Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
them, on the banks of the river, children waved next to their
hunched-over mothers, who were washing clothes in the shallows.
Walter leaned toward the boatman to give directions in Burmese:
“Take the detour through the market.” Unbeknownst to Walter and
the others, Black Spot actually spoke a fair amount of English, but
he always found it to his advantage to pretend he knew none and to
eavesdrop on conversations. Never show a weapon before you need
to use it. His father had taught him that. Bitter words to recall, for
his father had had no weapons when he needed them. Neither had
Walter’s....
B LACK S POT HAD GROWN UP a sharp and curious child, and he
learned his English by absorbing it from the tourists who said and
did the same things every day. The same questions and requests, dis­
appointments and complaints, photos and bargains, appetites and
illnesses, thank-yous and good-byes. They spoke only to the guide.
No one ever expected a child to understand.
He had grown up among tourists. Unlike the Karen tribes who
stayed in the hills, his family was Pwo Karen; he had spent his early
life on the plains. His family lived in a town about seventy miles from
Nyaung Shwe, and they were comfortably situated although not
well-to-do. His father and uncles did not farm, as most Karen people
did. They were in the transportation business: the transportation of
tourists in longboats and the repair of tourist buses. Their women
sold shawls and shoulder bags woven with their special knot. They
found it easier to take their chances with the whims of tourists rather
than those of monsoons.
Life was good until the purges came. After that, there was nothing
to do except flee into the jungle, high up, where it was so thick only
wild things grew. When the purges stopped, Black Spot and his
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