The Burmese then and now. Hope.

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Two strong things came together today.
No, I don't refer to Iron Dome intercepting a Grad missile.
Instead, the two things were in my mind.

One was the traumatic memory of the month and a half of being bombarded by Saddam Hussein's huge Scud missiles, the ones he threatened to arm with poison gas, during the 1991 Gulf War. 

It was a Shabbat morning when my employers called my home and said, "Dina, please come quickly. Our office was hit by a missile and we must salvage our equipment and move before the next barrage!"

This was when my family lived near Tel Aviv, the city that  was being targeted by Iraq.
The office where I worked for several years  was an old house in nearby Ramat Gan which was housing  the Embassy of the Union of Myanmar.

His Excellency the Ambassador, in suit and tie,  kept busy all day giving interviews to the countless foreign reporters in the yard while the First Secretary, the other two Burmese staff members, their wives, the Israeli chauffeur, and I salvaged things from the rubble and packed the old typewriter, fax, china, files, etc. into boxes.

My son, who was home from the army that weekend, collected small pieces of the Scud as souvenirs.
We worked without stopping until the kind Japanese ambassador came to visit, bringing Hawaiian pizza with pineapple on it. Bless his heart.

On the day I completed the two-year post-grad course in Translation Studies at Bar-Ilan University, the ad appeared in the paper: "Hebrew-English translator/interpreter wanted for small embassy."
That is how I came to work for the  embassy of a country under a military junta.
It was right after Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in Yangon.

So imagine how thrilled I am today, November 19, 2012, to see President Obama visiting Burma, the first sitting American president to do so.
And to see him welcomed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, now free, now a Member of Parliament!
What a woman, so noble, so humble, so strong of will!

The long-imposed and self-imposed isolation of Burma/Myanmar is easing up.
The world seems ready to welcome Burma back. 

See CNN's  beautiful pictures from the visit today.
And watch  Aung San Suu Kyi's acceptance speech for the Congressional Gold Medal.

What I learned today, even as Israel and Gaza are under fire, is that true leaders can eventually emerge and change their nation, and that change is actually possible in this world.
There is HOPE.
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