Broken mom and India revisited

Broken mom.

Just hours before we left on the flight to burma we heard that mom f broke her wrist.  I have not had the opportunity to call and really hope the best for her.  Over these past two years I think she has matched 1970s Evil Kenevil bone for bone.  Health problems like that do come in threes.

India Revisited

Jen and I (and jerald a buddy from work) have talked at some length about seeing where the people change.  When you look at a world map you see china, india, russia, iran, europe, finland, africa etc...  What we have really wondered about is areas where the people start to look different as you drift from one area to the next.  Where do the native black folks start looking more like native arab folks and east indians and where do the indians start looking like the native south east asians?

Well Burma is where east indian folks start looking more asian and vice versa.  The native folks here clearly seem to embody the transition from east indian to south east asian in form, feature and festivity.

This assertion may seem to border on racial profiling, and I have thought a little about this in preparing this post.  I have to say that looking at the difference in how generations of native folks have responded to the environment in which they live is more of an ethnographic assertion than a raacial profile.  Asians look different than indians and burma is between the two.

Burma does lean more toward india culturally than it does Thailand.  Most of the gents could as easily fit into a new deli street scene as they do in their native mandalay. The colorfully dressed facial sun cream wearing ladies do nod more to the east in feature than do the gents, but it is difficult to notice under the various items they carry on their heads ala india.  The burmese train system is straight out of india (both owing that to the brittish) and in general the cusine I have seen is more indian than south east asian.

People here still use ox carts as rural transport and farming is done mostly in small plots all by hand.  Many kinds of plants are cultivated.  Sweat peas, sunflowers, dill, melons, corn, and rice are the ones I recognized there were many I did not.  Folks are planting right in the dry riverbed and I wonder how that all turns out year over year.  The climate here is enough like phoenix to make a fella homesick (for my air conditioner) but I have yet to see a swamp cooler so perhaps we are just in a dry spell.

It seems as if we are getting a glimpse of what it was like in the late 1800s early 1900s in America.  River boat pilots have stick men that call out water depths ala mark twain.  Travel takes forever and horse cart is still an option for getting from point a to b but gas power is faster.  Electric light is available most of the time and certainly only cuts out once in a while at the better places.

Folks here are all wee weed up about our president's visit.  He is often compared to Franklin D but here he is considered to be more like FDRs trailblazing cousin Teddy.  They say that prices have doubled here since president Obama came because there are so many more tourists coming.  I have joked that in america the same is true only we don't have the extra tourists.  We are really avoiding all talk of politics here.  So far other than having to register a passport at the hotel every night,  things have been pretty much the same as everywhere else.