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Notes from a Burmese Prison

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If you want to get a letter out of a Burmese prison, do not give it to the guards.

Perhaps this is obvious, but when they told me I could write two a month — one to my embassy and one to Juliana — I was naive enough to try.

"All night," I wrote to Juliana.

“A fluorescent flood light illuminates the clouds of mosquitoes feasting on me, which makes it hard to sleep, and when the mosquitoes retreat, the ants crawl in — in pulsing veins along the cell wall and floor, over every inch of skin all day.”

I filled every centimeter of the official letter form they gave me.

“But it’s all fine. I’ve already gotten used to it by now. I just want to see you.”

Three days later…

“Write bigger. And don’t say there are ants here.”

So I tried again.

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