Pixelpost

I am waiting for...

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:46 +0000

I arrived here only a few hours ago.
I think it is a safe place.
I should relax, but I can’t.

My grandchildren, my son and his wife will follow me, they said.
They should be here by now.
But I have not seen any of them yet.
Where are they?
Something is wrong with them?

I have started to worry for them.
My grandchildren are always jumping, touching, talking…
They are curious about all the things they see along the way.
How do their parents control them, to keep just walking on the road?
There are so many landmines around this place,
because here there is often combat between Burmese and Karen.

We live in a village that is hours away by walking from this place.
We are poor.
To eat meat every week, is impossible for us.
That’s why
We all enjoyed our dinner yesterday.
We had a chance to eat boar meat that my son caught in the jungle.
We ate.
We chatted.
We laughed.
Unfortunately, our happiness did not last the day.

We finished dinner about eight.
We went to bed one hour later.
But we were all awake soon after,
as we heard that Burmese soldiers were coming to our village.
I collected a few things I think useful,
and left home helped by two stronger villagers.

This is the boar meat.
I packed it last night and took it from home.
I would like to eat it with my family again, soon.

Maung Maung Tinn,October 2009

[Acrylic on canvas (30 in x 22 in).
The photo that inspired this portrait was taken by KWO]

It shatters my hopes for my child

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:23 +0000

There are no parents who do not love their children.
There are no children who do not love their parents.
I am sure of that
because I am a mother, I have children and I really love my children.
Even though I’m missing one of my legs,
my love for my children doesn’t change.
It is exactly the same as before.

Some years ago, I lost my leg.
I traded my leg for a cup of bamboo soup.

I am poor.
All of my children really like to have meat curry.
I wish I could cook meat curry for them regularly, even once a month.
….of course that’s impossible because my husband and I do not have
enough income.
So, instead, I prepare soup for them everyday. Soup is easy to swallow.
Bamboo shoot soup is one of the easiest curries in the rainy season.

The forest was green.
The soil was wet.
The bamboo shoot happily came up.
While my knife cut the bamboo shoot, something exploded near my right foot.

I was in shock.
Everything changed within a few seconds.
My life, my children’s futures, my hopes for them…
Everything… in just a few seconds.

My love for them doesn’t change,
but others feelings are not the same anymore.
I feel depressed.
I feel less confident.
The mother who has only one leg can do less for her children
than the mother who has both legs.

I never dreamed, I never imagined any weapons in my life.
But a weapon has marred my life.
A weapon destroys my hopes.
A weapon shatters my children’s’ future.

How many people suffer because of weapons?

Rights on Show 2008

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:07 +0000

Thank you to Felicity Wardle I have been invited also this year to participate to Rights on Show exhibition in Darwin, Australia. I was very flattered to see that they have used one of my paintings shown last year to make this year poster

Helpless

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:43 +0000

The sky is not clear.
The clouds are running.
The surface of the water is shaking.
Will there be rain?

It should not rain in the delta anymore.
In our hearts, we have not yet accepted the rain.

A few days ago, rani came to our village with strong winds
and brought a lot of water.
People, houses, animals, fields disappeared under the water.
People’s crying, animal’s screaming were drowned by the water.

The village has gone.
Families are separated.
Many villagers are lost.

Where are they?
Are they floating in the water?
Have they been swept away out to the sea?
Often, I hear someone screaming for help… but I am not sure if it is real or not.

The storm has already left from the delta,
but so many bad things remain.

We are all starving.
We have no idea where to find food, how to find clean water.
There is much water surrounding us, but it is useless.
We can not drink it.
We can not cook with it.
We can not bath in it.
It has become a foul liquid.
After the storm, people and animals died in the water and the bodies are rotting.
The village is like a hell now.

Someone may come to us to give food or clothes or clean water.
But we are not sure who will come, when they will come, what they will bring.

Often I think that if I had died in the storm it was better than to be left alive.
I know this idea is wrong.
I know that I should not easily give up, but…

Where is a hand to help us?

