Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
The cameraman in turn let go with a stream of invectives. He in­
formed the others of what he had just witnessed. “Arrogant devils!”
Together with the soundman and the male singer, he ran off in the
direction of their holiest and now defiled shrine, shouting angrily.
Marlena and Esmé followed, baffled and scared.
Harry was surprised to hear the commotion advancing his way. He
peered about to see if the temple had caught fire. Were they about to
wash away in a flash flood? What were the men so excited about? He
walked toward the brouhaha. And then, to his astonishment, they
had him circled: three men spitting, lunging, their faces twisted in
rage. You didn’t have to know Chinese to realize they were swearing a
blue streak. Even the woman in the pink suit, while not as rabid as the
men, wore a hostile expression. “Shame you! Shame you!” she cried.
Harry ducked the swing of the boom and hurried to Marlena.
“What the devil did you and Esmé do?” The words fell out wrong, but
that is what happens when you feel you are about to be massacred.
“What the hell did you do?” Marlena spat back. “They keep yell­
ing something about urine. Did you pee on some shrine?”
He huffed. “Of course not. I used an outdoor urinal—” And just
as he said that, he realized the probable and awful truth. “Oh, shit.”
He watched as the woman in ancient costume whipped out a mobile
phone to tell the Bai minority chieftain what had just happened.
How utterly amazing, Harry marveled, they get mobile phone recep­
tion way out here in the middle of hell.
The remainder of that momentous afternoon was a frantic at­
tempt to herd the travelers into the bus so they could escape. Bai park
rangers found Wendy and Wyatt half disrobed in another grotto. Ru­
pert had to be rescued from a crumbling perch, and in the effort,
damage was done to sensitive plant areas and the feet of a carved
god. To keep dry, Dwight had kicked in the padlocked door of what
he took to be an abandoned shed, and he, Roxanne, and Heidi en­
tered and huddled inside. When park rangers discovered them in this
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