwards, Fr. John Bosco took us to the Catholic cemetery which is located outside of the city proper. (You can imagine why – the Buddhists don’t want cemeteries in their cities for the same reason the Romans didn’t over 2000 years ago.) We were disheartened to see that the tombs of all of the foreigners (except for the nuns!) and many of the people had been vandalized. “Everyone tells us that the soldiers did it,” Fr. John Bosco told us, “probably to get the iron out of the crosses to sell it.” Here is the tomb of Kengtung’s first martyr, Fr. Stephen Vong.

The diocese is working very hard to build up the youth involvement in his diocese, so he spends a lot of time with that. While we were meeting with them, I taught them the same song that I taught in Thailand and the Philippines: Chickaboom, Chickaboom. Again, they loved it! So Fr. Claudio had me do it almost everywhere else we went, too!
We spent the rest of the morning visiting the activities of the different parishes and convents in Kengtung. Everywhere that we went they presented us with something to drink and several songs. The sisters had even taught one group to sing in Italian! Anyway, here is one song that I enjoyed – do you recognize it? How appropriate considering where we are… it even brought tears to my eyes.

What is your favorite breakfast food? For one of these boarding houses, the children were all in agreement: Guinea Pig! Or rabbit if the Guinea Pigs are all gone. IF you’re lucky enough to raise them like they do at this convent, then you can always have fresh meat at a low maintenance cost!

We had lunch with the Sisters of the Infant Jesus (Gesu Bambino); this is a congregation that is biug in Italy and very well known and respected throughout the world. Among the delicacies they served: Centennial Eggs and caterpillars (although I think they’re really grubs). Have you ever tried them? The caterpillars are easy: you just drop them live into a vat of boiling oil and they straighten out like French fries. The centennial eggs are another creature.

First, let me tell you the Burmese way of preparing them: they take the egg and wrap it in a mixture of lime (such as you would use at a construction site) and then bury it in the ground for several months. Now the Thai way: they take the egg and carefully cover it with a concoction made of horse urine and a little bit of lime and they bury it in the ground for several months. Scrumptious!
Have you ever heard of Fr. Cesare Colombo? He is the PIME priest who came to Kengtung and set up a leper colony out in the middle of the jungle. In fact, film producer Bill Deneen shot two incredibly beautiful films about this leper colony entitled, “The Happy City” and “The Touch of His Hand”. If you haven’t seen him, they REALLY are worth watching; here are the links

http://www.archive.org/details/touch_of_his_hand

http://www.archive.org/details/happy_city

Growing up through PIME formation I had always heard about this place and I had seen the films, but nothing prepared me for the impact it would have on me. The colony is still running pretty much like it was some 50 years ago. After watching the movies you will so that so much is exactly the same here! Here are the original Church and the original rectory/office that he built.

And this is the original hospital he built. It even still has a lot of his instruments and the operating table still inside! I should note that a lot of this hospital was built with donors from the United States, and this operating room was built with the help of a family from Detroit – the Bekolays.

We walked through the village, and many people came to their doors to see us, while same had the courage to come up and say hello. This part of the village was for those people who had families – back in those days the practice was to separate them from their families. But Fr. Cesare understood the depression that could come from that so he focused on keeping the family together and teaching them good hygiene so that they wouldn’t get infected.

We also visited the women’s section (for those without family) and the men’s section (for those without family). Notice in the women’s section that there are coffins already made and stored above the porch. And finally, this was (and still is) the children’s boarding section for those children with Hansen's Disease without families, or children left orphans because of the illness. (In the movie it shows Fr. Cesare sitting here with the children.)
And with that, our visit to the leper colony - begun with so much love so many years ago by Fr. Cesare Colombo - came to an end.

After dinner back at the Bishop’s Residence, we PIME Missionaries were invited – along with some other invited guests – to a show of traditional (and modern) dancing. Traditional (and modern) singing. The Bishop gave a nice talk thanking PIME for all they’ve done and for what they are continuing to do.

This was the funnest – and maybe the funniest – part of the night. These little girls from one of the orphanages we had visited earlier in the day got up and did this great dance number. You have GOT to watch this clip!

Finally the night came to an end. The performance was just incredible, and I thoroughly enjpoed every minute of the evening. Finally, it was back to the hotel for our last night’s sleep in Myanmar. I wonder if my stuff will still be there when I get back to the room… or if they have gone through it.

Thailand Myanmar border... to Kengtung

We got up At 5:30am this morning, celebrated Mass, had a quick cup of coffee and then we were off. Have you ever been to a walk-across border? Not me. Do you know there is actually a part in the middle that is called “no-man’s land” and it is not under the jurisdiction of either country? Wow. Anyway, we walked across the bridge towards Myanmar, and once we got to immigration there the 45-minute entry process began. I’ll be honest, I had been afraid of what they might do, but it really wasn’t that bad. They just had us fill in some documents, took our picture, had us go from one office to the next for more bureaucratic stuff, took away our passports (which they promised to give back when we will leave the country), and we were done.

Luckily our Myanmar contact – Fr. Angelo Saipiain – had arranged to have a driver for us to take us on the three-hour drive to Kengtung (o Chiayang Thung… or any of the other 30 different ways of writing it). His name was Sai. Lucky for us Sai spoke some English and very good Thai (so he could communicate with Fr. Claudio when we weren’t connecting in English). Also, he had a lot of “friends” along the way, so our passage to Kengtung really went off without a hitch.

