16.6.2019
[Above photo: Rushing for cover in a downpour on the Yangon River.]
I was playing some Bob Dylan and heard the above line, which inspired me to skip off Friday to Twante. To get to Twante you take the ferry to Dalah, then hire a taxi or motorbike to drive you the 40 minutes into the Delta (of the Ayeyerwaddy River). When the British were here the Delta Region was the rice bowl of Asia, exporting more rice than any country in the world. After WWII and the economic policies of Ne Win, it all collapsed. Cyclone Nargis in 2008, which devastated the Delta, hasn’t helped.
I was firm with the hustler at the ferry terminal in Yangon that I was going to take the bus, not ride a motorbike; seeing his commission vanish, he did as well. When I arrived in Dalah a man approached me to hire his motorbike. No, I said, I was taking the bus, thinking about my unease riding on the back of the motorbike in Bago in shorts and flipflops with no helmet. “There is no bus. It is closed.” I doubted him but not wanting the hassle of finding the depot, I settled for his offer, donned his ineffectual helmet, and climbed on the back. “Pyay pyay,” I said, Slowly, slowly. He was obliging. As we left Dalah he stopped and we had to walk a block or two. “I don’t have a helmet. Police ahead. 3000kyat fine.” So we walked past the police, who seem to be very tolerant and just wanted a little respect for their authority, mounted up, and drove on. In 10 minutes an incredible downpour covered the area; we dismounted and sheltered in a 6×6 shed with a Buddha shrine inside. After it subsided in another 10 minutes we drove on but this time when the rain poured we kept motoring. A motorbike 30 feet in front of us screeched to a halt, nearly crashing, as a lazy dog wandered across the road, oblivious. People on motorcycles get killed hitting deer all the time in California; a large dog could easily do the same here.
After we passed the main Dalah garbage dump, the countryside was all brilliant green rice paddies, teak trees with their huge leaves, and little homes on stilts with standing water underneath. I can only imagine the number of mosquitoes and, thus, risk of dengue and malaria in this area in a month or two. Dengue peaks in September in Cambodia, I recall. I think seasons are similar with Myanmar.
We drove directly to the pottery which was the draw for me in Twante, other than the trip. It is the pottery manufactory for most of the Delta. They make small and immense pots, the latter for rice and water. The clay is mined from the local river bank. The pottery is in a series of large, connected, ramshackle wooden sheds with no windows and no artificial lighting—dark. There was a kick wheel next to which a man squatted to combine coil and throwing techniques, making large flower pots. A woman did the kicking. Another young woman was working on a primitive electric wheel in a separate dark shed, making candle holders. There were two large walk-in wood-fired kilns, one of which was cooling after 3-4 days of firing. There were assorted people glazing and finishing pots and ceramic grill bases. It looked like steady work for low pay but with pretty good craftsmanship. The atmosphere was a bit dreary and I couldn’t help comparing it with the lacquerware manufactory in Bagan where the products were much finer, more expressive, and varied. It would make the job more appealing to me, if not more remunerative. I bought a vase with a glaze the green of the paddy fields for $1.
The drive back was even more beautiful along the channel where Twante is sited. Several long-tail boats were tearing by, looking nearly submerged. They are constructed with very little freeboard for these generally calm Delta channels and rivers. We passed one bus during our 1 ½ hours coming and going, so there must be some bus service.
As I re-boarded the ferry, an immense, very dark cloud approached, the skies emptied, and visibility was nil on the Yangon River. Huge container ships vanished in the rain. I decided to stay dry by riding the ferry back and forth across the river until the deluge subsided but when we arrived at Yangon and the last passenger left the ferry, the rain lightened and I stepped off. I walked up Pansodan Lan and treated myself to pizza and gelato at Sharkey’s, a local eatery. I don’t think I’ve had pizza since Malawi—Linda’s homemade was better than Hosteria or Jungle Pepper. Sharkey’s was pretty good but not up to the standard of the Cheeseboard in Berkeley.
