This was the day Phwe going back to Melbourne. She said her flight was at 6pm in the evening so we had time the whole morning. We went to Granville again to visit Buddhist temples. We took Phwe again to guide us with the train ride. This time we got there quite alright, though we made mistake with the turning in the Granville station exit to meet our friends.
It was about 30 min drive to get to the first Buddhist temple. They had 4 days long meditation center and it was the last day finishing off. We prayed along with them (yaw gii) and I found it very strange that they prayed very different (Aww Gar Tha) from most of us and those people in Burma. They got extra verses and they cut off some parts. I had a hard time following their “Aww Gar Tha”.
Aw gar tha, aw gar tha…amm hmm
I couldn’t follow aussie “aw gar tha” :(
Another amusing as well as shocking thing I found out there was, this old lady of mid 50s saying in “Burglish”, commenting about the Buddha statue. She said “Fayar looks so slim” to a man beside. I was like “huh, the what!” Did she just compare the Buddha statue with those slimy stick models?? The usage just wasn’t right. If it was plain comment then why can’t she just say that all in Burmese or full English, “Fayar SinHtuTaw ka nal nal pane/tay ta lo pal” or “the statue seems abit thin” etc. But “Fayar looks so slim” no no just not right and so awful to hear (to my ears).
Oh so this is a house with garage turned into temple. Nice.
I looked at her and observed that she looked quite educated, decent looking lady with a bit of knowledge on religious values after all she came to the temple. I was thinking to myself, what ever happen to respects and proper way of addressing with those people. Well you might argue that people forget things when they stay long overseas but I was sure she didn’t rise up all her life in Australia. I’m not saying if someone my ages saying like that, but she was old lady for god sake! You should hear the way she said, it was like some small kids asking nonsense to adults for answers kind of thing. My understanding was we don’t normally comment about such things and only say general comment to the statue carver on his design, so it was so strange for me to hear that comment.
We had “FoneGyiKyung” lunch there and was really nice to taste some Burmese cooking. After that we left for another temple close by. Our friend warned about “SayarDaw” (the monk) short term memory lost and we need to speak up while we talk to him. We met two monks in that temple who were quite friendly and asked us some questions. As our friend warned, the SayarDaw really have short term memory lost and we had to keep repeating things to him. We donated some “a hlau ngwe” to both “SayarDaw” and pray there. I noticed the main SayarDaw had very distinguished way of saying prayers, somewhat similar to Indian humming style, where else the second SayarDaw prays as the way we used to hear back in Burma. Later I found out that the main SayarDaw studied and got his degree from India. Hmm no wonder he talked different! :) We were so glad that we could donate in both temple and said good prayers.
I remembered about Konyi’s request and did said “A mhya, a mhya” and said “Thar Du” three times for him. :P
The Missed
We left my mom with her friends and went back town to prepare for Phwe departure. When we got to the apartment, Phwe did some packing and checked her flight time. Then she noticed the problem with her flight schedule and realized that she misread the time. It was in military time stating 0600 hr which is to be that morning 6:00am but she was thinking 6:00pm in the evening. When we realized Phwe missed the flight, both of us got shocked and called MaJain for help. When Jain arrived, we contact to the flight center and they confirmed the miss and nothing we could do about it. I was so sad to see Phwe’s small red face and she lost her voice there.
As usual, sisterly & our heroine MaJain came to rescue with great idea. We called Phwe’s sis, Ma Nilar, informing the missing flight and got a bit of scolding from her. The an idea hit to our great minds, not to tell the truth to Phwe’s parents and let them know that we want Phwe to stay for a night more and let her go back the next day. We called Ma Nilar again to tell the plan and begged her from telling back to the parents.
The Trick
With great anxiousness, we planned what we were going to say and made a call to PNG. Phwe talked with her Dad for a while about hello, hi stuffs then let MaJain talk with her mother. MaJain was a very polite, smooth talker and did amazing job persuading the parents. We didn’t mention about the problem at all. We said thank and how wonderful of them to let Phwe come down to Sydney, how we all had so much fun and how we like her to stay for one more night.
Well, I know we were bad bad girls but that was the only option we’ve left with. Lucky enough Phwe’s parents didn’t ask about how she going to go back and let her stay for one more day. It was so much relieving after we hung up, then only we all can laugh and said how silly we were with sheepish smiles. Finally I made a call to my mom and let her know the situation. She was blaming me for my ignorance of not reminding Phwe to check the time. Well…what done was done and nothing we could do about it but we all got something to remember and ofcos’ for me, another piece for my journal. :p
We bought bus ticket for Phwe and went out for dinner. We were so lucky when Ma Christ called to meet us at Darling harbor. She also was one of our friends from PNG and we were so lucky to meet her there. We also met her brother and took some photos together. While we were talking, MaJain brother and his friend came along and we chatted there for hours then we came back for the night.
That was a hard day after all. Zz..zzZ.ZzZZZZ.
Our PNG Friends.
(L-R: Phwe, Ma Christine, KoEvoo – Ma Jain, May)
The Goodbye
The next day we do some roaming around in town as usual and went to sing again as Phwe very much like to do so. At 7:00pm we say goodbye to Phwe and she left for Melbourne.
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