Burma

During our visit to the Golden Triangle an opportunity came up to take a day trip across the border from Thialand into Myanmar, to visit a town called Tachileik.We were taken to a pagoda and conducted a ceremony: ‘Burmese Buddist find it very important to know which day of the week you were born, this determines your planetary post, of which there are eight, Wednesday is split in two (am and pm)Each planetary post has a Buddha image and devotees offer flowers and prayer flags and pour water on the image with a prayer and a wish. An animal represents that particular day.’ We also released two birds each and the last step was to strike the gong three times and make your prayer/wish. Given the sickening unimaginable stories coming from the western border, there is only one thing to pray for in this country: A home with food and love for tens of thousands of children who are misplaced, malnourished, and many of them are orphans. (The aid group Save the Children projects the birth of forty-eight thousand babies in Bangladesh’s crowded camps in 2018.) I point blank asked people about this and there was zero acknowledgment.