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?Ethnic cleansing. Jailed reporters. International sanctions. Travel boycotts.

It was headlines like these that haunted my steps as I first crossed into Burma (now Myanmar) in July 2008.

For much of the last ten years I’ve called this country home, and been witness to one of the most remarkable periods of political and societal change in this country’s modern history.

Finally, Burma was emerging from decades in the darkness.

I watched the joy on family’s faces as their relatives were freed after years wrongly held behind bars.

I joined the hustle at the news-stand as censorship was lifted, and the bustle of new business as international sanctions were torn down.