The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 75

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

75

double yourself up like a jack-knife. Imagine how
comfortable it is to ride in these carts when I tell
you that not a lick of work has ever been done on
most of these jungle roads. Perhaps you are just
recovering from a bad jolt which evoked a groan
of pain and have settled down again in peace, when,
bump! and the wheel runs over a boulder or a
stump, and you go through all the agonies again.
But there is one alleviating circumstance — a bless-
ing in disguise, it is true— oxen don’t travel as
fast as horses. I timed them. I got
out of the cart and walked ahead
at a comfortable pace for an hour
and then sat down and waited. It
was twenty minutes before the cart
reached me. Problem: How much
faster can a man walk than an ox?
On one stretch of my journey we
started out at five o’clock in the
afternoon and reached our destina-
tion at two the next morning, choos-
ing these hours to avoid the intense
heat of the sun. The journey was
sixteen miles, and it required nine
hours. Problem again: How many
miles an hour can an ox travel? At
that rate of speed the jolts were not
quite as bad as they might be, but
this blessing to the contrary notwith-
standing, I chose to walk most of
the time.

White men are seen in these vil-
lages only once or twice a year, if
that often, and so we are objects of
interest. We missionaries find our
way at once to the house of the prin-
cipal Christian of the village, where
immediately all work ceases. The
wife leaves the oil-press or the rice-
pounder, and the man leaves what
he is doing, if he happens to be doing
anything — which sometimes happens. The one
chair which the neighborhood possesses is brought
and given to me, of course. Then the members of
the family, young and old, of both sexes (those
under eight or nine years having on no clothing;
those over that age averaging about one and a half
garments each) gather about and sit on their heels,
gawking. Soon the neighboring families send full
delegations dressed (or undressed) in the same way,
and they, too, sit and gawk. Being my first trip
to this particular village, the host begins to question
me, and in the course of twenty minutes the as-

sembled throng have learned my age, my wife’s age,
that we have a baby, that she is a girl seven weeks
old and weighing twelve pounds, how many brothers
and sisters I have, that my parents are living and
how old they are, what my father does for a living
and what business my brother is in, whether my
sisters are married or not, and if not, why not;
if they are married, how many children they have
and the approximate ages of the children, — and
that is not all. I feel a tug at my trouser leg, and

A Group of Burmese Women.

looking down, I see a burly Burman feeling the
material of which it is made. Then he reaches up
and feels my sweater, for it gets cool in the evenings
at this time of the year, and he wants to know how
much it cost. All my answers are greeted with
childlike expressions of delight by my audience.
But they have not been the only questioners. I have
interspersed my answers with counter-questions and
for my part I have learned my host’s age, how many
children he has, the age of the youngest and the
oldest child, how many children are married (some
of this information thrown in gratis), how many