January news ... Happy New Year!
This morning we were awakened to a fresh
bunch, a hanging cluster tier bananas to eat with our muesli. All in
courtesy of our humble neighbour! With a smile and a nod, he came
around our house this morning to deliver bananas, while we sat on the porch
with a hot cup of coffee in hand to ward off the early morning chill
of 13℃ . (yes, it gets that cold!).
Last night, our humble neighbour, who endlessly goes out of his
way for us, had freshly harvested bananas from our tree for us to have for breakfast this
morning. What a treat! Banana
fruits develop from the banana wine colour heart in a large hanging cluster, made up of
tiers known as ‘hands’, with up to 20 banana fruit to a tier.
Shortly after our banana harvesting
adventure, we’ve since noticed that 3 new banana shoots are already sprouting
from our old banana plant that was recently cut down to the ground.
Here on the home front, Kevin and I take
advantage of cool January temperatures to take a stroll either in the Herbal
Garden grounds or within the neighbourhood.
The soft breeze almost engulfs us with whiffs of snowy-white perfumed flowers
that guard the Iron Gate. Our humble
neighbour, on one fine day, aware of the heavy scented gust that too gushes his
household, demonstrates the process of what the white flower seed can do. The benefits. White flowers, some already in seed
clustered on stems, our humble neighbour
seems to perform a crushing magical motion for us to see;
his hands pressed together with a plant seed between his hands, he shows us how
seeds can easily soften into a powdery form. Proud of the outcome, with a heavy throaty chuckle, he
announces how this fresh powder is unique to Myanmar and how readily available
it is for anyone to use and how good it is for a woman’s skin. With this wealth of information, I offer him
to pop by our little courtyard to harvest them at any time he so wish to share
with his wife and eldest daughter … J
Interestingly enough, one of our individual
speaking presentations at the parliament is to do with ‘fashion’ that defines who we are as a person. What compels us to be who we are and to do
the things that we do? Is it
environment, our upbringing, our culture, the language we speak, I ask? Questions for conversation are what we highlight
regularly in the classroom.
Talking about highlights, at dinnertime in
January, a black Mercedes drove in to our parking lot to request our passports
and updated visa. The 2 official
immigration officers and the dual role individual: driver and English
interpreter, stated, after scrutinizing our official documents 3 times over, that our papers
were in perfect order. Despite the fact, that the interpreter had assured us that
we no longer needed to show our papers at the NayPyiTaw immigration office the
next day, Cuso SuSu had already warned us of our immigrations visit, that it
was indeed necessary to go through the immigration official procedure through KoAung,
our go between person who ended it up looking after things for us. Naturally, this was another immigration
routine check –in to ensure that our papers were in order!
When it rains, it pours, or better yet,
there’s never a dull moment to be had!
That same evening, the right-hand hinge of the iron-gate rusted off its
hinge. However, nothing could be done
with it immediately, because we were leaving for the dentist in Yangon. As a result, the Iron Gate was left open at
the discretion of the humble neighbour who looked after things for us during our absence.
Elsewhere in NayPyiTaw, at the parliament,
the parliamentary leaders met with us Cuso volunteers, Geoffrey and I and other
International Business staff to welcome us to the New Year, to recapitulate
some of the good work that we were doing for the parliament and what were our
next steps?
The 3rd week of January brought us
another Cuso Volunteer. In courtesy of
Cuso SuSu , we dined at the Tai Restaurant just outside the SweKyaBae township to
welcome the new volunteer François. Naturally, at the parliament on Monday morning, I was disappointed to move out of
the parliamentary Research ~ HR office to join Geoffrey and François in the old JCC room sandwiched between the
Research and International parliamentary offices. Rationale: Parliamentary officials felt it best that we
Cuso volunteers share a room separate to parliamentary staff.
Yes,
we thought long and hard about our wish for all you to ring in the New Year in. Together
with good health and happiness, we've added an extra hope for 2018, another
wish for you to experience, something extra. We wish you wonderful friendships, a skill that captures your
imagination, a job that offers fulfilment, and, of course, new things in your
life that will make your heart sing like the 2 birds who sing to us every
morning at the wake of dawn, preparing a bird’s nest on one of our mango trees.
On this happy, joyful note, wishing
you fun reading and lots of laughter for February 2018….:)
No comments:
Post a Comment