Waso Full Moon Day

Waso Pagoda Festival is celebrated Myanmar-wide. It is held on 18th July this year (the lunar calendar doesn’t change but our Gregorian calendar does). Waso is an opportunity to offer flowers to the Buddha and to the monks. The latter also receive new robes woven by the people. The festival we are attending is at Salay a village near Chauk in Magwe Division.

Driving slowly through Chauk, I noticed a man sitting beside the road one of whose eyes was badly shriveled. We stopped and Saya Htay told him of our free Used-Glasses Project. The young man (35 years) was working his land some years ago and a sliver of bamboo sliced into his eye. The doctor wanted to remove the eye, but he resisted. That eye is of course sightless but the other one was a bit hazy too. Ko Naing Oo tried on the glasses and the third pair gave him clearer vision. He told us he never dreamed he would ever have glasses.

Driving on to Salay I noticed Jessu biodiesel trees flanking the road and I remembered how they came to be here and how useless they have been for the people. The Power that Was some time ago, was a great believer in Astrology. He asked his Astrologer how he could remain All Powerful and was told to do three things. First, he had to change the colour of the flag. It is now green, yellow and red stripes with a star in the middle. Second, new bank notes were to have the elephant printed on them. There are now K5,000 elephant-imprinted bank notes. Third, he had to get the whole country to plant Jessu also known as the bio-diesel tree. So it was said, it would power all the vehicles in Myanmar. Whether people liked it or not they had to buy the saplings and plant them in their gardens, along the roads, in villages and in towns. Regrettably, this did not work so the people lost much time and money.

As we neared Salay there were other sights and sounds along the way. Groups of mostly young people shook noisy offering bowls and called out for contributions from drivers attending the Festival.