I Was in Burma Long Before Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton was in Burma this week. I was in Burma in December, 1987.

It was rough. There was almost no bottled water. The bathrooms in the guest house where I stayed smelled so badly I almost couldn't take it.

Travelers were only able to get a 7 day visa but I met an Israeli traveler who told me how i could extend my stay.

People who needed to get to parts of the country 10 hours from Rangoon, stood in vans and held on to a railing for the entire ride.

I kept asking myself "How can people take it?". I received my answer a few months later when people began to protest peacefully in the streets of Rangoon. The government shot some of the protesters and people were dying in the streets and the hospital hallways. Aung Sun Suu Kyi made her speech at that time.

I was back in Thailand and a Burmese friend of mine and I organized a Best Burma Fair fundraiser where we were working, in the Phanat Nikhom refugee camp. With the help of Save the Children, who gave us their building and others who were working the camp, we raised over $1,000 and got the money to Aye Aye Thant, a Burmese woman living in Bangkok who was somehow able to get medical supplies to the Burmese.