I am worried for them

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:48 +0000

The rain stopped just a few minutes ago.
The sky is not yet clear.
It is still grey.
We can not hear any bird song either.
The forest is quiet.
I don’t like it so quiet, but it is better for us.
If we make a noise the Burmese army soldiers can guess where we are.

That I fear, I run and I hide from Burmese soldiers, not only now,
but ever since I was a child.
My childhood was full or running instead of fun.
I should not always think about that, but it comes to my mind often, as a nightmare.

I liked the rainy season.
Even though it made the floor of our bamboo house wet, we slept well.
The night in the rainy season was peaceful for us.
But in the dry season, winter or summer, we could not sleep well.
because it is easy to travel and the soldiers can come to our village much more.

Sometimes the village I lived in became the battlefield.
We villagers were caught between the two sides.
Many kinds of noise from different weapons were all around us.
I always remember how scared I was between the time of the mortar firing and the bomb hitting the ground.
At that moment I forgot to breath. I prayed the bomb would not land on my head.

I don’t want my children to be in this situation, as I was.
I am worried for them.

Can they resist?

We do not want to become adult

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:29 +0000

We love smiles.
We like to smile too.
But most of the people we see in the market are different from us.
They do not smile.
Often they shout at us instead of smiling.
We do not like people shouting at us.

We want to go to school, because we never see people shouting at the children who are going to school.
Our mother does not want us to go to school, at all.
She wants us to beg for money.

Often, we are tired of begging.
We can not play all the time.
Our clothes are not clean like those of other children.
We eat our food on the road.
We sleep on the large concrete table in the market.
And we have to get up before two in the morning, because most of the shop owners come and prepare their places at that time.
If we are slow to get up, they call the police to arrest us.

Most beggars are scared of the police.
They are scared of other gangs, too.
One time, our mother’s friends were taken away somewhere.
When they came back, she saw some bruises on her friends’ bodies.
They said some men from a gang shocked them with electricity.
These men did this only to the adults, not to the children.

Perhaps this story, that mother told us, is just a rumour.
But we talk about it often.
Sometimes, we dream about it too,
even though we don’t understand the reality.

We are afraid of this.
We do not want to become adults
because, if we do, people may hurt us too.

Paris Exhibition

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:25 +0000

For additional info on this exhibition, please visit: http://peniche.anako.com/Agenda.html

Dignity… lost?

Sun, 18 May 2008 05:05 +0000

Summer sun is hotter than before, especially for me.
I can not go around the city any more as I did when I was young.
Age and heat make me so easily tired.
Now I must sit and beg in a place where many people are passing by.
But I do not get as much money as before.
Sometimes, I get just enough to buy rice.
I try to be satistied with whatever I get.
I must happily eat any food that appears on my plate.
I must sleep well anywhere I can find to lie down.

I do not have a home.
I do not have any papers.
No one offers to help… ever.
“Beautiful Burma”…
… sometimes I hear that from the radio.
It sounds funny.

Burma is beautiful… but not for everybody.
It is beautiful only for a few.
The well connected can do anything, and become rich.
Most people are poor.
The young and the energetic and the educated find it difficult to live.
So… an old woman like me… what can I do?
How can I hope to survive?

When I was a child,
I never thought that my life would be spent begging.
Who want to become a beggar?
No one wants to be that…
I do not want to be, either.

I think…
a main reason I became a beggar
is that I was born in Burma, where cruel people govern. By MMT - March 2008

No!

Sun, 18 May 2008 05:04 +0000

War,
guns,
and children. By MMT - February 2008

The photo that inspired this portrait was taken by Karen Human Rights Group.

A new home in a new place, again

Sun, 18 May 2008 05:03 +0000

This place will be our new home.
Tall and large trees, green and beautiful hills,
birds singing and flying all around.
This place is so peaceful.

But I do not like this place.
The trees in this forest are not as green as the trees near our old house.
The birds’ song from this forest is not as sweet as the birds’ song near our old house.

My father said we have to stay here.
I want to ask him, but I do not ask…
“How long the house will be here for,
when the house will be destroyed
and when we will have to leave for another place, again?”.

Our old home was recently destroyed and is not yet gone from my mind.
The smell of ash and the heat from the fire are still with me. By MMT - January 2007