Gifts of Sight

Today is the start of the Water Festival to swoosh in the New Year in Myanmar. We will probably get drenched as we get into the car and must then drive with all windows tightly closed!

We are going to Bagan, about a five hour drive, so that Sebastian can film a sunset and then sunrise the next morning.

We will arrive in Nyaung Pin Zauk by the afternoon and then our work really begins.

Sebastian wants to make a film of about five people who used to do a job, then their eyes became bad so they could no longer do it. Then along came Gifts of Sight (the name of the project), the people could see again and could go back to their original job.

That is the Plan. I wonder whether there will be a Plan B or even a Plan C. One lady would have been perfect as she started working as a weaver, had to give up because she couldn’t see, then we gave her glasses. But she didn’t go back to weaving! She found another job. Of course we are very glad for her but not for our film!

Below are some of the people who have received glasses. 

The lady in the first photo does not own any shoes. I will rectify that, because it is the hot season which makes very painful walking. Her house is behind her and there is nothing in it. She is called a worker because she owns no land in the village. To feed herself she has to take any job that other villagers might give her. I am taking a sack of rice with us.

Shin Pyu

 The excitement was palpable as we entered the village of Tan Nawn Kane where Saya Htay’s nephew Chan Htet Win and nine others would be inducted into the monastery that evening. The excitement became ever more febrile as small girls were bedecked in shining satin for such a special day. Their mothers were similarly attired though most in milder colours. The venues for the ceremony would be divided between the monastery and the hall. We would visit both several times for different functions.

First, Win San, Saya Htay and everyone else set off on foot for the traditional tour of the village that would take a couple of hours. This was to share the special day with as many as possible. I was not expected to walk and Ko Thin Htet Aung, who is U Aung Win’s son, was deputed to take me on his motorbike. We would stop several times to allow the procession, about two kilometres long to pass by.

Riding sidesaddle on a motorbike is not my chosen mode of travel, but it sure beats bullock carts as I see one after the other jolt and crack down rock holes in the unmade road. I try to look confident even as I conjure a picture of the Guest of Honour falling off the pillion flat on her face.

It is a very long walk for the little ones in the procession, but they struggle along and make the procession up to the monastery then later back down to the hall. Here, mercifully, the band had changed to a modern one with a singer and amazingly is much less ear splitting than the traditional music.

At the monastery we were directed upstairs to a room where dozens of low circular tables were covered with dishes of grapes, apples, bananas, papaya and watermelon all cut up ready for eating. There were also slices of cake and biscuits, which I opted for as both had been cooked. I am being mega careful this time not to end up in hospital on my return to KL or, worse, before I left Myanmar.

This, I assumed was our lunch, but no. This was a pre-lunch feast. I was introduced to several sayadaws and talked with them through Win San. They were first to be served lunch proper and I was bustled away as the monks eat alone. They have to take lunch very seriously because they may only eat until 12.00 mid-day after which they cannot eat until they bring back the food that the villagers put into their thabieks (sp?) some time after 5.30 next morning.

I learned that the Astrologer had picked the auspicious days for the Shin Pyu to be held as the 9^th and 10^th April. It had to be after everyone had paid their respects to the nats in March. If respects are not paid, the nats would be jealous and cause trouble. The days had to be before Thingyan the Myanmar New Year, which starts with the Water Festival on 12^th April.

After lunch came the important ritual of shaving the head, then came the talk by the sayadaw to the would-be novices. All of them had to agree to the ten required rules and they put on their russet robes and were admitted as novices into the monastery for a week, a month or several months. Some novices go on to being monks, but the majority stay only a short time.

Drinking water in the village

This was a day of great excitement in three completely different directions. First, we visited Nyaung Pin Zauk to see the clean drinking water project. Still in Nyaung Pin Zauk I had to find out information for Sebastian who arrives on 11^th April to make the documentary on the Gifts of Sight project. Then we went to Tan Nawn Kane, about two kilometres away, where the novitiation ceremony will be held and, as Saya Htay’s nephew, Chan Htet Win, was being inducted into the monastery, and the sayadaw (abbot) conducting the ceremony was an old friend of the family it was a particularly significant occasion.

