Bangkok, Thailand: November 7, 2001: Everywhere Daniel went in the high jungles of northern Myanmar, he was welcomed as a hero. Whenever the village people returned from their medical training at Daniel’s facilities in Chiang Mai, Thailand, they brought home the legend of a man who had escaped Burma during the war-torn years and was now aiding and sending back urgently needed medical help to his beloved country. It was the same Daniel Kalnin.
The individuals who became barefoot doctors had been selected by their village councils. They had to walk, in some cases, three to four weeks out of the roadless jungle through Mandalay and Rangoon and on to the Myanmar-Thailand border. There they had to cross over illegally into Thailand and continue their arduous journey to the city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. When the individuals agreed to be trained as barefoot doctors, they also agreed to make that dangerous journey into Thailand three years in a row and stay in Chiang Mai for one month’s training each of those three years. They received nothing more, really, than EMT (emergency medical technician) and paramedic training. But when they returned to their jungle townships, they were the only people who even remotely resembled a doctor.
But as those “doctors” returned to their villages loaded down with medical supplies furnished by Project C.U.R.E., miracles began to happen. The barefoot doctors could now save lives by helping with complicated births.
Now they could successfully treat traumatic accidents out in the jungles. Fevers, gastrointestinal problems, and OB-GYN problems could be treated, malaria and tuberculosis medicine could be administered, and the new barefoot doctors could even successfully extract teeth without having to pound out a tooth with a mallet and a bamboo rod.
The village people began to connect all the new benefits with the man who previously lived in one of their own villages and now cared enough to send back help to his homeland. When Daniel appeared in those remote places, he was honored. They even gave him an elephant parade of royal proportions.
Unfortunately Daniel has been denied reentry into Myanmar since his 1996 visit. The leaders of old Burma have become so suspicious of everyone that in many ways their country is as restricted and closed as North Korea or Cuba. Daniel was determined, however, and once again he traveled to Denver to meet with me at our Project C.U.R.E. office.
When he arrived, we talked about a gutsy plan of arranging for me to go with him into the restricted areas of Myanmar to perform needs assessments and meet with and encourage the nearly one hundred barefoot doctors who had been laboring so faithfully over the years. We presumed we could quite easily get into the country as far as Rangoon, and perhaps Mandalay, but it would take a definite miracle of God to get Daniel, plus an American, approved to visit such places as Myitkyina (pronounced “Machena”), Putao, Machang Baw, or Daniel’s home village of Nam Kham. One other time, Daniel made it as far as Rangoon and then was turned back to Chiang Mai after waiting in his hotel room for permits that simply never materialized.
It was agreed that Daniel would try to work through the ministry of tourism to get a trip approved for himself in February of 2001. His objective would be to draw up some plans for me to travel to Myanmar with him in November and check out the feasibility of such a trip. The plan is a little risky, and its execution is quite unlikely. God will have to intervene, but we will make ourselves available and plan as if something extraordinary will happen.
It was agreed that I will travel to Bangkok, Thailand, where I will arrive in the wee small hours of the morning of November 8, 2001. I will check in and stay at the Rama Garden Hotel near the Bangkok airport until Daniel can secure the airplane tickets from Bangkok to Rangoon (Yangon), Burma. My plans for traveling to Myanmar with Daniel Kalnin are tentative, to say the least. I won’t even know if I will get permission to travel into the restricted area in northern Burma until I’m actually there.
After a very long trip from the US, through Tokyo, Japan and on to Thailand, I finally arrived in Bangkok at nearly midnight on Tuesday night, November 6. The Rama Gardens Hotel near Bangkok’s airport was a welcome sight. I’ve stayed there enough times that, as strange as it may seem, as I walked into my assigned room, I caught myself sighing and thinking, Ah yes! I’m home!
Wednesday, November 7
The plan is for me to stay put at the Rama Gardens Hotel until Daniel Kalnin is able to secure the airplane tickets from Bangkok to Rangoon, Myanmar, and fly from Chiang Mai, Thailand, to meet me in Bangkok. The plan changed a number of times in the weeks preceding the trip, but that’s how it finally jelled.
