Patrick Sangbawi is the type of person that, after meeting him, you will never ever ever be able to forget him. Every now and again in life, you come across someone that you decide that no matter what, come hail or high water, you’re going to keep. Sangbawi, as I call him, is one of those.

I met him on day two of my stint in Kuala Lumpur back in October. Not only is he completely brilliant and full of any information you may need about Burma, life, refugees, and Malaysia, but he works more hours in a week than I probably work in a month. The most striking thing about him is that I have never seen him not smiling. He has this supernatural ability to find something to be thankful for in any and every situation in life. I spoke with him recently as there was a fire in his office/home. His words. “I think God that we are all safe and everyone got out. God is good.” That kind of positive outlook and gratitude is something that I can only hope for in my life.

Sangbawi is a young guy. He left his family in Burma and doesn’t know if he will ever see them again. He works in Kuala Lumpur every day with one vision: to help and serve his people living as refugees in KL.  He is hilarious, loves pop music, could probably give Justin Timberlake a run for his money in a dance contest.

Here is a photo of the living legend.

So. For those who had other plans on Friday night and couldn’t make it to our event, it’s super unfortunate, because you missed out not only a ballin’ time, but home made chocolate chip cookies. Don’t worry though. We will be throwing another partay this summer (which will probably NOT have home made choc chip cookies).

We had quite the turnout. Like an unexpectedly large turnout and were sooo thrilled to see so many people in our community out to support the project to tell the stories of Burmese refugees. I must give a special shout out to Sun King Brewery for peddling the sweet nectar of the gods for the duration of the night and proceeding to christen the evening with a complimentary round for the 21+ crowd.

In addition to the mosh-pit of a crowd that gathered and got their photos taken at the photo booth we setup, complete with “Communism sucks” and “I <3 INDYrefugee” signs, we did sell some art and gather some donations. This is extremely good news and means that we will no longer be giving plasma to cover the costs of the evening – and we can continue to give back to our Burmese friends. Again. Thankful + pumped. Biak (our local Burmese patriarch) and his kids were present to take everything in. The guest of honor, he cruised around all night smiling. We had several students/photographers from North Central High school present as well. And from the likes of the photos, they totally loved the photo booth.

Here are a few photos from the evening. Also, a big thanks to Jane Gehlhausen from the Mayor’s office to making it out. We know you had a busy evening.

We are putting the finishing touches on all our fun and awesome planz for tomorrow. Be sure to come out to the Harrison Center from 6-10pm. There may be some home-made chocolate chip cookies, so get yourself there early

It’s been a pretty wild past few months with INDYrefugee. Everything from interviews and trips to Malaysia to seeing the faces of Biak and Suiming (our Indianapolis friends that came to the states 6 months ago after spending more than 3 years as refugees in Malaysia) after giving them gifts from their family, to administration, to planning a refugee night at the Harrison Center. It’s been busy to say the least, but the best part, by far, has been seeing the ideas for telling the stories of Burmese refugees come to life. Seeing the response of the local Burmese community here in Indy that has been overwhelmingly gracious – they are so happy that a small group of artists have decided that everyone in Indy needs to know about what’s happening in Burma and gain a deeper understanding of the lives of Burmese refugees – that has been the most rewarding part of this journey. Anyway, without further ado, here is one of the favorite images from the project thus far. There are many more to come, but check this lady out. She will be premiering on Dec 2 at the Harrison Center event in all her cuteness.

(photo by Katie, stellar illustration by Joel Rockey)

Her name is Ciang Kok Dob and the is one of the most adorable people ever. I met her at the community centre in Kuala Lumpur. We had waved and said hi in passing quite a lot, but one day I decided that I needed to hang out with her.

As Sangbawi (one of our translators) and I climbed over rails and the 2 foot wide gap from to get to our her building from ours – she laughed at how crazy we were. I was wearing a skirt and had cameras strapped on my back – it was definitely against my better judgement to think I was Tarzan. Next time, we decided, we would take the stairs, go around the building, go back up the stairs, and properly get to the other side of the 6th floor where she lived.

Anyway, as I began talking with her, I quickly realized that she was one of the sassiest women I’d met in Malaysia. I started asking her about her childhood and school, that’s when she told me about beating up boys and getting in trouble for talking. Then, I began to wonder if we were the same person… Anyway, we she allowed me to photograph her and we laughed and laughed. My favorite part was that she wanted to be photographed holding her Bible. Seriously, what a precious lady.

- Katie

Disclaimer: No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to articulate how great Sang Hre is.

