Busy Friday, International Women Day

by Khin Myo Htaik (Myanmar)

Making a local connection Myanmar

In the hot morning under no-cloud sky, the young lady went to new Thiri Mingalar market, where there was an abundance of fresh veggies, juicy fruits, beautiful flowers, and dried seafood for wholesale rather than retailed sales. At the market, it was crowded with people from all over Yangon even in the daytime though it is open night as well. She went there to buy fresh, fragrant, natural roses, to make a decorative donation at the cemetery. In the market, she passed by shops selling products from the sea such as various types of dried fishes, different sizes of dried prawns and shrimps, and preserved fishes in salt. The pungent smell of these products entered her respiratory system unexpectedly. She inhaled it without thinking but though she didn’t buy these things. She enjoyed her experience just passing by, because she knew she could buy these items in the future. As she walked fast, she reached a building of various booths for the sales of natural flowers. She was attracted to some aromatic Indian wormwood, small, greenish plants, reasonably priced, and she bought a dozen of them. Then she searched for some yellowish roses here and there. At last, she found two big clumps of roses, precisely, a bunch of twenty in a clump. She was relieved to be able to buy the roses she desired. After that, she left the market, passing several buildings to get to the entrance. On her return under the midday sun, she was joyful herself. Who knows that she felt as if there were a moonlit night in her mind? The woman headed to the cemetery where the Saints were buried, by taxi. In the large compound of the cemetery, some brick buildings like the cottages can be seen. Due to the phone call she received by the old man yesterday, it was another reason she went there. It was the sick man who had been a marine captain as well as a flight attendant in his life, was on bed for a long time and he waited for his death poorly and hopelessly. She had known him over five years, before his mum passed away. Although the lady had no wish to see him for some reasons, she went to see him as if her final greetings before his departure. She conversed with him while she was making the floral arrangement. And then, she contributed some money, given by her little sister to him as he asked for it via the phone. She also gave some energy drinks for electrolytes and he drank instantly. She left him peacefully with his only one son. Then, she headed to the Saint tombs where she desired to donate her floral arrangement. When she arrived there, she met the security guard by chance and waited for him to cleanse around the tombs and she gave him some tip money for his helping hands. Then she showed her respect to the respective souls with the clean, natural flowers and aromatic small plants that she brought. She prayed deeply, with a belief in the seen or unseen power of angels and God, wishing for a transformation in peace and harmony of the society. Then, the people known or uninvited such as the Iman or the muslim preacher, the men from management committee of the cemetery, the people from spiritual group and faith group came to greet her and they discussed their developmental tasks in the cemetery and their desire to find out harmony, resolution, peace and their personal or official problems until they found solutions. On the one hand, she had hoped to catch her appointed class, her desirable song-writing session, but she could not overcome their attachment to her in conversations or informal counseling. So, she missed her lessons and the adored instructor of the class. To sum up, she was so sorry that she could not attend the class, even a bit late. But a beam of light spread in her heart, after seeing her people, because she better understood how to preserve a tangible heritage of religious practice and spiritual belief in different communities.