One Night in Bilin
We spent the night at the village hall. The villagers were very warm and hospitable and they served us with whatever delicacies they can lay their hands on – duck eggs, pork, and roosters. Meat is considered a luxury and is only consumed during festive occasions. The ladies were smoking cigars wrapped in green and invited us to have a puff with them which we kindly declined. Alex did try to chew some betel nuts in order to establish a rapport with them. We informed the village chairmen of our plans in June and they are quite willing to accommodate us for a few days.
There
was nothing much to do at night except watching television and singing Burmese
karaoke in a small hut besides the communal hall where the entire village stayed
glue on a screen no more than 14 inches. A lady, upon hearing from others that
we are “medical people”, came to consult us with her child who was down with
high persistent fever for the past 40 hours. We thought it is malaria and
implored her to send the child to the Township hospital immediately. She seemed
reluctant to do so and simply shrugged and walked away. We later learnt that
anti-malarials commonly used in Myanmar like mefloquine and artesunate are
expensive and not affordable by the poor village folks. I cannot help wandering
how many children died a year in Bilin as a result of undiagnosed and untreated
malaria. Hopefully, we will be able to supply the medical center with some anti-malarials
which will last the community for a few years at least.
We
slept on the wooden planks of village hall. The Lieutenant’s soldiers were a
few meters away with their AK-47s and signal sets. There are bandits in the
hills and occasionally they will come and steal food from the villages. The
weather is cool and there are no obnoxious mosquitoes buzzing around. There is
something irresistibly charming about this place – the simplicity of the
villagers, the slow pace of life, the demure Burmese ladies with their coy
smiles and the feeling of being alone by yourself, being cut off from the rest
of the world.