Our next clownian stop was Myitkyina !! A city in the state of Kachin. If you want more information about the place, check out Myitkyina’s post on our travel blog. Through Fondació Myanmar, they offered to participate in the same Youth Leadership and Development Center (YLDC) course for young people in Kachin State. As in the Yangon version, the course was intended to train people with few economic resources to help later in development projects in the area, heavily punished by drug-diction and jade mines …

In this case the organization provided us with transportation, 22 bus hours from Yangon, and accommodation.

We stayed in the dormitories owned by the church, from which the NGO Fondacio itself was born. It was very nice because we were living with Rita and Zenaw, our contacts there. They prepared us spectacular local dishes every day for lunch and dinner !!! and then we shared the table talking about all kinds of topics about the country, the region, us, our dreams …

For example Rita is from Bhoma, a city south of Myitkyina with a very high rate of heroin addiction. From what he told us, between 80 and 90% of the families have a heroin addict … so the family dramas are constant, the younger ones have easy access to this drug and the city can become very dangerous. Rita’s goal is to finish the training she is receiving from the Fondació to become a social worker and help her hometown … This is a good example of the consequences of the work of Fondació Myanmar and the projects being carried out there. church. To thank Rita and Zenaw for their hospitality since we were at home the 3 and a half days we lived there with them.

When we arrived the YLDC course was in the second month so the group already knew each other. The age of the participants was between 16 and 27 years old. Due to the good result we got in Yangon we were going to do the same, the same exercises in the same order, and see if the answer was the same.

We started as always with the presentations, ours and his, and thus we started a relationship that would end up being close. Then we would surprise them with warming up games, and everything started to take shape …

They are very motivated people, eager to receive what we offered, it seemed that everything was going to be very fluid … And indeed, both the interpretation and communication exercises were great!

Although they were very shy and unaccustomed to show, some more than others, they saw the importance of the exercises and put all the art they have, which is not little. This group was a little more shy than their fellow Yangon, however they have a different character that gives them value, in different ways.

In exercises that normally everyone tries to escape by doing it in a hurry, they took it more calmly, even lengthened it more than necessary … all a gift … The exercises on emotions were as usual, difficult … No it is easy to express emotions suddenly and at the request, it requires its process, but it was great to see how they were trying, looking inside for the switch, the key, or the door … All an achievement, there is nothing better than starting with the beginning…

The rest of the days were like a silk, the motivation was skyrocketing, they even began to repeat the ones that appear while we explained, and they kept repeating them throughout the day, like a funny tagline … very funny !!! The last day we did the same as in Yangon, a final representation. They had to create a piece with some slogan that another provided by us … What a grace they have !!! They took it so seriously that it was super comical, concentrated, trying to represent an elephant as faithfully as possible … it had no price. They gave us some pearls to remember … like a crocodile that takes life coming out of a book, a fantastic scene in which a man sells his beloved donkey, showing deep sadness !!! What a gift! It was very emotional … Or a succession of scenes with human decorations, representing each important element … very alive!

So we conclude this experience, learning more and more of the great people of this country. Walking our own labyrinths, all together, between smiles, surprise and trembling of shyness … hehehe … And to close the workshop we dedicated a few words on behalf of the whole group and made us a gift of remembrance !!!! A shirt with the flag of the region and ethnic group: Kachin. So we say goodbye with kisses on the cheeks and hugs … Wide and sincere smiles … That people better … we wish you the best and hope to return!