I can't read Burmese

I’m working with the Burmese Lawyers’ Council (BLC) www.blc-burma.org here in Mae Sot. As far as I can gather, they are the only group of Burmese pro-democracy activists that make the law their central focus. I feel super lucky to have gotten this position. I'm hoping to go home well informed about the situation in Burma as well as with a better idea of how at least one group of exiled Burmese are attempting to address their country's nightmare of a political state. And in the meantime, they’re keeping me quite busy.

In the mornings, I help the Legal Analysis Team to translate papers and statements from Burmese to English. The problem with this scenario, of course, is that I don’t speak ANY Burmese and the lawyers I’m working with only speak basic English. So – the scenario goes a little more like this:

1) Burmese lawyer shows me paper in Burmese, which I couldn’t decipher if my life depended on it.

2) Burmese lawyer, in broken English and a lot of hand signals, tries to convey the gist of the paper and main points.

3) Burmese lawyer gives me several papers written in English, some of which relate to what I’m supposed to translate, many of which do not.

4) I attempt to recreate/create a paper in English on roughly the topic that I understand the Burmese paper to address.

An imprecise science at best. Yet, I’m clearly entrusted with the huge responsibility of making sure the English versions of their work is both meaningful and correct for the international audience. Yikes.

In addition, I teach English classes in the afternoons. In theory, this would mean that the translation process would get progressively easier . . . but given the number of classes that have been cancelled because of “meetings” . . . I’m not convince we’ll get that far.