Meeting MSF
Our
meeting with MSF is at 10 a.m., but we decided to wake up early to explore the
city. We took a cab to downtown Yangon. Most taxi-drivers can understand and
speak elementary English and you need to settle the taxi-fare before boarding.
Depending on the distance, it ranges from a thousand to a thousand five kyats
which is S$4 at most. They charged much higher fares for foreigners like us, but
even then, it is still considered a bargain for us. I wanted to buy some stamps
and postcards to send it back to my project team in Singapore and we were
dropped near the Sule Pagoda where there was a row of bookshops selling foreign
and Burmese books, stationeries and other accessories. The street is lined by a
row of colonial-style three-storey high shophouses which must have existed since
the turn of last century. I don’t think Yangon’s landscape has changed much
since the British left. There was a telegraph office across the road and I can
vaguely remember when telegrams were phased out in Singapore. As I was going to
cross the road, Alex suddenly pulled me back. A lorry roamed past to my chagrin.
The flow of traffic in Myanmar is opposite to that in Singapore. I was looking
at the wrong direction! It is really enjoyable and easy to travel with Alex. He
doesn’t talk a lot, and when he talks, it is at the appropriate moment; he is
comfortable with silence; I do not need to keep an eye on him, he likes to take
photographs of sceneries like I do and most importantly, he is a strong big man!
We
had been traveling along Dhammazedi road for the past 20 minutes and still
unable to locate No.110, the address the MSF director gave us. We alighted at
No. 109 and asked a Canadian lady who was passing by. She didn’t know the
place but was kind enough to guide us to her tenants’ house where we used the
house phone to ring MSF. Her name is Melanie Edwards, a fresh graduate from the
University of Columbia and she is here in Myanmar to start a pilot water
sanitation project in the border region. She was on the way to the Ministry of
Health to seek official approval for her project. I was appalled and inspired by
her courage, faith and compassion. What motivates her to give up the comforts of
her home and travel to an unknown land to help a people who doesn’t speak her
language? We need more people like her around in the world, who believes that
they are able to do something to help alleviate a bit of human suffering even
though it may not be enough. Apathy is nothing but a mere excuse for inaction so
that we can continue to enjoy the material comforts of our lives while
pretending to be ignorant of the plight of millions of others elsewhere.
Idealism is living in a self-generated fantasy without knowledge of actual
conditions in reality. But idealism is what drives people to change things for
the better. Without idealism, human civilization will soon stagnate and
degenerate. Idealism must be grounded in realism because things seldom go
smoothly in life according to our hopes and expectations. I was too much of an
idealist in the past and now I’m learning to be a realist while not losing the
original idealism I once harbored.
The
MSF office was a bungalow situated off a small track well hidden from view by
other houses along the main road. The MSF Head of Mission in Myanmar, Mr Peter
Wieland, is a burly Swiss who welcomed us into his office manned by two Burmese
staff. There were no signs of other expatriates around. There are twenty
expatriate doctors serving in Myanmar all of them in Lower Myanmar. MSF runs
malarial control clinics in the Tanintharyi Division, south of Mon State where
Bilin is, in the townships of Mudon, Dawei and Myeik. We thought of doing some
kind of anti-malarial control program too in Bilin and inquired about the
possibility of visiting the MSF field bases there. It transpired during our
conversation that the road from Mawlamyaing to Dawei is unsafe, being roamed
about freely by separatist rebels and the only way to reach there is by plane.
MSF doctors offer their service for a minimum of two years without any pay
except a pittance of daily allowance. They live and eat with the locals
sometimes in an adverse and hostile environment where their safety cannot be
guaranteed. It takes a minimum of one year to implement the program and another
one year to supervise it. The task at hand seems so daunting and we are given no
less than a week to accomplish it! The
spirit embodied by MSF is truly touching and inspiring and it’s little wonder
that they won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. I cannot imagine a MSF-type of
organization in Singapore or the medical community here actively taking part in
international medical relief operations other than some token publicity projects
undertaken by the SAF or SIF. It is a shame that we are such pathetic
materialistic creatures who cares more about the value of our shares and money
in the bank than the dozen refugees at our doorstep who died because they cannot
afford a simple antibiotic which costs less than S$1 a pill. We found out that
two years ago, MSF had actually wanted to establish a branch office in Singapore
but soon gave up due to “irreconcilable differences with the government”. As
you may not know, MSF is an activist organization which seeks to bring to
attention to the world the plight of the population it serves. Peter Wieland was
quite skeptical about our project plans and advised us to find more about the
area, the local healthcare system and our partners before proceeding with the
June trip. He emphasized the fact that MSF is a secular humanitarian
organization providing basic medical care to the population it serves regardless
of nationality, race or religion. This is a philosophy which I firmly adhered to
too and I will not compromise on it though I do not mind working with religious
organizations. Religion serves the higher spiritual needs of mankind. We
shouldn’t be talking about religion when there are people out there who
can’t even have their basic physical needs satisfied.