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us, points to the little boy pee-er and waves his hand. “Here, you can take this one. To Canada. And school, far away.”
    San San laughs, bends down, kisses the boy’s red cheek, to make sure he knows it’s a joke, but he has picked up on his older brother’s distrust and pouts at me.
    Min Ley sits down and announces, “Twenty kyat. You can have him for twenty kyat.” He is the only one who laughs. San San smiles politely, but she doesn’t think it’s funny, either.
    I only know how to say “I don’t want to” or “I don’t allow it,” which I hope will work in this context:
“Ma ya boo.”
And I say, “He likes it here. With mother.”
    San San sits beside the bigger boy with her own plate of food, now that the guest and her children and husband have been served. Her body, warm and right there, is enough to settle her sons and let them return, reassured, to their food.
    We eat without talking. San San is the only one without a sizablechunk of meat. Now that the boys know they’re not going to be sold, they eat steadily with their hands, no utensils. My first day in Rangoon, I had the wonderful shock of seeing people eat without utensils everywhere—in the biryani shops, on the pagoda steps, under a tree in Mahabandoola Park. San Aung, my guide-of-all-things in the capital, explained that it makes the food taste better, and he gave me a brief lesson on how to avoid messing the fingers past the first knuckle.
    I’ve been practicing my technique to prepare myself for times like this, when it is awkward to ask for a spoon. I’ve learned how to roll a dollop of rice and neatly squeeze or scoop up a mouthful of curry to accompany it. I still make a bigger mess than any of these children, with the possible exception of the three-year-old, but no one comments on my sloppiness.
    In between rice and curry, the children slurp soup from the communal bowl in the middle of the table. The soup, a broth with root vegetables of some kind, is barely warm, almost as clear as water, and absolutely delicious. The curry is also good, though less oily than I am used to. They are not rich enough to use a lot of oil.
    People in Rangoon talk often about how difficult it is to earn the money for basic necessities, to get the extra job to pay for extra costs, such as a parent’s operation or the expensive journey to visit a relative in prison. I wonder how often the horse-cart driver and his wife and children eat meat. If a Burmese doctor makes sixty dollars (U.S.) a month and still has to take on other jobs to survive, especially if he has a family to provide for, how much does a cart driver make?
    Oh, if only I could have a real conversation.
    I can draw. After we finish lunch, I get out my notebook and draw pictures for the girls. A horse. A cat. A pig. These sketches give them a delight that is out of proportion to my meager artistic skills. When I hand the masterpieces over, the sisters squeal with pleasure and start arguing over the pages. Then a baby in the small house behind us starts to cry. San San goes inside to get their fifth child.
    Min Ley shakes his head and says, “So many children.” He raises hishands into the air and waggles his finger. “Difficult. We don’t have money.”
    When he starts to smoke, I pop the question of the day, rudely, without thinking. “Do you know condoms?”
    “Condo?”
    “I don’t know how to say it in Burmese.” I’ve heard of a foreign NGO that uses a boat—the love boat—to distribute condoms up and down the Irrawaddy River. Hasn’t the boat come to Pagan?
    “Condo,” repeats Min Ley. “I don’t know this.”
    “Condom.” What next? I gesture to the left with both hands open, as if to point to exhibit A, “Condom.” And then, swinging both hands to the right, I announce the result of using the condom in Burmese:
“Kalay-reh muh shee boo.”
You don’t have children. I don’t know how to say “use.”
    Then I remember the Lonely Planet phrase book in my