Tha-na-kha

A 3-year old girl wearing traditional tha-na-kha after her bath, Yangon
November 2009

And here's my grandmother's humongous stoneware for making tha-na-kha paste
(the thing spans a good foot in diameter and weighs a ton)
and her personalised bark of tha-na-kha - note the initials
especially ordered from Shwe Bo, a locality famous for its fragrant tha-na-kha

hours before i landed in singapore, i had a pimple outbreak
it was very off-putting to say the least
but i shouldn't have expected any less after 4 days of little sleep
and the thick moisturiser i'd brought (stupidly) was not doing my skin any favours
so i turned to thanakha

when we were kids, we were forced to wear it everyday to school
and in my hurry, for i was always in a hurry, i'd basically slap it on and rush off

this time round, i was slathering it on willingly
and somehow, it felt like i was rediscovering my roots
still..
သနပ္ခါးကုိ ဒီအရြယ္ႀကီးထိ ဘဲက်ားပဲ လိမ္းတတ္ေသးတယ္

needless to say, my whole extended family jumped on the wagon
ecstatic at my willingness to start wearing it now
and has bought me a year's supply of ready made tha-na-kha and tha-na-kha bark
someone even bought me a tiny piece of stoneware, just measuring about 4 inches in diameter

and yes, i brought all of that back to England

:D