Funniest moment of the night was when a line up went wrong. The way things work at the dump is this. Young boys watch from the top of the garbage hills for the approaching trucks, lookout like The trucks usually come around 8pm, 9pm and 11pm. When they see a truck driving up they yell out. Then everyone down below doing various things sprints out to the main dumping area in a neat line up, actually 2 lines separated in the middle for the garbage truck to back up between.
So tonight, as I was photographing I heard the distant call that the trucks have come. Now I do not understand the Burmese words yelled out but I do understand what it means when everyone starts sprinting about. So I headed out to the lineups as well. In the past I was not so aggressive with these lines of people, over the last while thou I have dived right in and photographed aggressively and up close, many people yell out my name as I do this.
So I am photographing away, getting some good shots I think and no truck comes, minutes pass and still no truck. Eventually I realize it was a false alarm, that the boys (boy) had made a mistake in the call out. At this point there is animated discussion with much yelling as Burmese tend to do. Suddenly the boy who made the truck call starts running up a hill of garbage with a older lady chasing him. I join in a bit to late and try to scamper up the garbage hill behind them loaded down with my tripod mounted Canon. Everyone is laughing below at what is happening. They are partially laughing at the boy and the woman, and partially laughing at my attempt to chase them down. I can hear cries in Burmese that must have been like "Get him!", "Chase him down!" and "Look at Gerry run!!!!"
When the boy and woman get to the top of the hill she jumps on him flips him over and starts to pinch and half slap him, pretending to hit him etc. I was a bit late to the top of the hill and the main action was over before I could set up my tripod. I think I missed the event but did get some running shots (probably too blurry and too far away to use). Everyone was laughing down below and eventually the boy started to chase the older women, this time down the hill of garbage. It was all in good fun, she attacked him for screwing up the truck alert, everyone had a good laugh.
The only bad part in all of this was there was no late garbage truck tonight, so people did not make money. Two different men complained of this to me, the hand shaking man I wrote about earlier and a new dump friend named Zoe Way Toe (a 38 year old man with 5 kids).
So tonight, as I was photographing I heard the distant call that the trucks have come. Now I do not understand the Burmese words yelled out but I do understand what it means when everyone starts sprinting about. So I headed out to the lineups as well. In the past I was not so aggressive with these lines of people, over the last while thou I have dived right in and photographed aggressively and up close, many people yell out my name as I do this.
So I am photographing away, getting some good shots I think and no truck comes, minutes pass and still no truck. Eventually I realize it was a false alarm, that the boys (boy) had made a mistake in the call out. At this point there is animated discussion with much yelling as Burmese tend to do. Suddenly the boy who made the truck call starts running up a hill of garbage with a older lady chasing him. I join in a bit to late and try to scamper up the garbage hill behind them loaded down with my tripod mounted Canon. Everyone is laughing below at what is happening. They are partially laughing at the boy and the woman, and partially laughing at my attempt to chase them down. I can hear cries in Burmese that must have been like "Get him!", "Chase him down!" and "Look at Gerry run!!!!"
When the boy and woman get to the top of the hill she jumps on him flips him over and starts to pinch and half slap him, pretending to hit him etc. I was a bit late to the top of the hill and the main action was over before I could set up my tripod. I think I missed the event but did get some running shots (probably too blurry and too far away to use). Everyone was laughing down below and eventually the boy started to chase the older women, this time down the hill of garbage. It was all in good fun, she attacked him for screwing up the truck alert, everyone had a good laugh.
The only bad part in all of this was there was no late garbage truck tonight, so people did not make money. Two different men complained of this to me, the hand shaking man I wrote about earlier and a new dump friend named Zoe Way Toe (a 38 year old man with 5 kids).
