Quarter Year

Many of the people in Myanmar wore this face paint, which doubled as sunscreen. Some wore it in very exact patterns, some wore it messily (as this girl is), others would just put a line, and some people didn’t wear it at all. All the little kids wore it, but of the adults only the women wore it, for the most part. The people on TV didn’t wear it, and I wonder why that is. I’m sure there’s all sorts of codes and implications having to do with the design people make out of the stuff. I forget what it’s called. The paste is made by rubbing a piece of pigmented wood against a stone and adding some water to the powder. It’s hella charming.

As Azure said, “SHE doesn’t have to worry about GMO seeds!” In fact, in Thailand they found a field “contaminated” with GMO plants. That’s the word they use, contamination. Anyway, I like the touch of the girl having tied her flower stems together with a little palm frond or something.

Wrapped in some big leaf for easy carrying. Notice the plastic bag hanging from her finger? There was plastic everywhere, and at one point we watched a cow eat a plastic bag. It was quite a scene – A cow innocently eating, which elicited an alarmed response from us three big white people, which elicited a confused response (“why do they care so much about that cow?”) from the dozen kids who were following us around the village. Good times.