I welcome the few hours’ respite at the Rama Gardens Hotel. It will give me a chance to finish writing my journal entries on my trip to Kinshasa, Congo. For some reason I’ve had a mental block on the Congo journal. It has never happened to me before, but I think I experienced more emotional, mental, and physical shock to my system while in the Congo than during any other trip I’ve ever taken. The death and dying; the hopelessness of their political, cultural, and economic situation; the attitude of the people; the lack of integrity and discipline in the entire health-care system; the greed and lifestyles of dishonesty and hatred—all of it deeply affected me. There were just so many disagreeable, disgusting, and pitiful situations in war-torn, AIDS-ravaged Congo that it’s taken longer than usual to synthesize and process the experience and find sufficient closure to write about it. Finally, these uncluttered, few hours alone in Bangkok have given me the opportunity to reduce the Congo episode to writing. I’m grateful for the time.
Thursday, November 8
Daniel arrived in Bangkok today and met me at my hotel. It was good to see my friend again. We both know that the trip back to Burma is going to be highly significant and historical, and we both feel a sense of gratitude to God for getting to be part of a history-in-the-making occasion in that part of the world.
We made our way to the Bangkok airport and flew on Thai Airways flight 308 to Rangoon, arriving about 10:00 p.m. At the airport we met two government officials from the ministry of tourism. Khin Khin Swe will be with us every mile and every minute of our stay in Myanmar.
“My nickname is Ma Lay,” she told us, “and you are welcome to call me that instead of trying to remember Khin Khin Swe.” The ministry of tourism also assigned her to be Daniel’s guide when he traveled into the restricted area this past February.
Daniel explained to me that having Ma Lay assigned to us is a real answer to prayer by itself. She was extremely instrumental in opening political and cultural doors for Project C.U.R.E. in February. She has considerable influence and is very intelligent and streetwise. Additionally, she is from Myitkyina, the capital of the Kachin Province in the north, where we intend to travel. She knows Daniel’s sister and brother-in-law, who live in Myitkyina, a city of 1.5 million people. Ma Lay graduated from the university in Rangoon, became a science and mathematics teacher, and moved to the northern town of Putao. As God’s providence would have it, she taught at the high school in Putao before the ministry of tourism invited her to join up. For two years while she taught at the high school, she stayed in the home of Daniel’s brother, Phe Ram, and his wife, Chin Lay Doo. Phe Ram previously served as governor of the area.
Ma Lay not only knows Daniel’s family, but she had also heard of Daniel and was well aware of the fine work of the barefoot doctors in both the Myitkyina and the Putao regions. She has not only become sympathetic but is also supportive of Daniel’ and Project C.U.R.E.’s efforts to become better established in the restricted areas of Myanmar. So far Daniel and I have made it successfully out of Thailand and into Rangoon (Yangon), the capital of Burma. Ma Lay took us downtown to the Central Hotel, where we checked in and settled for the night.
Friday, November 9
Our plan was to present a computer and printer as a gift to the minister of tourism this morning and then travel to Myitkyina later in the day. But at breakfast Daniel and I were hit with a shocking surprise. The Myanmar officials had met and reviewed my passport and visa. In view of the worldwide instability following the terrorist attacks on September 11 in America, as well as the subsequent military reprisals taking place in Afghanistan, the officials don’t want an American traveling in any part of Myanmar other than Rangoon and perhaps Mandalay. I’m not welcome in the restricted areas of the north.
There was to be another meeting on the subject at the office of the deputy minister of tourism later this morning. I asked quite pointedly for Ma Lay to get permission for Daniel and me to attend that meeting in person. We had submitted all of our requested documents and photos early on, and we were in Myanmar with the understanding that permission to travel would be granted to us. She promised to try to get us invited to the meeting.
By 10:00 a.m., I knew that Ma Lay is going to be very important for our work in Myanmar. She was able to get us included in the meeting. Everything starts with the ministry of tourism, and in that respect, they are like the immigration department, with the controlling power to recommend or not recommend that our paperwork be submitted for the signatures of the minister of defense and other officials. Without all those signatures in proper order, we will be welcome to stay in Rangoon as tourists, but we won’t be allowed to travel elsewhere.
Adding to the complication of our situation is the fact that airplanes fly from Rangoon to Myitkyina and Putao on Fridays and Mondays only. Our itinerary is set; we need to fly to Myitkyina today. Every minute is full, and any later departure won’t allow us the necessary time in the northern provinces.
