Burma - Nine

The youngest member...

FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE FIRE, Than Hlaing still cares, virtually solo, for 7,000 people who don't have toilets, clean water or enough food. He navigates the camp's broken glass and collapsed irrigation ditches in mud-caked sneakers, carrying a green canvas bag with a red cross.

He walks from shanty to shanty, feeling foreheads, draining abscesses, wiping noses, cleaning sores, giving out toothbrushes and baby blankets and donated clothes. Parasites, conjunctivitis, rash -- every child has at least a little something gone wrong.

He checks on the mom who was in labor on Fire Night, as it's now called, flailing in the shadows of flames while her two children screamed because their house was burning down. The baby boy is healthy, 4 months old, scalloped ears, suckling under his mom's thin blue undershirt, his fingers slightly curled on her knee. No name yet, given the circumstances.

Then we come to a newborn swaddled in white muslin. The baby in the shroud. The infant is frail, wizened, smaller than my notebook, lighter than Tom's camera, so weak he cannot suck.

"This baby will die. Serious malnutrition," Than Hlaing says, using his shadow to shield the infant's face from the sun. The baby drags his left eyelid open and struggles to smile on one side of his face. The furrows deepen around his dry mouth. It is unbearable, really, watching this doomed child smile.

For a long time, I thought the saddest scenes were those of total devastation. I now understand that flickers of spirit are what rip the soul most.

All around, all the time in Huay Kaloke, we hear the constant pounding of people rebuilding their homes, digging post holes with tin cans, lashing together green bamboo that is too skinny, too soft, too young to last long in a place attackers have threatened they'll burn again.

We walk past scattered plumes of smoke rising from hundreds of cooking fires, and we spot a little girl washing her baby brother in an aluminum rice pot. They are beautiful in the heavy glow of supper hour, gold sun clinging to wet skin. The girl dips her small hands into the pot, forming a cup. She lets the water slither down her brother's shoulders, rubs her fingers along his toasty back, feels it glisten. Then comes something for which I am completely unprepared, something that shakes me.

The children's mother looks up from where she squats stirring fish paste, and asks, Please, won't you join us for dinner?

I am overwhelmed by her kindness. I am afraid to accept even one grain of rice from a family that has so little. I am appalled at my hunger to absorb her spirit, ashamed I'll take more than I can ever give back. I am angry we can only do so much, and that what we can do is not nearly enough for all these families cooking supper and all the babies about to die.

So I point to the sun, which has dropped below the looming hills of Burma, and I gesture with my hands as if I am driving away, because everyone knows foreigners are not allowed in the camp at night. The night is far too dangerous.




The youngest member...		FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE FIRE, Than Hlaing still cares, virtually solo, for 7,000 people who don't have toilets, clean water or enough food. He navigates the camp's broken glass and collapsed irrigation ditches in mud-caked sneakers, carrying a green canvas bag with a red cross. He walks from shanty to shanty, feeling foreheads, draining abscesses, wiping noses, cleaning sores, giving out toothbrushes and baby blankets and donated clothes. Parasites, conjunctivitis, rash -- every child has at least a little something gone wrong. He checks on the mom who was in labor on Fire Night, as it's now called, flailing in the shadows of flames while her two children screamed because their house was burning down. The baby boy is healthy, 4 months old, scalloped ears, suckling under his mom's thin blue undershirt, his fingers slightly curled on her knee. No name yet, given the circumstances. Then we come to a newborn swaddled in white muslin. The baby in the shroud. The infant is frail, wizened, smaller than my notebook, lighter than Tom's camera, so weak he cannot suck. "This baby will die. Serious malnutrition," Than Hlaing says, using his shadow to shield the infant's face from the sun. The baby drags his left eyelid open and struggles to smile on one side of his face. The furrows deepen around his dry mouth. It is unbearable, really, watching this doomed child smile. For a long time, I thought the saddest scenes were those of total devastation. I now understand that flickers of spirit are what rip the soul most. All around, all the time in Huay Kaloke, we hear the constant pounding of people rebuilding their homes, digging post holes with tin cans, lashing together green bamboo that is too skinny, too soft, too young to last long in a place attackers have threatened they'll burn again. We walk past scattered plumes of smoke rising from hundreds of cooking fires, and we spot a little girl washing her baby brother in an aluminum rice pot. They are beautiful in the heavy glow of supper hour, gold sun clinging to wet skin. The girl dips her small hands into the pot, forming a cup. She lets the water slither down her brother's shoulders, rubs her fingers along his toasty back, feels it glisten. Then comes something for which I am completely unprepared, something that shakes me. The children's mother looks up from where she squats stirring fish paste, and asks, Please, won't you join us for dinner? I am overwhelmed by her kindness. I am afraid to accept even one grain of rice from a family that has so little. I am appalled at my hunger to absorb her spirit, ashamed I'll take more than I can ever give back. I am angry we can only do so much, and that what we can do is not nearly enough for all these families cooking supper and all the babies about to die. So I point to the sun, which has dropped below the looming hills of Burma, and I gesture with my hands as if I am driving away, because everyone knows foreigners are not allowed in the camp at night. The night is far too dangerous.