Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
from the bark of the thanaka tree. As with Shanghainese people,
Burmese women prize pale skin. The paste supposedly affords sun-
blocking properties. But I tried it on past tours and can tell you that
the effect is quite drying. While it may shield the skin, it parches it to
the appearance of cracked adobe. I cannot say it was flattering to my
face. I looked like a dried-up clown doll.
Bennie had the CDs for Walter in a sack. Everything was falling
into place. He would hand over the bribe and they would get the
paperwork and be approved to enter. He hadn’t told Lulu, for fear
that what Walter was doing was on the side of illegality. Let her think
that they got in on their own good luck. This morning she had said
simply, “We must try. And if we are success, your Myanmar tour
guide, Mr. Maung Wa Sao, will meet you at the crossing place.”
At the Chinese border station, Lulu presented passports and doc­
uments to the uniformed police. Armed guards stood nearby. After
ten minutes of inspecting and stamping and huffing with authority,
the border police waved us on, and my friends waved back cheerfully,
but no one returned their smiles. After a half a kilometer, the bus
stopped in front of a large white gate.
“Soon you and I must say good-bye,” Lulu said. “In a few minutes,
your Burmese tour guide will meet you and take you over the border
into Muse.”
“I thought we already crossed,” Moff said.
“You have left China,” Lulu said. “But to leave one place is not the
same as entering another. You are in Burma, but you have not crossed
the official border. So you are in between.”
It suddenly struck me that what Lulu had said described exactly
how I felt. In between.
“Oh, great—we’re in limbo,” Rupert said.
Lulu nodded. “Yes, limbo. You do not yet know which way is com­
ing, which is going. In China we are very use to this situation.”
I wondered how long I would be in my own limbo. The Buddhists
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