After finishing the taught portion of the masters at University College London in May 2018, I headed to Myanmar after a few-week stop in the US to visit family and friends. I lived in Myanmar while working for an off-grid mini-grid company called Yoma Micro Power, which built small-scale solar powerplants that sold electricity to telecom towers and the villages around the towers.
The photos below are wandering walks around Yangon and from fieldwork with Yoma Micro Power.
Tring to play old maid with my nieces, Maddie and Lauren.
A temple in Yangon, the main city in Myanmar.
A view of the buildings outside my balcony.
A few of my first apartment at night.
A field full of buses I stumbled upon while on a walk.
King of the city.
Blue hue
Ferryboats and fisherman on the Yangon River.
The company I worked for built small-scale solar-battery storage powerplants that used diesel generators as backup.
Yoma Micro Power sold electricity to telecom towers and the villages around the towers. 65% of Myanmar's people, 30 million people, don't have electricity and solar has become cheaper than extending the grid.
A port in Yangon
Trucks in a row on the way to the port.
We would hold village meetings in each village to explain our electricity services.
A ferry ride along the Yangon River for orientation with the Yoma Group, a business conglomerate who was an investor in Yoma Micro Power.
A view of Mandalay, Myanmar's second-city, from our offices there.
The front of our offices in Pun Hlaing Estate
Instant noodles are going gang-busters!
Mohingha, the most delicious breakfast in Myanmar. I had it everyday for bfast for a few months at a street stall near my apartment.
It rains a lot in Myanmar during the rainy season. This video is worth a watch for the lightning at the end :)
And their drainage system isn't very good. This lake formed outside of the Letwei, Myanmar kickboxing gym I would often go to.
Bananas!
And coconuts
A view of Yangon from up-high.
Party time with a friend of a friend visiting town.
Curious cow in a village.
A village market in Thet Seint Gyi village.
On the banks of the Irrawaddy
Myanmar is filled Buddhist temples called pagodas.
A mill for making oil from peanuts. Myanmar food is filled with oil because they grow so many peanuts and sesame seeds.
You see a lot of ox-carts in rural areas.
A unicorn shop in Yangon.
Tea shops like the one shown above are one of the most common restaurants in Yangon.
A bridge over the Yangon River from the bus that would take me to work on one rainy day.
A view of south Yangon along the Yangon river.
Sule Pagoda in central Yangon.
More rain.
Just outside Mandalay airport. Northern Myanmar near Mandalay is warmer and drier than Yangon, and flying up there always reminded me of flying into Claremont outside of LA because it was so hot and dry.
Rice chaff from a rice mill.
My good buddy/co-worker/translator/partner-in-crime Zeph is asking question to people in the village. The two of us did over 100 village visits while I was in Myanmar.
Goats!
You know, some fried sparrow for lunch.
More lunch food.
Out in the field.
Loom in a village.
Solar water pump.
A big diesel engine used to run oil and rice mills. I love the tiger stamp.
Local tea shop in the field.
I caught a few world cup games at my local teashop. Many other people had the same idea.
That's all for now, though there will be more to come.
