Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
hotel... put together a to-do list before they entered Burma. Sleep
beckoned. Mindlessness, senselessness. No worries, no worries, he
heard the repeating voice of Lulu with her hypnotic calmness....
“Mr. Bennie. Mr. Bennie?”
Lulu tapped his arm and Bennie’s eyes flew open. She was looking
at him brightly. “For your update, I have some F-Y-I to report. So far
I have not secure necessary arrangements into Myanmar. We have no
answer, not yet....”
Bennie’s heart began pounding like that of a mother who hears
her baby’s cry in the middle of the night.
“Of course, I am working very hard for getting it,” she added.
“I don’t understand,” Bennie stammered. “We already have visas
for Myanmar. Can’t we just go in?”
“Visa is for coming in five days later. How you got this, I don’t
know. It is very unusual, to my knowledge. Also, this way into
Myanmar is not so easy, with visa or not with visa. You are Ameri­
cans. Usually Americans fly airplanes, go first to Yangon or Man­
dalay. Here at Ruili border, only Chinese and Burmese come in and
out, no third-country national peoples.”
Bennie began to sputter. “I still don’t understand.”
“No Americans enter overland, not in very long time. Maybe is
not convenient for Myanmar customs to making the border pass to
English-speaking tourists. The paperwork is already very difficult
because so many peoples in China and Myanmar speaking different
dialects....”
Bennie had a hard time following this line of thought. What did
different dialects have to do with their getting a border pass?
“...That why I am thinking this is very unusual, you coming in
this way.”
“Then why are we trying?”
“I thinking Miss Bibi want start entry here on China side, drive
106