The Kachin
The Jingpo people or Kachin are an ethnic affinity of several tribal groups, known for their fierce independence, disciplined fighting skills, complex clan inter-relations, embrace craftsmanship, herbal healing, and jungle survival skills. They live in the far northern reaches of Myanmar on high rain forest mountains where average yearly rainfall is a whopping 156″ a year! August average temperatures are in the mid 80’s and lows in January are in the mid 40’s in their homeland. Cooler than lower elevation of Yangon!
Let me tell you a bit about this outfit. The top is made of heavy black velvet with much hand designed silver sewn onto the top. And when they walk the silver makes a pleasant jingling sound. The older you are the more silver you have on your top. The skirt is hand knitted wool and on colder days they wear matching leggings under the skirt. All hand knitted wool!
These outfits I suspect keep them warm in their high mountainous homeland but must have been very hot to wear in mid 90 degree heat in Yangon! But they all looked cool as cucumbers while I looked flushed, hot and heat exhausted!
They traveled awfully far to come to the convention and they arrived early so they could spend time with us on the tours as well as entertain us with cultural dances and singing. I cannot guess what sacrifices these monetarily poor friends made to reach the Assembly! They had traveled weeks to get to Yangon and through areas that are very dangerous!
What a blessing to meet these beautiful servants of Jehovah and to see their complete reliance on Jehovah to get them to Yangon and then the long trip home!
This picture was taken on the boat that took us down the Twante. They sang and danced for us on the trip home and then later met us again for family gathering night. What fun to be with these brothers and sisters!
We both got our cheeks painted with
Thanaka. Thanaka is a beauty product very common in Myanmar. It is a paste made by grinding a Thanaka branch on a stone with a little water. It is considered beautiful, cooling and makes a good sun screen. It is very pretty on the brown skin of the Burmans but tends to look sickly green on us white skinned peoples! Ha!