Heading out for an adventure

So there I was, minding my own business, when I received an email.
(At this point, if you’re guessing that I’m about to embark on a project halfway around the world and that I should have my head examined, well all I can say is, you know me too well.)
The email said it was someone or some thing called “FULSPEC.”
That should have been a clue.
Back in 2009, when I was infamously deported upon arrival in Kyrgyzstan, I was supposed to be working on a project as what’s called a Fulbright Senior Specialist. The program hooks up former Fulbright scholars with short-term overseas assignments, and I’d made my way onto the roster just so I could do that project in Kyrgyzstan.
As it turned out, that project lasted two days instead of two weeks. Nearly all of it was spent on airplanes going one direction or the other.
I’d forgotten about the Fulbright Senior Specialist roster until an email arrived two weeks ago today.
It was, in effect, a form letter: “I am writing to ascertain your interest” blah-blah-blah.
But it wasn’t your usual form letter. Was I interested, it asked, in taking on a project in Burma, doing some seminars on election coverage in advance of the parliamentary election there in April?
Burma. Also known as Myanmar. A country that has been run by its military for decades but which has suddenly been showing signs of a thaw and an measurable movement in the direction of democracy.
Was I interested? Of course, I was interested. A chance to try to provide some assistance in a critically-important country at an equally critically-important time in its history? Of course, I was interested.
But I doubted whether I was the right person for the job.
The bulk of the work I have been able to do overseas since 1998 has been in the area of building press independence through sustainable business practices. I talk about things like credibility as a newspaper’s sole asset, about the importance of being reader-driven, about the importance of advertising to keep the wheels turning round, and about things like ethics, business planning, and marketing.
Election coverage, per se, hasn’t figured into it too much.
And then there was the timetable.
As proposed, our folks in Rangoon were looking to have someone heading there by Feb. 12. The email arrived Jan. 25. They wanted a proposal by Jan. 30. And they wanted someone on a plane less than two weeks after that.
It sounded a little crazy, but (insert joke about the writer of this column here).
It shouldn’t surprise you that I made a proposal. What the heck. It was daydream material if nothing else. Why not let them know what sort of project you’d put together if selected? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
That was about 8 days ago. For the first few days, I heard nothing back.
By Thursday afternoon, when I was chatting with my old friend Ron Cole, I figured the whole thing would pass me by. About two hours later, another email popped up. “Congratulations,” it said.
Congratulations indeed.
Now, I’m caught up in a flurry of paperwork, seminar-building, and research about Burma/Myanmar. I have no visa. I have no plane tickets. And I have no firm departure date.
But it sure does look like I’m going to Burma.
Maybe I should just stop checking my email.[[In-content Ad]]