Pawkuhmooeydee Visits the City
Most Karen people are quite shy, and many of them have never seen a big city before. Pawkuhmooeydee visited the city with Roy and her teacher on their way to a speech competition quite a while ago, but it took her a long time to get up the courage to tell me all about it. This is my attempt to tell it to you, just as she told it to me.“ I was nervous about this trip, but really excited. We had to get up at 1 in the morning in order to drive to the place where the speech competition was to be held. I had never been away from the border area in my whole life before, and this seemed almost as scary as it was exciting.I did not do as good at the competition as I should have, probably because I was so nervous. But, it was nothing compared to what was to come. On the way home, we stopped at a Tesko Lotus store, (the WalMart of Asia) My teacher wanted to do a bit of shopping, and Dad decided to take me in to show me around. The store was HUGE. I was scared as soon as we entered the door. If I lost sight of Dad, how would I ever find my way out of here? He was walking rapidly down a long, wide hallway, with lots of things to buy on either side. Part way down the hall, he stopped and asked me if I needed to go to the bathroom. I said yes, so he turned down another hall. I was nervous, so I kept my eyes cast downward, and followed Dad as close as I could. He turned the corner to enter the bathroom with me right behind. Suddenly he stopped and said, “uh…Pawkuhmooeydee, the girls bathroom is over there!” Oh dear, I was even more shy than before, so I quickly headed on over to the door that he pointed at, with my eyes still watching the floor. When I realized that I was well inside the bathroom, I looked up…and there…right in front of my face….was Pawkuhmooeydee! EeeEEEEEEEE, I yelled! Everyone in the bathroom stopped to look at me, and I felt so embarrassed when I realized that it was just the biggest mirror I had ever seen in my life. I quickly looked for an open toilet, and rushed that way, and then tried to shut the door behind me. It was a different kind of latch than I had ever seen, so it took me a while to get it all worked out, but finally I finished that task and turned to face the toilet. OH NO! I thought, what in the world is that???? I had never seen a toilet even remotely similar in my whole life. How in the world was I supposed to use that thing? After studying it for a while, I gingerly climbed up on top of it, and squatted there wondering why they make it so far off the ground? After finishing what I came to do, I began to look around for water to flush the toilet. Where was the water? There should be a nice bucket of water sitting right beside the toilet, but there was none. But, I was beginning to feel rather smart, since I had figure out how to use the toilet so fast, so I looked around and found a bunch of shiny metal things behind the toilet. Maybe these city people have a button to push to get water. So, I started poking at the metal parts, until I poked something and water gushed into the toilet! Oh…so much water…now I was scared! How do you turn off the water? Everyone knows that you only need a dipper full of water to flush a toilet, but there was lots of water flowing into this toilet. I was afraid that it would get full and flow over the top. So, I began to frantically poke that button that sent the water over and over…it just got worse. What was I to do??? The water was rising rapidly in the toilet, and I was afraid that it would flood the whole huge store, and I would have to admit that I did it. I wanted to cry, but was afraid that someone would hear me, so I stood back and tried to figure out what to do next. Quite unexpectedly, the water quit all by itself, and I was SO thankful! I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and turned to go and find Dad.Then, another thought came into my mind. What if I can’t find Dad? I ran to the door and frantically looked down the hall. Dad was nowhere in sight. Oh, what if he left me? I had no idea of where to go, but I thought that maybe if I walked down to the end of the hall, maybe I would see him. So, I started down that way, trying hard to keep from crying…I was afraid that if I cried, I would not be able to see Dad. Thankfully, Dad was there, and then he took me into the biggest store I have ever seen before. There were heaps of really nice things to buy, but he walked so fast that I could not look very well, and I could not find anyone to buy anything from. Where were the people who sold all the nice things on the shelves? It seemed to me that they should be standing there, watching to see that nobody stole their things. But, I looked and looked and never saw anyone selling anything. Long before I was ready, Dad said that it was time to go.My trip made me think about heaven. The bible says that there will be things there that are too nice for me to even imagine, and I will not have to be afraid there. I want to go see heaven really soon, and I want to see Jesus. I am telling all my friends at school about Jesus so that they can go with me.