Things are feeling lighter
The monsoon arrived in Yangon on Monday night, just as my flight landed. After months of oppressive heat, the rain changes everything almost overnight. The city cools, people sleep better, tempers soften, and the plants perk up.
Yangon felt noticeably more alive this week. Restaurants were busy, my little hotel full, and there were even a few backpackers back on the streets. On the surface, things feel slightly lighter.
But that is only one side of the picture. The monsoon makes life much harder for anybody without proper shelter, and the years since the 2021 military coup have hollowed out much of the country’s workforce. There is work available, but reliable labour is hard to find. Skilled people leave, communication is inconsistent, and businesses often operate in a constant state of uncertainty.
The carpentry workshop we work with, though, is feeling optimistic. We visited this week to brief them on a hotel project that will keep ten craftsmen working six-day weeks through to the middle of July, the longest stretch of consistent work they’ve had in a long time.
Burma has always been a place of contradictions: joyful and difficult, generous and exhausting, full of beauty and frustration at the same time. You cannot separate one from the other. But when moments of optimism appear, you notice them. And when the rain finally comes, everybody breathes a little easier.
