Villages on the water near Pathein

I am exhausted and I am sure Saya Htay and Win San must be too, but they are stoic and don’t admit it. Today is our penultimate for giving away the Used-Glasses and we went by boat to visit Ma Gyi Tan village enjoying riverside scenery on the way.

U Che Zyi was understandably retired at 78. He chose awegyi glasses as he wanted to see far away. U Kay Win (61) chose anigyi reading glasses as did two ladies who did the village laundry, Daw Thein U (73) and Daw San (67).

It is wonderful that the people do not just accept the glasses because they are free. If they don’t help their eyes they return them to Saya Htay.

We move to Pa Da Seine village. Here I worry that Saya Htay is going to slip into the mud beneath U Thein Htay’s hut, which has the river lapping at its base. Fortunately she didn’t slide in and he was happy with his glasses. Ko Sye Ala is a young man of 28. When he was five, playing with his friends he had an accident, which severely affected his right eye. I thought the eye was blind and there would be no improvement by his having glasses. I was wrong. His thumbs up sign and beaming smile said it all. The eye was not blind, just hazy and the glasses corrected this. We were all very happy.