We found some rabbits and rats for sale in the Burmese market...that's not a dish we're quite ready to eat...
The Moei (or Thaungyin) River separates Thailand from Myanmar
Dave picked us up at 9am today so that we could go do a scavenger hunt at a Burmese market. He gave us a list of 10 tasks to accomplish at the market such as finding 5 different fish, buying a rose, finding the face powder that Burmese wear and finding out what it is made out of, and smelling shrimp paste! We walked up and down the market looking at things...and what a bunch of things we found! At the surface, it can seem like all markets are the same, but when you look closer you will notice themes. Some markets have more fresh fish, some have more fresh fruits and veggies, some have more cooked meat, some have more toys and trinkets, some have more clothes, and sometimes we find that markets will have a variety of these things, although often clumped together. This market had a lot of fish, few clothes, lots of small supplies like face powders and creams, and live animals...such as turtles, eels, fish, rabbits, and rats...all for food!
After we spent a couple hours at the market looking for things our final task was to find Lucky Tea House WITHOUT using Google Maps (only by asking people) and order lunch! It is a Burmese restaurant so we enjoyed some of their classic chickpea, egg, and naan breakfast (VERY yummy!) and some different roti dishes. Roti entered Thailand through India and has been customized by the Thai people through deep frying, adding bananas and eggs, sweet and condensed milk, and chocolate. We also had smoothies.
At both the market and at the store we experienced something we hadn't yet: proactive begging. We had people come up to us in both the market and while we were eating asking for money. We have certainly seen people on the street begging before, but never had we experienced people coming up and asking for money. And unlike back home, it was persistent, meaning they continued to stand there until they received what they deemed as enough. It was uncomfortable, but also OK to experience...we are still processing that to be frank. As an example, at the restaurant a young boy--maybe 10ish--came and stood at our table and gestured that he wanted food. We had eaten everything at our table so had nothing to give him other than the strawberries we bought during our scavenger hunt. We passed them to him and he continued to stand there, so not knowing what else to do, we passed him some money, at which point he took it then walked to another table that had leftover food on it and started to eat.
We caught a Grab back to the hotel for a small bit of pool time but that was all we had as we were getting picked up by Louise at 3:15 to go meet some of the young Burmese youth and go to one of the small churches started in a storage locker turned church.
After Louise picked us up we went to pickup 4 boys: Jayzin (who got baptized), Simon (Pastor Stephen's son), Clement, and Shalom (Pastor Michael's son). We all drove to Gate 13, where the church/storage locker was, and once there met Pastor Maung Maung and his wife Nu Nu. Sidenote: in Burmese, Saya is the word for a male pastor/teacher, and Sayama is the word for a female pastor/teacher. We started by having conversations with the boys and Saya Maung Maung so they could work on their English, then went for a walk to a market right on the border of Thailand and Myanmar.
That was a bit of surreal experience. Just across the river there was another country being torn apart by civil war, bombings, mass shootings, intense exploitation of people (in all ways imaginable and not). We were standing on the Thai side--relatively safe--and the boys told us that there were most-likely military people hiding in the bushes and surrounding areas ready to shoot anyone who tried to cross the river and escape to Thailand. The military in Myanmar would rather kill their own people than let them escape and not be part of their coup d'état. We didn't stay long as the boys said they didn't feel safe there, so we moved back to the storage locker to play some games, eat dinner, talk some more, and hear more about the ministry there.
We really enjoyed the day, and the highlight was hanging out with those 4 youth. They are all ages 15-17 and just so much fun! They love worship, Jesus, trust God and are obedient, and were easy to talk to (and had a lot of fun playing with James!) Hopefully we were as encouraging to them as they were to us!
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