You have to understand, Myanmar is a quite corrupt country. I thought it was communist but I was corrected – it is a socialist state. What is the difference you might ask? (I did.) Dictators. Anyway, Sai knew exactly who to pay bribes to along the way so that we wouldn’t get held up or “overly inspected” in any of the 5 checkpoints. No, it’s not a problem. That’s just how “the system” works here.

Like in northern Thailand, Myanmar is comprised of many different cultures, especially hill people of the Lahu, Wa, and Akha tribes. The majority in this part of Myanmar are Shan people.
On our way to Kengtung, we stopped off in Mong Lin. This was one place that Frs. Claudio, Sergio and I had been hoping to be able to visit, but many times the government has the area closed off “for your safety”. Lucky for us, today it was not. This place is very special because one of PIME’s mythical missionaries, Fr. Clemente Vismara, started this mission some 90 years ago. Fr. Clemente wrote many interesting letters, and you can read some of them by going to PIME’s website (below). Anyway, when he arrived Fr. Clemente was looking for land to start a mission complex and this land – which at the time was in the middle of virgin forest land – was given to him by the tribal people because it was believed to be inhabited by the spirits. They figured that the spirits would kill him off. (Which, of course, they didn’t.) He also built a boarding house for abandoned boys here. In fact, many times he would go around the village and BUY the children that parents were trying to sell. They were selling their children to buy more opium. Well, eventually the rumor started that maybe he was eating the children. So when the parents would ask him about this, he would look them squarely in the face and say, “Yes, and then I’m coming back to eat you, too!” This is the original house he built as well as the original Church. Also, notice the beautiful mural with the traditional tribal people from within the Church.

Here I am in front of something that I thought was only a legend… yet here it is. Fr. Clemente didn’t want to be a bother to the people upon his death by forcing them to build a coffin for him (since he was taller than their usual size). So… he built his own! In fact, a couple of times Italian PIME priests would die, so he would give his casket to be used for their burial and build himself another one! This is one of the remaining ones that he built which, obviously, wasn’t used.
Then we went across the compound (about 300 yards I would say) and we came to the compound where the girls stay. It was a welcome fit for a king and I felt quite overwhelmed. As usual, they sang some songs for us.

By the way, the nun on the right in the picture above held my hand and was just so happy that we had “finally come to visit them after all these years”. She was one of the little children of Fr. Vismara who also worked closely with him while she was a nun. In fact, Fr. Vismara died in her very hands. She was just so overjoyed to see us, and oh, the stories she told us. (By the way, I forgot to mention that so many people still speak at least broken English in Myanmar so it was pretty easy for us to communicate.) At any rate, when we were leaving she told me, “I am in paradise to know that you young fathers all knew of Fr. Vismara, and that even with our country being closed for all those years you still love him.”

After quite a long and enjoyable visit, we were once again off to the next parish. You know, one of the things I should mention is that we really only saw another car about every half-hour or so on this long trek; there just aren't that many here... they are either very old or just for the rich! Anyway, we arrived in Mong Phyak, another mission founded by Fr. Vismara. Here the people are mostly Lahu in this area. Again we were greeted with so many smiling children (most of whom are adopted through PIME’s Foster Parent’s Mission Club program), another nice song, and some tasty food.

http://www.pimeusa.org/gettinginvolved.html


Finally we were off once again. We had just a couple of more checkpoints to go through to make it to the once grand kingdom city of Kengtung. We passed quite a few rice fields along the way, as well as water buffalo, goats, dogs, farmers returning from the paddies, and so much beautiful countryside. A lot of scooters, and every now and then a car or a truck.


Just as we were coming over the top of the last mountaintop before descending into the valley of Kengtung, our driver nervously said something to Fr. Claudio in Thai. We were running a bit late and we only had 15 minutes to get to the last checkpoint in order to get our documents stamped and only 25 minutes to get to the police station in Kengtung; the last checkpoint closes at 6pm and nobody is allowed into or out of the city “for your protection”. Luckily, we made it to the last checkpoint with 5 minutes to spare. Unfortunately we were five minutes late to the police station, but no worry – Sai has friends there, too, and with a little “friendship” we were able to make it through ok.

My friends, all this talk about checkpoints and immigration and police stations is really interesting and I’ll have to explain it better one of these days. It is all a mind-control game to scare the people and make them feel unfree. (Socialism!)

We arrived at the bishop’s residence, had a bite to eat with the bishop and the other priests, and then – finally – we arrived at our hotel: The Princess Hotel. Since we are foreigners we are not allowed to stay in any residence, even the Bishop’s; we MUST stay at one of the two hotels in town. There were more bureaucratic mind games there (with control by the government, of course… but I’ll explain that later). But who cares – we were finally in Kengtung, we were able to get a nice hot shower, and our rooms even had air-conditioning! It was time for a good night’s rest.
Before I end for today, I just wanted to explain something. Did you by chance notice in the other pictures that some of the women and children have this yellow “stuff” on their face? It is something that comes from some kind of tree and it supposedly is to give them nicer skin. But sometimes they apply it carefully so that it becomes a thing of beauty. If it is in a circle then you are meant to notice it as something beautiful. I did not see this outside of Myanmar. Interesting tradition.