A breeze welcomes the day. It’s cool and comfortable on my way to the market. The sun hides behind the clouds!
A woman, with a basket of fresh colourful produce on her head, walks toward me with a ‘Mingalaba’ twinkle in her eye. Her straight-erect-slim-figure tells me that she is strong and healthy.
Side roads are muddy fresh from the night and morning’s rain. Stones that were carefully laid and paved on potted roads back in July, are now firmly embedded in the soil, balancing from stone to stone in some areas. The roads, resemble cobblestone streets in Europe’s medieval times where roads were evenly paved with stones for horse and cart and alike to use.
The market, an array of colours, smells deliciously fresh and transports me right back to Mondolkiri’s market in Cambodia.
Here at the market , Thanakha ladies in soft wispers, offer a word or two to entice me to their stalls. From an array of vibrant multi-coloured flowers, orchids in particular, are in abundance, to fresh green, yellow, red produce. From meat stalls pounded on to tenderize the meat, to peanuts and red beans and large bowls of bright rich spices, some dried and powdery grouped together on the ground, resemble the effects of the rainbow fresh from a summer’s afternoon rain.
Tucked at the end of all other stalls, clad in a colourful outfit: red and gold longyi with a dark-cemented-blue coloured scarf that drapes from head to shoulder to protect her from the sun, with a straw hat to hold her scarf in place, a young woman with her 2 year old Thanakha pony tail daughter sitting on her lap, beckons me with a wave to buy from her stall.
I leave the market with raw peanuts; fresh produce for salad and this evening’s omelette and, flowers for work and for our neighbour. The bundles of flowers are neatly wrapped 
in thick-large stony brown-green leaves, laced with thin bamboo material to secure them in place.
On my way out of the market lanes, rice sacks filled with dirt lie on market lanes and act as lopsided walkways between stalls. Despite the mud from rain and worn-out rice sacks -from wear and tear with footprints, some heavier than others, the trenches filled with rain water, the walkway, the market lanes between stalls, are immaculately clean.
On the outskirt of the market, motorcyclists, some with brooms on backs of motorbikes, roar around the market’s perimeter to alert the bustling crowd to buy a broom or two … In the process, they disturb a group of dogs mating.
On my arrival home, the neighbours greet me on the lane with rice cake and, I in turn hand them a bouquet of pink lilies. The husband intuitive of the rains coming sweeps his front garden from leaves and any debris from his already clean dirt-free front yard.
An hour later, as predicted, heavy rains, heavy storms roar through our little community and soon floods our lane, from home to home, mingling into one other. The husband, who’s name I don’t know, experience of the wet season is well prepared.
The day ends with chanting. The grandson, as mentioned in an earlier post: A typical day in Nay Pyi Taw, begins the day chanting before he heads off to school. The grand-father, the husband, the next-door neighbour ends the day chanting!
More will be added at a later date … 🙂 In the meantime, Wishing you fun reading and lots of laughter for September …
Myanmar Voices 