Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
To my friends, it sounded like rap music.
Bootie broke in, and her prayer was in a liturgical English of sorts:
“Dear Heavy Fazzer, Great God and Bo-Cheesus, we pray Dine Lord
of Nats safe us fum gheen dess. Not let us die in bud and bosom of
life like our fazzer and muzzer before us, our bruzzers and sissers be­
fore us, our aunties and unkies before us, our cuzzins and fends
before us. Potect us so we not falling into hands of enenies or new
Nats dat die gheen dess. When our fends and enenies be dead, keep
dem in Dine grafess. Keep us safe.”
The two children closed their eyes and appeared to drift off to
sleep while standing.
“What the hell was that about?” Dwight whispered to Roxanne.
“It almost sounded like English. Did you understand any of it?” Rox­
anne shook her head, then added, “Nothing beyond Great God and
Cheez Whiz.”
The residents of No Name Place then passed around a wooden
plate with seeds, first to the twins, then to the rest, and each partook
of one seed, downing it like a communion wafer. My friends politely
ate one each as well.
When the ritual was done, the twins’ grandmother approached
Rupert with a long sacklike tunic made of a royal-blue cloth woven
with a zigzag pattern. She bowed and mumbled to him in Karen to
accept this humble gift symbolizing his faithfulness in returning. The
girls nearby giggled with hands cupped over their mouths. “You
teks,” she told Rupert.
Rupert held up empty hands and shrugged. “I don’t have any
money,” he said. He was not about to bargain for a dress. When the
grandmother insisted once again that he take the gift, Rupert pulled
his pockets inside out. “See? No money. I swear.” He had only the
deck of cards he had been given on the flight to China. He held them
up as proof that he had nothing valuable.
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