A helpful airport official

“Some years back, maybe 5 or 6, after doing temporary ordination at Theinngu 32 in Aunglan, Myanmar, I went to Yangon airport to return home. I knew that I had overstayed my visa and had done so on many previous visits. It was always easy to pay the excess of $3 a day overstay, without any extra penalty. This time however, I miscalculated the length of the overstay and when I went to the visa overstay desk at the airport, and offered what I thought was the right fee, the airport official looked very stern and said it was the wrong amount. He went through how much I owed, but I had saved just the amount that I thought I owed. I offered the rest in Burmese kyat but he refused this and walked off. I wondered what was going to happen. Would I be arrested? I don’t recall feeling unduly worried, so I decided to just wait and see.

When he finally returned, he handed me the dollars that I had offered him back and I think he took out his own dollars. He then said, ‘This is my donation to you’. I was totally overwhelmed…blown away, that a stranger (of course it had happened in monasteries and other places over years of visits to Myanmar), but I never expected this from a uniformed official at the airport.

Really a very stunning and beautiful moment…that words really cannot describe. I wasn’t in nuns robes, but having no hair, it must have been obvious that I had done, as many Burmese do, temporary ordination for the vassa, and I know the Burmese people really love when foreigners go to Myanmar for Dhamma and even more so if they ordain, and clearly he was very happy with his donation. The memory still really touches the heart.”

— Essay submission