When Heather Joyce asked her husband to give Sister Mary Dillon a donation, it was the beginning of a journey, not for the faint hearted.
Why on earth would I want to go back to Burma(Myanmar) again? During the Second World War, I was part of a Royal Navy gunboat flotilla that sailed to the Arakan, to cities like Rangoon(Yangon) and towns like Bassien and Henzada. I visited Burma in 2004 with my wife Heather who was born in Burma and who retains a strong interest in her country and her roots.
Heather was unable to make the trip I planned last year but she had read an article in The Far East magazine about a Columban Sister, Mary Dillon, who was raising pigs to help finance her work among HIV/AIDS patients. Sister Mary had worked previously in Korea for 25 years before becoming part of a new mission in Myitkyina in the north of the country. Heather suggested that I go to Myitkyina and give Sister Mary a donation towards her good work! We had raised US$700 for the Columban Sisters community to use in their work.
My war service had been in the wide Irrawaddy delta; with Sister Mary in Myitkyina in the north of the country, my plan was to fly up to see her, drive south east down to Bhamo and then join the ferry on the great Irrawaddy River down to Mandalay.
A spanner fell in the works. Air Bagan reputed to be the best private airline in Myanmar cancelled my flight to Myitkyina and then cancelled the re-scheduled flight! The only solution was to fly to Mandalay, either drive or catch a ferry to Bhamo and then organise a car trip to Myitkyina. The very poor road to Bhamo meant that a double ferry trip was the best bet, against the flow of the river going north but a quicker return trip!
At 4:30am in the morning my guide Tony Yang and I joined the ferry in the teeming rain and were escorted to our tight two berth cabin. We were pushing up the river at five knots in poor visibility because of the mist and rain. After 58 hours we crawled into Bhamo. The drive north to Myitkyina was on a terrible piece of road and then a brand new Chinese built road for about 260 kms. It is through dense jungle bringing memories of the kind of territory my Chindit and Army comrades had to endure when fighting the Japanese. There were a number of checkpoints and it seems that foreign visitors need a permit to travel by road.
When we reached Myitkyina we drove to the Catholic cathedral where we were given news of Sister Mary. Instead of a two hour flight, the trip had taken two days but I was determined to give Sister Mary her donation from Heather and myself.
It seems she was on her rounds of homes of patients with HIV/AIDS. Someone went looking for her and she turned up soon in an old car. Tony, my guide, went to make peace with Immigration authorities for our unauthorised trip from Bhamo to Myitkyina, while I was taken to the house that was a refuge for those who were ill. It seems that the husbands (partners) were infected through needles and prostitute use and when they died, they left behind pregnant women who, with their child, had contracted the illness. It is very sad but uplifting to see the care given to them. The Columban Sisters in Myitkyina are from Ireland, Korea and the Philippines. I spent about two hours with the sisters before we left to continue our travels. We travelled back to Bhamo and 32 hours later after another trip on the ferry we were back in the former royal capital, Mandalay.
Ken Joyce served in Burma during World War II in the Royal Navy
