Sally and I paid our taxi driver and got out onto the dirt road. We stood in a T-shaped intersection, debating which way to turn. We had chosen this area of New Bagan, Myanmar to work on a bunch of scavenges involving meeting people and engaging them in conversation.
We spent nearly one hour talking with an artist in his stall. He copies designs from ancient temple paintings, among other designs. He paints on fabric after first preparing it with glue and sand. During our conversation examining his work and choosing an item for Sally to buy, he stayed seated on the ground. He used his arms to propel himself around the small workshop. His legs remained folded in front of him, shriveled from polio. (That was rattling -- that polio still afflicts). He spoke openly of his disability and how it limits his life. He is married with a young son and daughter. He works to give his children more than he had. He was most appreciative of our taking the time to hear his story, to look at his art and to buy from him.
Next, we searched for someone to demonstrate how the local game "cane ball" is played. We walked a few stops further to stop into a little snack bar for Coca Colas as a prop to ask for help. It's only been a few years that Myanmar has been open to the world enough to even be selling Coca Cola. Turns out that the owner of the snack bar is the sixth ranked player in the country. He hauled over a big sack of balls and demonstrated. He probably could have gone on for hours, tapping the ball on his knee, elbow, ankle, keeping it in the air, dribbling it without having it touch the ground.
I dropped it on my first attempt. I'll never be a cane ball champion.
I dropped it on my first attempt. I'll never be a cane ball champion.