First of all, Thinyan. Burmese new year and all out waterfestival. Which means that usually you'll be drenched from the moment you set a foot outside till the moment you get back home. But not this time. Sandra decided to stay at home most of the time. She thinks Xenne isn't old enough to be wet all the time. Besides, the water isn't always very clean. Or they throw ice-water. KK went one day with friends. 14 guys in the back of a jeep of sorts. Luckily all those guys have an asian figure otherwise they wouldn't all fit in the back of that car... I was invited but decided not to go. I don't speak burmese very well so i didn't have anyone to talk to apart from Kyaw Kyaw. So i stayed with Sandra & Xenne. We could still hear all the music (there was a big stage with Iron Cross, Burma's most famous band, on the corner of Inya Lake) and it was fun watching the little kinds of the next apartment building trowing water. Mostly at each other though since there weren't that many cars that passed.
It also turned out that many places were closed for all the Thinyan days. Luckily KK's brother had warned KK and Sandra about the city mart being closed. This is the place where they buy Xenne's baby formula and there aren't many other places where you can get that. So they stored 2 boxes just in case. Sandra thought it was not possible that a supermarket/shopping mall would be closed for 7 days just because of a yearly festival but it was. So we were all very very glad we'd stocked up on baby food and diapers......
The 16th, Xenne was 100 days old so there was a birthday party. Arranged mostly by Xenne's grandparents. KK's grandfather had cooked (he is a most excellent cook, probably one of the best i know here in Burma). We were expected at the teashop at 7.30, a time we didn't make of course. We were half an hour late (it is half an hour by taxi from the apartment to the teashop so it isn't exactly next door either). The upper floor of the house had been decorated with balloons and such. And there were mats on the ground on which 3 low, round tables where placed around which the guests positioned themselves. They got a sort of pancake with chicken and could take as much potato curry and bean soup as they wanted (every table had bowls of that on the table). Topped of with a cold orange drink or tea, whatever they liked.
There were quite a number of guests throughout the morning. Many didn't stay very long of which Sandra was quite glad since she couldn't talk with them. And they just kept looking at her which made her uncomfortable after a while.
Xenne got a lot of presents. Some very useful, some a lot less. We now have 5 cans of talcum powder. One expecially for babies, and the others for teenagers/adults (the text isn't in Burmese and many people can't read the english texts). People here use that stuff a lot for baby bottoms but Sandra tells me that she has enough baby cream to last her a while so they haven't figured out yet what to do with all that powder.
They also got a pair of squeeky shoes for when Xenne can walk. Sandra told me she vowed Xenne would never wear those kind of shoes (she was once on a boat for 2 days where one of the children had shoes like this. She, and the 2 people she traveled with, were ready to kill that child after those 2 days....). But it is a present so she can't really throw them away. Thankfully it is of a cheap chinese quality so she's betting that the shoes will be broken after a couple of days use.....
Photo's of the birthday party will be put here as soon as i can get them loaded again...
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