There are things I want to show you, but don’t have any photos of. This is partly because they happen too fast for me to pull out my phone and snap them, also because my phone can’t catch these things adequately and the big camera is kind of a pain to walk through the rain with while also carrying a baby in a sling, wrangling a 3 year old in a stroller, far easier than wrangling a 3 year old without a stroller, and carrying an umbrella. Also I’m not sure I want to act the tourist in our new neighborhood and take pictures of people without permission.
One day as I was driving out our gate there were 4 young Burmese girls, wearing sarongs with the traditional yellow paste smeared on their cheeks, walking up the road carrying laundry baskets and laughing at something the boy who walked with them was saying. They looked like a post card. (All the Burmese here put a paste on their cheeks and foreheads. I’m not sure why. I’m told it doesn’t prevent bug bites, but can help soothes them. I think it’s fashion more than anything else. There are many different patterns of application.)
There was the line of ladies in lovely dresses walking in pairs past the rice fields on a sunny afternoon, each pair arm in arm and sharing an umbrella.
Tonight we passed a couple on a bicycle. The woman was middle aged, slightly plump, and sat side saddle in a sarong on the bag rack on the back of the bicycle. She was laughing and holding an umbrella up over both of their heads as they bumped along over the little bridge.
We were walking through the village during a downpour and the sun came out. The way the light reflected off the sheets of water pouring down, so thick you could barely see people through it, and the way the bright clothes and umbrellas blurred, made me feel like I was inside of a national geographic photo.
In lieu of those photos, that are only in my head, here are some shots I have managed to sneak of people when we’re out on our walks.
 |
| This woman is washing laundry in an irrigation canal. There’s a man on the bank helping her. |
 |
| Bicycle riding in sarongs |
 |
| Road into a village |
 |
| Someone’s house. |