When I was in Burma, officially called Republic of the Union of Myanmar, I visited a temple located on the mouth of an extinct volcano called Mount Popa. Around five in the evening, I began hitchhiking just outside the village to go back to the ancient city of Bagan (50 km away). At the end of a tiring day full of surprises, I wanted to arrive at my hotel and enjoy it as soon as possible. Who would have guessed that minutes later, something will be deeply etched in my mind?!
After half an hour of hitchhiking, finally a pickup truck stopped. There were three monks on the front,
including the driver. On the back of the truck, there were Burmese villagers who had traditional “thanaka” make up on their faces. I jumped in the back of the truck and sat together with the villagers. There were six women, a man and a little girl. They were most likely returning from a day’s work of harvesting on the fields.
These villagers welcomed me with warm smiles and I did the same. After I found my spot to sit, the truck started moving. Everything, from a hitchhikers point of view, seemed normal for now.
Since we didn’t have any common language to communicate, we kept smiling at each other. You can say that it was “awkward”, as Brits like to call it. To break the ice, I started to use body language. First, I pointed to myself with my index finger and said my name slowly, then pointing to them, they understood instantly that I wanted to learn their names. They began to say their names in order, I only remember now the little girl’s name, Hayma.
Ten minutes passed, we now know our names but it still felt awkward. My second attempt to communicate is to take a selfie and record a video with everybody but the old women sitting beside me became shy so I stopped what I was doing and put my camera away. At that same moment, the man sitting across me asked for a cigarette by a hand gesture of smoking. I didn’t have a normal one with me at that time, only a rolling tobacco which I bought two packages of when I was in Thailand a week ago. I showed him that, and asked “Is this okay?”, he nodded his head so I rolled him one, he didn’t have a lighter so I offered mine to light his cigarette. When I was to light his cigarette with the lighter, he caught my hand and started staring at it. Seconds passed, he went further and started moving his fingers on my arm. I felt his callous hands caused by working in field. He turned my arm and showed it to the others while nodding his head, I understood that he was showing to the others my skin color, he said “good”, and everybody nodded in agreement. I was astounded so I turned my face to see the others reactions. One of the young women was bouncing her head with a smile on her face to imply that they admire the color of my skin. I felt embarrassed, does skin color matter? It seems that it does for them! When the man finally released my hand, I didn’t even know where to put it.
About 20 minutes into the journey, I was still in shock, “Your white skin is beautiful” is playing over and over my head and I cannot believe what just happened, but it doesn’t stop there.
I was leaning against the hatch, watching the view fade behind us, cursing the Brits who colonized thee lands and put them in classes. At that moment, paper money started scattering on the road. I was also confused so I turned my head to the front and saw that it was the monks who were throwing out the money on the road. I turned my head again to the back and saw women and kids and some old and disabled people trying to catch money in the air.
At first, I felt fear by the image now before my eyes, then I just didn’t know how the hell I should feel! My mind couldn’t decide what to feel, I was petrified! Then I saw a woman with a baby in her arms and a man with one leg trying to catch the money strenuously. Those damn money doesn’t even cost cents! I was devastated. It was like someone stabbed me with a knife and turned it while I was watching that horrific scene..
