My last post
showed a woman weaving split bamboo beside her rickety house. There are two
such houses at either end of Nyaung Pin Zauk that are owned by folk who have no
land and can therefore not farm to feed themselves. To exist they cut and sell
bamboo from the forest. The woman here was actually weaving split bamboo to
make a new wall for her house. These bamboo houses last only about seven years
and then have to be rebuilt. This was what she was doing. Despite this poverty
their children looked healthy and happy, charging around as children are wont
to do!
We visited the
primary school and heard the kindergarten singing Baa Baa Black Sheep and Head
and Shoulders Knees and Toes – in English! W e gave away toothbrushes and tiny
toothpastes but not to the younger children as we noticed one small boy last
year was eating the toothpaste!
Tired but happy
we returned to Mandalay. We have given away more than 150 pairs of glasses: We
have one pair left! This will be joined by another hundred, or so, when I
return to Myanmar in April.
The last village
was Win Kyaing’s Sa Lin Gon. He had told his parents we were coming with the
glasses and it only took a minute or two for their house to be filled with
excited villagers most of whom found glasses that helped them.
Of the many villages
we have visited over the weeks, only one had electricity. That was the weaving
village and only the man-driven loom was electric powered. Only one of the
villages has tap water. All the other villages had houses of bamboo thatched
with the dried leaves of the toddy palms. They had no services at all and very
tricky earth roads on which bullock carts roll happily but Win San’s taxi – not
so happily.
My exhausted
camera battery has been recharged. Mine has not – so I will write more
tomorrow.
I was very happy
with our five-hour drive from Pakokku to Nyaung Pin Zauk, which is Saya Htay
and Win San’s village, because I could just sit and do nothing! Once we
arrived, there would be lots to do.
Win Kyaing’s, village
has tap water. Sa Lin Gon was fortunate a couple of years ago when UN Habitat
helped them to pipe water to each house in the village. We are very happy for
them, but unfortunately the Clean Drinking Water Project at Nyaung Pin Zauk has
not fared well. The villagers have dug the long trench for the pipe that will
carry the water from the saiye
(spring) to the yidwin (well) in the village
and have cleared the area necessary for the water tank in the village. But so
far, no outside help has been forthcoming. We are not giving up hope. Some
things take time and we want to believe it will happen. I can’t bear the fact
that the women have to walk two kilometres with a water pot on their head for
the four summer months that the drinking water lake is dry.
My camera won’t
work. The battery is exhausted. So am I, but we still have two villages to
visit. I was too tired even to use this very fast wifi to report on the last
two villages before we reached Pakokku. At the first, I heard Win San say
‘widow’. This reminded me of last year when he told me a woman was a window. A
window? I repeated, puzzled. Yes, he replied, a window like you. Ah, now I
understood. She was a widow!
Chauk Kan is a
weaving village. Along with sesame, peanuts and rice they grow cotton. There is
electricity, which some people are able to access. There is one huge automatic
machine run by a man: the ladies have foot operated looms. We like giving
glasses to people who need them to do their job as this benefits the whole
family by bringing in an income. There was much hand shaking as one after
another left Saya Htay wearing a pair of glasses and came over to me before
they set off for their looms again. One elderly man told us he could throw his
stick away because now he can see where he is going. The decibels rose in
excitement as one woman, who was all but blind, found a pair of glasses that
enabled her to see again. It was a wonderful moment. Yesterday we gave away 36
pairs of glasses, which may be our record for one day!
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