Shananigans

Lately I have been digging into older journals, newsletters, and letters written from my days spent in Myanmar as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The moments caught on the pages bring me back to how it felt to stand on the dirt roads under the harsh sun or the warmth of strangers hands on my arms. This note is from a newsletter written in February 2018.

#2: There is a little old woman who loves me. Her name is Daw Ma Din and I have no real understanding of where she comes from but when I am with my sponsor family, she will just show up and start yelling her name to make sure I remember it. I find her hilarious because she is always making these gestures with her hands like the sun is setting. Just pivoting her arm about and it never makes any sense to me but I just smile and laugh a long. Just this evening, I was going on a walk and there comes Daw Ma Din down the road and she shuffles around her bag and gifts me two red bananas. I can’t make this stuff up. My host sister and I looked at each other with the face of “oh Daw Ma Din, back at it with the bananas.” She gestured her arm in some sort of way and then off I went on my walk.