The upshot is that I’m going to change my language lesson from Saturday to Wednesday after my work and start taking Friday-Sunday local trips. I can drag my computer along to prepare lectures, if need be. I’ve been very focused on doing a solid job here but think this won’t affect my ability to do that. I want to begin with exploring the Delta. It’s not high on most people’s list but I like everything aquatic and the Delta is nothing if not that.
Human depravity knows no bounds, it seems. We saw a 17yo girl who ran away from her step-grandmother’s home, took a bus to the end of the line and refused to get off, so the bus driver took pity on her. He took her home for his wife to feed and to sleep for the night, then took her to the district administrative center. She was subsequently sent to the local Girls’ Training School. Because of her story, she was referred for forensic evaluation to Yangon Mental Hospital and then to us.
She lived with her mother on the Thai border for the first 6 years of her life. Her mother was a sex worker and the patient never knew her father. Her mother died of AIDS 10 years ago. The maternal grandfather took her in. It was hardly a blessing because her step-grandmother beat her regularly and the step-grandmother’s now-25yo son has been raping the girl 3x/week since she was 7 or 8yo.The girl has primary amenorrhea so hasn’t gotten pregnant, thankfully. The biological grandfather died a year ago.
When we interviewed her, she was tiny and extremely skinny, perhaps accounting for her amenorrhea. She has no hips and no breasts. Her face was very childlike. She missed her mother a lot and had nightly “hallucinations” of her mother calling to her. I wrote a report to the Medical Board, being very clear in several places that she was not psychotic and should not be given antipsychotics, as can happen here at the drop of a hat. One of our female therapists will see her in psychotherapy, she’ll be evaluated for her eating disorder, and, hopefully, they can find a safe, stable home in which she can live with a warm and loving woman to whom she may attach. It is so grotesque, more so to continue on and on for years, denying that she is a child and a human. I lack animal empathy, I guess, but I wouldn’t feel as bad if she were a sheep or a goat, which is how she has been treated.
On the other hand, I had supper with a young academic linguist, Justin, from London at the French Institute last night. He has been teaching an intensive 3 week course in Burmese annually for a number of years. He scrutinized the SDQ survey instrument I am trying, still, to get certified for our use. He had good suggestions, including that the translation into Burmese that we have is much too formal for most people to fully understand and that people may be much more receptive to an audio message than a written one. No reason we couldn’t translate the form again into more colloquial language, have a Burmese read each question into a recording device, and play it back for parents to answer. Brilliant! I’ll keep hammering away at it. At the end of supper, two nannies arrived with his darling 1 year old daughter who was so happy to see him. I don’t know about primal sin but there certainly is good and bad behavior in this world, with some extremes of each.
Which brings me to Elizabeth Warren. The woman is a fierce and knowing force for good. I’d love to see her debate DT, who would be reduced, as he was with Hillary, to trying to physically intimidate her in debates, distract from the issues, and call her silly, rude names. She has a record of being very effective both before and during her Senate career. She is very much in touch with the needs of the poor and working people, having grown up the same. I just hope people aren’t scared off by her strength, as she seems so genuine and brilliant and direct. There are others I like but she stands out for me. If worse came to worse and the Dems go for Biden, which I doubt, Biden-Warren would be quite a ticket. Or Warren-Harris. Or Warren-Buttigieg.
There is some hope in America. I want to return home and canvas! The Bugger may be even more outrageous by November 2020. Hopefully, he won’t begin a war with Iran; probably the Saudis bombed the tankers, wanting us to try to crush Iran for them, giving DT the pretext for a really large distraction. “We cannot waste our time talking about obstruction and collusion. We are at WAR!” The Ghost will simply slink back to the rock out from under which he crawled, with wife in tow. “I would never crawl under a rock without my wife. What if there was another woman under there?” Don’t you wish, obviously!
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 