Aye Aye Win came to speak to our cross-cultural journalism class last week. Win is a tiny, unassuming Burmese woman. Her voice is kind and patient and she exudes both wisdom and a quiet confidence. She traveled to Missouri to receive recognition for her work as a journalist in a highly censored country.
Stories like hers have a long arc. Bursts of progress occur, but most of the work is done in slowly over many patient years. The excitement I think most Americans expect from a censored government, like midnight arrests or tailing cars, does exist. But in general, life involves low-grade frustration and worry mixed with normal daily tasks. Success occurs in small steps over many months and years. Sometimes, the changes are undetectable to someone who does not live in the community.
I understand Win's censorship experience because I lived it for two years in Turkmenistan with the Peace Corps. The Turkmen government slowly wore me down. They consistently monitored my work and would step in to prevent me from hosting clubs with too many students or conducting camps they considered beyond the scope of the program. In a country with children hungry for a new experience presented to them in a foreign language, I felt the need was insatiable. From a community development perspective, it was. But the Turkmen government saw big projects as risky and threatening to the status quo.
Occasionally, I looked over my shoulder on my way to work in the morning. I knew the minders were there. I didn't have to check for them. I could sense them. I knew they watched me from afar. They watched as I left my house, as I ate my lunch and took note when I got into a taxi and left town.
When projects approached, I got nervous and hoped they wouldn't bother me or my students. Sometimes, the phone would echo and I would speak faster hoping the person listening in didn't speak English well enough to understand us in "English on fast forward."
The fear and anxiety became part of daily life. I knew I could lose everything if I made one false move - not enough work, too much work, talking to the wrong people, talking to the right people, traveling out of the region too far - any of these actions could be the end of my Peace Corps service.
My most intense fear was that I would lose my students. I worried that the government officials would come to their homes and threaten them. I had heard stories about volunteers who were told they couldn't teach anymore. Their students said the government officials told them they wouldn't get into university if they spoke to the American. All of my struggles to learn the language, bond with my family and make an impact on my community, could be lost with just one false move. This is what it is like to live in fear. It happens slowly over time. I can say now that the anxiety did not drain me initially. It happened gradually as the days and fear built up over the months.
Near the end of my service, I made arrangements to visit a city in the northern part of the country. The morning of my trip, my family received a call from the migration office. They asked me to stop by with my passport. The man took it because he said he needed to make a photocopy. But once he had it, he did not turn around to make a copy. He held it in front of me and told me I wouldn't get it back without a $500 fee (ie: bribe). I reached out to grab it from him and he threw it on the counter behind him.
A self-satisfied look crossed his face as we both realized he had won. I became enraged. All of the frustrations I'd internalized over the months emerged. The frustrations I had repressed in the name of being strong and doing my work, broke through the filter I thought I'd successfully created and I started screaming at the man who had just stolen my passport. I told him that Turkmenistan is not in a golden age, as the government promotes daily on the front page of the paper and that in the U.S., we have real freedom. We don't steal passports and demand bribes. I told him we don't follow around our foreigners and harass them as they do their work (Although now that I've read more about the NSA, I'm not sure I would say this. But, this event was pre-Edward Snowden.)
I wish, in that moment, I'd had the wisdom of Aye Aye Win. Instead of seeing this harassment as part of a larger and very complex story, I poured all my rage into the man standing before me. But he was just a pawn following orders. He couldn't have changed the situation even if he'd agreed with me. I fought him with words and tears and lost a lot of energy fighting a battle that simply could not be won - at least not without $500.
If I could transport myself back to that moment, I would hold back the tears, speak to the man with compassion and go home to have tea with my family. I would seek my host grandmother's advice because certainly she would have had much to offer. And then, I would calmly call the U.S. embassy and report the extortion.
This particular situation would have had the same result regardless of my actions. Whether I screamed at the man or calmly told him to have a great afternoon, I would not have gotten on that plane.
What could have been different is the opinion this man held of me. That interaction must have led him to believe that American women are embarrassing, spiteful and stupid.
In the end, the Peace Corps did pay the bribe and I signed the document falsely claiming that I had broken the law. I suspect my admission was one of many false admissions the Turkmen government later used to expel the Peace Corps on the grounds that its volunteers are irresponsible and unsuccessful.
I see now that rage doesn't really solve anything and in fact, it can make life worse. Win shared a story about the police coming to her home at midnight to take her husband in for questioning. She began her story by talking about the knock at the gate after curfew. She saw the police and knew they had come for one of them. Win, when faced with a similar situation, handled it quite differently than I did. She packed her husband's toothbrush and toothpaste and he went with the police to the station. There was no screaming involved. But, even if there had been, the result would have been the same.
Win's lecture helped me process an experience that I'd always viewed as a traumatic event in my Turkmen story. I think after this lecture, I'm starting to view it differently. I think, even two years later, I can still learn from that day.
