Man Pan Li Su Village & Aung Myn Tar Yar Palaung Village, Northern Shan State

Pineapples were a feature on the road from Hsipaw to the Li Su village of Man Pan half way to Kyauk Me. There were dozens of fields filled with thousands of them, row beside row. The farmers around were also growing corn, rice, peanuts, eggplants, chilli and salad vegetables. This is buffalo country: men were leading two or three on long ropes each off to work in the fields for the day. 

It was a surprise to be greeted by a church on our way into the village, rather than a pagoda. The Li Su people are Roman Catholic. Ay Myint, who was one of the first people to receive glasses, wanted to see better in order to read her bible more clearly. She showed it to us. It was called The Lisu Common Language Bible and was divided into chapters and verses. The script was not in Burmese. The Li Su have their own language and some also speak English. Each word in the bible comprised two Roman capital letters one way up, followed by two Roman capital letters upside down!

 I was intrigued to see Ay Myint had a bookmark showing she had reached more than half-way.

In a scamper children arrived and we had the ‘first-time to see a foreigner’ syndrome with children too scared to approach me. They ran in all directions – I am truly a scary sight.

The head of the village rocked in – literally. The poor man walked with a zimmer frame, as he had a stroke one year ago. One arm was completely paralyzed and one leg was so stiff he limped badly. He was already wearing glasses and though he tried some of ours, he was satisfied with the ones he already had. One by one the children reappeared and stayed around intrigued by the photos on my computer.

Each of the older Li Su women wore their traditional dress of blue tunic over black pants. The tunics are decorated with many different coloured stripes of appliqued fabric. This work was intricate, excellent and must take hours to complete.  The turban they wear is their crowning glory. It is many metres long. Guffaws of laughter erupted from the children when one lady – obviously a good sport – removed her turban then slowly and carefully wound it round and round her head again. She wanted to look her best for the photo!

One young man took it upon himself to help Saya Htay – which was great. He took one pair of glasses after another out of their pouch gave it to a villager and put it back when they wished to try another. He wore an interesting tee shirt proclaiming: unique bright of paradise park! He had no need for glasses, but was delighted when we found a pair of sunglasses for him. We cracked the usual joke about ‘movie star’ and everyone laughed. There was only one young lady in the village at the time. She was noticeable as the only woman not wearing traditional dress. Avo Mu was 18 and thrilled to receive sunglasses. She sat lovingly polishing the lenses with the pouch.

Ami Ho squeaked in fright when she tried on her first pair of glasses – they were obviously not right for her eyes, then squeaked with delight when she found that anigyi glasses helped her. An old man leaning heavily on his stick arrived. U Kyaw Thin Go found that anigyi helped him. A woman who was particularly pleased with her anigyi glasses was a tailor. We watched her sewing incredibly narrow coloured applique stripes on the tunic she was making. It was particularly rewarding for us to see how the glasses would assist her job. A doctor told U Lon Ba that his glasses were not powerful enough for him any more and he should have new ones. As the man had no money, this was impossible. He found a pair of bi-focal that helped him. In Man Pan village we gave away 20 pairs of glasses and thought there would be many grateful prayers given that night at the church.

The last village we visited in Northern Shan State was Aung Myn Tar Yar close to Kyauk Me. It is a Palaung village, but a golden Palaung rather than a silver Palaung. Sure enough the belt around the women’s hips was of gold coloured cane, not silver. The people here did not own land. They had been moved here from another part of the State where there was fighting and were given permission to stay. This meant they can only be workers helping those who own the land with any type of job that comes their way. Most were involved with corn: either husking it, drying it or packing it into sacks to be sent to China. One curious coincidence was that the oldest lady in the village actually came from Nam Pam a village near Hsipaw we visited a few days ago. Daw Ay Sai was 85 and had come here to live with relatives. She told us she never dreamed she would be able to have glasses and they made her very happy. She thanked me for being a good nat that had come to their village that day.

At last, it was time for us to leave Northern Shan State and head for Mandalay and Saya Htay’s village where we will discuss the Clean Water Project. In all we have travelled about 850 miles and given away 120 pairs of glasses.