In Nyaung Pin Zauk we were met by U Aung Win and taken to see two temporary water holding tanks: one on each side of the village. Each had sturdy wooden columns supporting the roof at each corner and slightly shorter wooden columns down each side. There was also a sloping roof topped with dried toddy palm leaves that shielded the tank from the rays of the sun. The tank holding the water was encircled by a split bamboo frame tied tightly to the columns. Inside the frame was a huge and mega strong plastic tarpaulin filled very pleasingly with water. At one end is an upright blue six centimeter pipe with an elbow bend poised above the water. To show me how the tank filled, a man was sent off with the key to the shed beside the spring where the generator and pump are situated: about one kilometre away. It took a few minutes for the pipe to fill with water and then water splashed into the tank. Each day, the pump and generator work for two hours. In that time all the villagers can fill the water containers that stand beside their house.

They already have an experiment going to find out if the main pipe will feed much smaller pipes to run to each house. That is the longed-for resolution of all the villagers, that they will have a tall concrete building with a water tank on top and little pipes to each house.  

In the past they drilled down 20 feet in the same way as they drilled for oil in Sue Winn (the next village that that has plenty of oil and is therefore well off). They came to water but, disappointingly however many holes they drilled, the result was always the same – the water was pronounced salty and polluted not fit even to water plants or they would die.

We went to the other temporary water storage tarpaulin tank in another part of the village. This tank too was 20 feet in circumference and can hold 4,000 gallons of water. I note a cardboard sheet hanging above the water and ask what it is for. Apparently Ko Tan Zaw the owner of the house and now temporary tank, marks how much each villager takes each day and calculates what they owe as a contribution. U Aung Win checks once a day too. The villagers can pay the small amount needed to buy the diesel to keep the generator going – or they can donate diesel – as they like. Even the plants were smiling.

The permanent tank will be up on tall concrete pillars 20 feet from the ground and 25 feet square, The Sue Winn tank cost $85,000 which included everything: all engineering and other advice and supervision, all materials including cement, sand, stone, bricks as well as all the piping to each house. Nyaung Pin Zauk is smaller than Sue Winn so the tank will be smaller. Also the villagers will do all they can and have agreed with U Aung Win that each house will pay approximately $15 for the small bore water pipes and red plastic tap. So the total sum will be much less than the $85,000 spent in Sue Winn partly because Sue Winn is a smaller village and therefore needs less water, but mainly because the villagers will all work on the project so there is no need to hire labourers.

Clean Drinking Water

 Win San and Saya Htay spent about two days in their taxi coming to fetch and take me after my late arrival in Yangon! They drove from Mandalay to Nyaung Pin Zauk: five hours covering 274 miles, then Nyaung Pin Zauk to Yangon: eight hours covering 488 miles. Saya Htay’s brother, U Aung Win, who is Headman of the village, travelled with them and as the hours of driving slowly ticked away we had plenty of time to talk. Suddenly, with no hint of its huge importance, Win San asked me if I would like to know a secret! Would I? Of course I would. And I could hardly believe the fantastic news that followed.

U Aung Win was elected, democratically, three years ago by the villagers. He is known to have vision, be able to organize and achieve the villagers’ desired results. And so it would seem.

The village now has clean drinking water.

There is still much to do and to buy, but the women will not have to walk two kilometres with pots of water on their head throughout the hot season. This is wonderful as it is 42 degrees here now.

Sue Winn, the village that abuts Nyaung Pin Zauk has diesel oil so they are rich by comparison. They gave money and expertise in terms of which generator, pump, piping and other equipment to choose and purchase.