Back in our hotel room, Daniel and I prayed, and then he asked me a strange question: “What makes you travel a million miles all around the world, visit such places as Thailand and Burma, and put up with all the inconvenience and dangerous and stressful situations? Is it the excitement of travel? Do you do it to build Project C.U.R.E. into something great? Is it a good job? Do you just like to meet people? Why? And why would the main man who started Project C.U.R.E. travel with someone as insignificant as me in Burma?”
“Oh, Daniel,” I replied, “you ask a complicated but important question. Let me see if I can give you an answer while we’re waiting. First, it’s not at all the glamour of travel. You know that travel loses its glamour or mystique after the first six months. The travel, inconvenience, and hustle of it all aren’t worth it. It’s awful, and I’ve been doing it for over fifteen years.
“Second, it isn’t a good job. As you know, I don’t take any money for what I do. I’m just a volunteer, so it costs Anna Marie and me a lot for me to travel and not have a paying job.
“Third, it isn’t that I’m enamored with Project C.U.R.E. or that I have any designs of making it into some powerful entity. For years we worked very hard, and no one even knew we existed.
“Fourth, I have no big personal thing about being the leader of the organization. I have gone through the mental, emotional, and spiritual process of relinquishing my leadership role in the future of Project C.U.R.E. I know full well that for Project C.U.R.E. to become what it needs to be in the future, I won’t be the one leading it. For Project C.U.R.E. to increase, I must decrease. New people with high energy and great skills, clear vision, and incredible commitment will lead Project C.U.R.E. in the future.
“Fifth, I can honestly say that I have no personal agenda to accomplish or wild dream I’m driven to fulfill. I have one stabilizing motivation that supports me as I’m involved in Project C.U.R.E.: I want to be everything God created me to be, and with instant and complete obedience to the direction of God’s leading, I want to be at the right place at the right time saying the right things to the right people for God’s sake and his kingdom. As to why I’m here with you today in Rangoon, I must admit that I also want to see your dream for your beloved country of Burma come true, and I feel honored to be a simple part of the process.”
Daniel and I left the hotel for our appointment at the offices of the ministry of tourism. We moved through traffic quickly, and on the way, I asked Daniel about the weird driving practice in Myanmar.
“In the United States, the car’s steering wheel is on the left, and the traffic flows on the right-hand side of the road,” I said. “In England, Japan, parts of Africa, and other places, the steering wheel is on the right, and traffic moves on the left side of the road. But in Myanmar, traffic flows on the right, and the car’s steering wheel is also on the right. Why?”
Daniel informed me that indeed it’s a very odd situation. “All the cars in Myanmar came from Japan. They dump all their used cars into the country, and they are cheaper than any other cars available. All the cars here are right-hand drive even though the traffic also flows on the right. The people just somehow get used to it all.”
At the ministry of tourism, we met Htay Aung, the deputy minister. During the meeting he explained that they are afraid that some Muslim radicals carrying a grudge because of the bombings in Afghanistan just might want to take their anger out on an American traveling in Myanmar.
“We just don’t want to accept the responsibility for an American in our restricted areas. Further,” he explained, “a zoological group from Switzerland and the Netherlands were recently allowed to travel to the northern areas to study the habits of some rare butterflies and lizards. But there was one American that came with the group. He was supposed to be an expert on snakes.
“Well,” the deputy minister continued, “he caught some small but very poisonous snakes and subsequently was bitten by one of them. He refused our traditional medicine, which could have neutralized the venom’s effect, and he created a very big international incident, demanding that the United States fly in a helicopter to take him out. The man died, and the situation was not good.
“As you know,” he said, “the United States pulled their ambassador out of Myanmar in l988, and they still have sanctions imposed against us. We really didn’t need that incident, because now our relations are worse. Again, we just don’t want to accept the responsibility of having an American outside Yangon [Rangoon] or Mandalay.”
The deputy minister gave me a straight shot, so I felt free to be just as straight with him. I told him to once again review my passport and see that I was not a novice traveler who would bring on a snake-bite incident. I was experienced in working with Muslims in many countries around the world and was certain that there would be no political or religious incidents.
“I’m not asking to stay an extended period of time,” I continued. “My travels, as you can see, will take me in and out of the areas so quickly that I will be gone before anyone can ever possibly get disturbed and plan an incident.
Next Week: Approval to go to the Restricted Area? – Maybe --