Throughout the course of the INDYrefugee journey, many a great people have crossed our path. So much so, that I still can not believe the good fortune of meeting them and am like 1000% convinced that God has allowed us to meet the absolute best people that are alive on the planet earth.  After much thought, I’ve decided that the only way to try to do them any justice is to introduce you (our loyal readers) to them via the blog! So, this is a pretty good blog addition to a previous post called ‘seriously how are you so awesome lesson 1,’ so I’m carrying on the tradition.

So.

This is Sang Hre and he is from Burma. He is a refugee from the Chin state living and working as a translator in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was one of our translators in KL for the project. The second night in KL I went around with him to meet several Burmese (from the Chin state) families living there. The area we went to was totally jam packed with Burmese refugees living in small rooms (think of college dorm rooms with entire families living in them) with shared kitchens and bathrooms. We just went from room to room and introduced ourselves and chatted a bit and high fived a lot of little kids. That was the night I met Eli Mang (you’ll meet her later) and Dawt Cung Thang (you’ll also meet him later).

Afterwards, Sang Hre decided that we should go to dinner. And dinner wasn’t one of those buy-some-street-food and call it a night situations. We ended up going to a Vietnamese restaurant where he demanded to order. We ended up with 9 plates of food. That was when I learned something really fast. Sang Hre is super serious about hospitality. He is also serious about guinness.

In addition to being one of the most incredibly intelligent and driven people I’ve ever met in my life, he has a smile that can make even grown men cry. Unfortunately the best demonstration of this is on a video where he is singing along to an Enrique Iglesias song and wordpress blogs won’t allow me to post videos unless I pay them $50, which is total crap. Anyway, here are a few photos that demonstrate the smile at about 38%  full effect. 

This is about 47% of the full smile effect. ps. WHAT is my outfit? The scarf-shirt?The other thing about Sang Hre that he probably doesn’t put on his resume (of knowing like six languages and having an ability to work something like 20 hours a day), is that he has karaoke skills that would embarass most professional karaoke people. You know it’s a good karaoke night when you leave not just with pit stains, but a t-shirt completely soaked in sweat after giving it your absolute all. Oh, and he is funny.

So funny that laughter inciting tears wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. At all. So funny that he knows every word to Bruno Mars’ song “Billionaire,” and loved to patronize me about thinking I could find my way around the city without him and not get lost.

So over the course of the time that Natalie and I spent with Sang Hre, we decided that not only is he one of the most alive and passionate and joyful and profound and wise people that we had ever met, but we officially adopted him as our brother (he is one of three that we adopted as our life-time bros) because we need him in our lives forever.

One of my favorite memories of Sang Hre was something that he said. I had just wrapped up the one of the most intense photo and interview sessions that happened during our time in KL. True to form, I went outside to cry. He stood with me and told me that while listening to the interview “I cried in my heart.”

I could barely take it.

Then there was the night that he and I had about 14 staring contest matches and I lost every single one of them and decided that I should arm wrestle him. I lost that too and was a total sore loser about the whole ordeal. And he reminded me about it later.

Then there was the day that I taught him English idioms. When he started saying that things were ‘off the hook’ we could not stop laughing.

But I guess if I had to choose, one of my favorite memories (and he would dispute this) was the night that we had to explain to him that he was “stubborn” and explain what it meant. He didn’t want to admit that I had, in fact, consumed more of the spicy Tom-Yum soup (it’s a spicy Asian soup) than him.  That he had beads of sweat pouring down his face and I was ready for more. That was a small victory in my demonstration that I can deal with spicy Asian food happiness like a boss.

In all seriousness though, I just wish that Sang Hre lived in Indianapolis and I could call him on the weekend and hang out all the time. He is so sweet and each time he sends emails, he ends them with “God Bless and Bless God,” and says stuff like, “what do I have to be disappointed with in this blessed life?” Seriously, why is he so great?

Would someone please tell me how a person gets this awesome? Would someone please tell me how a person can never take a day off of work and stay so focused and full of hope, and live with such an intense resolve to fight tooth-and-nail for a free Burma and never waiver in that?

So yes. Anyway. I’ve decided that no matter what, I need to go back to KL to see Sang Hre (and Tin Mang Shwe and Sang Bawi which I’ll intro you to later). He is one of the key people that made the IR project in Malaysia so great. And he’s just one of the greatest people alive.

Other Sang Hre Trivia: His dream is to get more schooling. He loves drinking hot water. He loves Bruno Mars. He also enjoys photography from time to time.

Natalie, what am I leaving out here?

-Katie