U Aung Win requested his villagers put in some of the money they got from selling their produce: peanuts, beans, rice and jaggery: about 30,000 kyat ($30) from each family. If they could not give this, then 10,000 kyat or whatever they could afford. He asked the men, women and children to give their time and strength to make it happen. Around the spring that never runs dry they built a wall. The men hammered rocks out of a cliff, then hammered until they were the size the women could carry to the spring where other men cemented them together. Through the wall they poked the pipe that runs into a locked shed containing the engineering equipment and they laid the pipe for the kilometre to the village. Even Saya Htay helped to dig the trench!

U Aung Win had many meetings with not only his villagers but with several villages around requesting their help with funding and work with the understanding that if he could get water to Nyaung Pin Zauk they could share it.

A water storage tank in the village is now needed and pipes to everyone’s house remains to be achieved. I have asked U Aung Win to please get a quotation as to what the cost will be and I will do my best to get funding. Not having the water storage tank and individual pipes yet does not detract from the wonderful feeling of happiness that everyone now has and I will experience tomorrow when I go to Nyaung Pin Zauk. 

The itinerary for the trip with Sebastian Andrei

I return to Myanmar today and the draft itinerary has a few differences already!

Usually I fly into Yangon, take a taxi to the Highway bus station, board a GI Group overnight bus and arrive in Mandalay at 5.00 a.m. This time Saya Htay and Win San are driving down from Mandalay to the Highway bus station (a five hour drive I believe) and will pick me up.

We should have headed first to Bago to find some poor villages (never hard to find) and stayed on for me to write up the Bago Buddhist Pagoda Festival.  However, first, we will go to Nyaung Pin Zauk, Win San and Saya Htay’s village, because Saya Htay's nephew is doing Shin Pyu. This is the novitiation ceremony when young Buddhist boys are inducted into the monastery.

After our time in the village we will head to Mandalay and on the 11th April meet Sebastian Andrei at the airport. Sebastian is the documentary film maker who is making a film of our project Gifts of Sight which, when completed, will go on U-Tube. Win San and Saya Htay will go to their own home in Mandalay, Sebastian and I will go to Garden Hotel, the owners of which will undoubtedly be pleased that a documentary film maker is staying.

My task to be completed before Sebastian arrives is to find out the occupation of all the people to whom we have given glasses (in Nyaung Pin Zauk – not in the whole of Myanmar!) to see if\how their life has improved now that they can see. I am sure there will be a weaver and, doubtless, someone who can now see to read. I remember last year we gave away some glasses to a man who was the bookkeeper at the Pagoda in a village around Indawgyi Lake who had not been able to read for four years. His bookkeeping ledger must have been imaginative (like my maths).

My task done in advance means that Sebastian can choose which subjects he feels are the most interesting to people in other countries whom we hope will see the film Gifts of Sight and take some gifts of sight when they next go on holiday. I believe we will stay in Nauk Pin Zauk until Sebastian has all the footage he needs.

The Water Festival is on everywhere in Myanmar 13-16 April. Doubtless wherever we are we will not avoid a soaking. From 15-22 April the Shwe Maw Daw Pagoda Festival is on in Bago and the Popa Ceremony is on at Mount Popa from 17-23 April.

Of course we will be visiting one village after another when I have finished writing up the festivals.

At some point on our journey we will overnight in Bagan not necessarily to give away glasses, but Sebastian very much wants to film the incredible sunrise and sunset for which Bagan is famed.

By Sunday 23 April, exhausted no doubt, we will be back in Mandalay recovering before the overnight bus to Yangon, which gets in at 5.00 next morning. We will check into Beautyland II Hotel where they always greet me with “Welcome home”! Sebastian will then have a whole day to see the sights of Yangon before we fly back to Kuala Lumpur.

Now I must finish my packing. That won't take long as I can take almost nothing but the glasses. This time I am taking 245 pairs and I have almost the same number in my trunk for my next visit in July.

I have been given some great advice from some of my friends. The first involved an email to Tony Fernandez CEO of Air Asia. I have asked for a few extra kilos of baggage allowance free of charge, as I believe he is willing to help charitable initiatives. Next time I will contact the Public Relations part of his organisation to see if all the glasses baggage can go free of charge. We shall see.