A fun story...

Time has really kinda flown by. I'm getting into something of a routine here. I spent last week and this one in the pediatric inpatient department. Like most of pediatrics, most kids fall into one of a few categories. The categories are different here though: malaria, measles, malnutrition, thalassemia, worms, and the usual respiratory track infections. There are outliers though and, as always, picking those out of the rest is a challenge (for me anyway).

One kid, about 2 years old, was staring at me this morning, wide-eyed and somewhat afraid. I suggested to the medic that it might be because I am white. She said maybe. She then told me about when she saw a white person for the first time, when she was five.

Her grandfather was part of a Karen force that fought with the Americans in WWII. He made some American friends, and one came to visit their home in the jungle, a journey that must have been quite a trip (although the American had probably had too much experience in the Burma junble already). He walked in and she was amazed -- she'd never seen anyone white and never anyone so big. She asked her older sister (or maybe a cousin?) who or what he was, and she replied that he was a giant that ate people. The poor little girl was then terrified that he would eat her grandfather and maybe her. She cried the whole time he was there. Later she explained what she was thinking and they all had a laugh. I often forget that most of the people I work with are around five feet tall.

I also talked to someone who had been in the Karen National Liberation Army. Most of the stories were about the lack of food. Apparently they eat lots of plain rice with chiles, and early in the meal all the chiles have been picked out. I'm trying to understand the conflict in Burma, and have a long way to go. It does seem like one reason it has been such a long-standing conflict is because many of the forces involved are struggling just to get through the day, much less fight. Combine that with the impossible geography and lack of roads, and you start to see why it has been such a long, smoldering fight.