I'm going to talk about where we live. This isn't a reflection on Myanmar. This is just our experience living here. When my husband was hired, the contract stated the school would provide an apartment for the first year, the second year they would provide an allowance if we chose to move to our own apartment.
(The scuttle-butt is that teachers would fly in, collect their flight reimbursement and housing allowance then leave town. I have no idea if there's any truth to this rumor.)
When we arrived we were told that our apartment wasn't quite ready, we would stay in a hotel for a week or so. Not a problem. One week was extended into a month. At one point we had to switch hotels to a much smaller crappier hotel for a few days as our first hotel was sold out. This might sound like fun to some people, but as a family of 3 it was pure hell. The hotels offered a breakfast buffet ,but after a few days of that we were sick of it. We had to eat every meal out at a restaurant. The room had a micro fridge that barely held 2 cans of soda. I had a young child that was starting school and I needed to pack him a lunch every day. I started stealing food from the breakfast buffet to pack in his lunch. Our micro fridge did not have a freezer so I couldn't freeze any kind of ice pack to keep his food cold.
At one point I tried to ask the staff if they could keep an ice pack in the kitchen's freezer for me, but with the language barrier, I wasn't able to communicate that. On the weekends we had a routine. We would head to a mall about lunch time, and eat. Then wander around or find someplace for my son to play until dinner time. Then we'd order something to go and take it back to our hotel room.
My son goes to bed at 7:30, so we all went to bed at 7:30. It was one room. Lights out. No TV. My husband was taking the lap top into the bathroom where he'd make a make shift desk and prepare the next days lessons for school. My son loved it at the hotel. The staff was amazing and gave him candy every time they saw him.
We were trying to stay positive, but my husband was ready to quit and go home. I wanted to stay. The school was renovating some apartments. We had a choice to wait for the new renovated apartments or go to a non-renovated apartment. We chose to get out of the hotel ASAP and live in a non-renovated apartment. We were delighted.... for the first few days. I cooked meals, we finally unpacked and hug pictures on the walls.
Then reality set in.
What a dump.
The neighborhood is very poor. I regularly see people pooping on the side of the streets. We are right there next to the shipping yards. A huge lot of big semi-trucks with shipping containers are right next door. The trucks are loud and always honking. The dogs are always fighting and yelping. There seems to always be some kind of loud singing or chanting. So loud you can't talk to someone right next to you. The truck traffic contributes to what is already very poor air quality. There is a train track directly behind our apartment block.
We are also about 45 minutes away from the school.
Our apartment was filthy. The kitchen floor is a grooved tile that is somewhat porous and never comes clean and because it's grooved all the kitchen chairs are broken because it cannot slide over it. The toilet room is disgusting and the pipe behind the toilet has a big hole in it. All the plumbing is done in the room.
The first night we discovered a HUGE ant problem. They live in the walls and come out where ever there is a hole in the grout. Luckily for them the workmanship is so poor there are plenty of holes.
In the shower room there is a big tub of water above your head, that's your dirty water reserve, and a very loud water pump.
The paint is peeling, the walls are cracking and none of the windows or doors have any kind of seal. We are living in an open air apartment.
We've had a few things fixed. The ant problem in the toilet room was fixed. Maintenance re-grouted... with concrete. Of course the ants found their way into the holes in the kitchen grout. I manage to keep them at bay by pouring vinegar into their hidey holes.
We keep the other creepy crawlies out by spraying 3 times a week and putting bug poison at the doors and windows.
For the record, I knew living here we would have our fair share of insects. I knew I would have to keep the kitchen spotless so the buggers wouldn't be tempted to come in. Living in an open air apartment is an up hill battle.
The teachers that opted to wait for the renovated apartments waited 3 months in a hotel room. The apartments were ready at 2 months, but because they had a complete lack consideration for their teachers, they decided to take a month to decide if they should put cupboards in them or not. They didn't. I have to admit, when I first saw the new apartments, I was jealous. REALLY jealous. They looked so nice. An actual bathroom. New furniture. Upon closer inspection, there really wasn't that much to be jealous of. Yes, they looked nice, but all the same problems were there. Ants, unsealed doors and windows, dirty water. Same neighborhood, same problems. A few of them are already beginning to fall apart.
Many teachers did not make it. Some left the first week upon arrival, s
ome made it to Christmas break. Like I stated at the beginning, this is not a reflection on Myanmar, but our experience here.
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