Collecting Moments

Independent visit to Chin village Today the two of us planned to leave Mrauk-U and travel up the Lemro (Lay Myo, လေးမြို့မြစ်) River independently to a Chin village. We started at 11 in the morning from Mrauk-U trying to negotiate a fare to the river-side jetty. As always people were quickly interested in our need and we had offers of bicycle carriage for 5000 kyats and scooter (6000 kyats) and finally a safer motor-taxi (also 6000) as we knew much of the road was very poor. We arrived to Sin-O, a small village on the bank of the river which both local and tourist boats use, 8 km from town. Fortunately, there was some river traffic and a boat came in with cargo of firewood, which agreed to take us north to one of the villages. We sailed for 1.5 hrs and began to reach the villages our fellow traveler had suggested. We passed Paraghi and Kreischo and stopped at Sen-Shuew-Jew village. The driver asked for 2000 kyats (it seemed reasonable because we saw a local woman who traveled with us f

It's 7:30 in the morning — time for the local market! Семь тридцать утра — самое время для местного рынка!

It seems like women do the most difficult work in this country. They carry everything – stones, bricks, jars with water, sacks with rice and baskets with goods. They build the roads, deliver produce to the market, walk along the hot dusty streets to sell tea and fruits, and still take care of the children and look after their home. One of the things that struck me in Mrauk-U was the rice drying process. Women bring maybe 30 kg sacks with rice on their heads in the morning, level it by foot on long bamboo sheets, leave it to dry for the whole day and come back in the evening to collect the rice, put it into the same bags and carry it back home. The next day the same women bring the same sacks to the same spot, just to collect it again at night... Extremely hard repetitive work! What makes Mrauk-U so special is that life goes on around the ancient ruins. Children play football next to black-stone pagodas, farmers continue their daily work in fields between the old stupas, villagers come