Burmese Days

Glancing furtively around the restaurant and discovering I remained unobserved, my hands shot to the curry dish on the table in front of me, squelching a messy mass of rice and fish into a ball, at once ravishing the freedom of juices dribbling down my chin and the explosion of spices and tang. No disapproving glances, whispers, frowns. This is acceptable? I wondered, but not for long, as I embraced this newfound dining etiquette. This was lunchtime in China Town, Rangoon.

My first day in Myanmar was plagued with the suspicion I had contracted dengue during our time in Laos. My conversation with the SOS doctor over an old shop-phone surrounded by downtown traffic went something like this:
DR: Rebecca. You blood test shows you (crackle crackle crackle) dengue.
Me: What?! I have dengue?!
DR: (crackle crackle) Yes. But ……… dengue positive.
Me: You’re saying I have dengue? Should I come in?
DR: (crackle) …call Monday.
Me: Don’t come in? I should call you Monday. Am I ok?
DR: ……Rebecca………call Monday.
(click)

A worried weekend later, a false positive blood test but no dengue. Amazing.

The most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen was in Myanmar, on the return trip back to land. The last fishermen hoped for a final catch and children paddled home to dinner, the sun burned in glory until swallowed by the mountains. I wondered if the fishermen had been taught the world doesn’t ever get to sleep, but am I any the happier for knowing?

The experience of reclining in the arm of a deserted temple to read a book is one I’m already having trouble recalling clearly - the pressure of the heat contrasted with the cool, damp brick of the untended building, the ceaseless drone of insects and occasional shouts from nearby farmers and workers, the entire process supervised by the imposing, expressionless Buddha to my left. In the evening, we rode our dumpy rental bikes back across the sand to a taller temple to watch the sunset, finding ourselves waiting too late to begin the journey to the guesthouse. An hour long clumsy fumble through the dark and sand found us paying "country rate" prices for internet (read: ridiculously expensive) but taking pleasure in that particular fatigue brought only by strenuous physical work. I slept well that night.

I left feeling I could spend years in Myanmar and only begin to scratch the surface of that tumultuous country, that uncomfortable aching violent undercurrent evident everywhere we traveled. One of the children in the picture above quoted to me the exact price of my camera, he knew it because my kind of foreigner usually carried that type, and he could not be distracted from his goal of exchanging my American dollar at a 'special price.' He was young, and beautiful, but when his father came up I feared for him the future he was already being pressed into. And I fear the type of person I am, for seeing this and knowing this and for flying in comfort out of the country one week later on a government plane.

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