Looking back, I understand that an experience like this holds value because I can carry the lessons forward. If I can learn this patience and remain calm in the intense moments, I might then carry the same quiet confidence and wisdom as Aye Aye Win.
Stories like hers have a long arc. Bursts of progress occur, but most of the work is done in slowly over many patient years. The excitement I think most Americans expect from a censored government, like midnight arrests or tailing cars, does exist. But in general, life involves low-grade frustration and worry mixed with normal daily tasks. Success occurs in small steps over many months and years. Sometimes, the changes are undetectable to someone who does not live in the community.
I understand Win's censorship experience because I lived it for two years in Turkmenistan with the Peace Corps. The Turkmen government slowly wore me down. They consistently monitored my work and would step in to prevent me from hosting clubs with too many students or conducting camps they considered beyond the scope of the program. In a country with children hungry for a new experience presented to them in a foreign language, I felt the need was insatiable. From a community development perspective, it was. But the Turkmen government saw big projects as risky and threatening to the status quo.
Occasionally, I looked over my shoulder on my way to work in the morning. I knew the minders were there. I didn't have to check for them. I could sense them. I knew they watched me from afar. They watched as I left my house, as I ate my lunch and took note when I got into a taxi and left town.
When projects approached, I got nervous and hoped they wouldn't bother me or my students. Sometimes, the phone would echo and I would speak faster hoping the person listening in didn't speak English well enough to understand us in "English on fast forward."
The fear and anxiety became part of daily life. I knew I could lose everything if I made one false move - not enough work, too much work, talking to the wrong people, talking to the right people, traveling out of the region too far - any of these actions could be the end of my Peace Corps service.
My most intense fear was that I would lose my students. I worried that the government officials would come to their homes and threaten them. I had heard stories about volunteers who were told they couldn't teach anymore. Their students said the government officials told them they wouldn't get into university if they spoke to the American. All of my struggles to learn the language, bond with my family and make an impact on my community, could be lost with just one false move. This is what it is like to live in fear. It happens slowly over time. I can say now that the anxiety did not drain me initially. It happened gradually as the days and fear built up over the months.
Near the end of my service, I made arrangements to visit a city in the northern part of the country. The morning of my trip, my family received a call from the migration office. They asked me to stop by with my passport. The man took it because he said he needed to make a photocopy. But once he had it, he did not turn around to make a copy. He held it in front of me and told me I wouldn't get it back without a $500 fee (ie: bribe). I reached out to grab it from him and he threw it on the counter behind him.
A self-satisfied look crossed his face as we both realized he had won. I became enraged. All of the frustrations I'd internalized over the months emerged. The frustrations I had repressed in the name of being strong and doing my work, broke through the filter I thought I'd successfully created and I started screaming at the man who had just stolen my passport. I told him that Turkmenistan is not in a golden age, as the government promotes daily on the front page of the paper and that in the U.S., we have real freedom. We don't steal passports and demand bribes. I told him we don't follow around our foreigners and harass them as they do their work (Although now that I've read more about the NSA, I'm not sure I would say this. But, this event was pre-Edward Snowden.)
I wish, in that moment, I'd had the wisdom of Aye Aye Win. Instead of seeing this harassment as part of a larger and very complex story, I poured all my rage into the man standing before me. But he was just a pawn following orders. He couldn't have changed the situation even if he'd agreed with me. I fought him with words and tears and lost a lot of energy fighting a battle that simply could not be won - at least not without $500.
If I could transport myself back to that moment, I would hold back the tears, speak to the man with compassion and go home to have tea with my family. I would seek my host grandmother's advice because certainly she would have had much to offer. And then, I would calmly call the U.S. embassy and report the extortion.
This particular situation would have had the same result regardless of my actions. Whether I screamed at the man or calmly told him to have a great afternoon, I would not have gotten on that plane.
What could have been different is the opinion this man held of me. That interaction must have led him to believe that American women are embarrassing, spiteful and stupid.
In the end, the Peace Corps did pay the bribe and I signed the document falsely claiming that I had broken the law. I suspect my admission was one of many false admissions the Turkmen government later used to expel the Peace Corps on the grounds that its volunteers are irresponsible and unsuccessful.
I see now that rage doesn't really solve anything and in fact, it can make life worse. Win shared a story about the police coming to her home at midnight to take her husband in for questioning. She began her story by talking about the knock at the gate after curfew. She saw the police and knew they had come for one of them. Win, when faced with a similar situation, handled it quite differently than I did. She packed her husband's toothbrush and toothpaste and he went with the police to the station. There was no screaming involved. But, even if there had been, the result would have been the same.
Win's lecture helped me process an experience that I'd always viewed as a traumatic event in my Turkmen story. I think after this lecture, I'm starting to view it differently. I think, even two years later, I can still learn from that day.
Looking back, I understand that an experience like this holds value because I can carry the lessons forward. If I can learn this patience and remain calm in the intense moments, I might then carry the same quiet confidence and wisdom as Aye Aye Win.
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