Ngaba (12)

This translation of Maung Htin's Ngaba covers the text on page 13 (as shown in the scanned image below) starting from the first word at the top of the left hand column and continuing to the last sentence at the bottom of the right hand column. This concludes chapter two of Ngaba.

Vocabulary:

ခါးပန်း ။ belt
နားသံသီ: ။ ear ring (stud/bud)
စုံ ။ pair
ဒိုဘီ ။ Indian style sarong
အခွံ ။ empty; packaging
ဝိုင်းအုံ ။ crowd around; swarm
ရှဲ ။ to disperse
တော့ ။ toss or throw up sth repeatedly into the air with one's head, hand, foot, etc.
ဝှက် ။ to hide, conceal
ပုတ် ။ round bamboo basket for storing paddy, etc.
ငုပ် ။ to submerge
ချိုး ။ a turn, curve
ဆစ် ။ joint; node
လှမ်း ။ far
ကမ်းပါး ။ bank (of river, stream); side (of hill, mountain)
လှော် ။ to paddle
ပြတ်သား ။ be distinct; be lucid; be succinct
ရောင် ။ to swell
ထုံး ။ knot one's hair

Translation:

Haury opened up in front of Ngaba and Mi Paw. After Ngaba put a list in his memory of a money belt of precisely 150 kyat, a pair of earings, three sarongs and two shirts sewn from empty wheat sacks, he accepted the items. The children swarmed around from the side to see. After Ngaba had expelled and scattered the children he hid the box.

He submerged and hid Haury's firewood box in the bamboo rice storage basket.

"Elder brother, you'll make sure that no one knows, won't you," said Haury.

"Yes, yes, relax," said Ngaba.

At that time they heard the sound of boat rowing that came to the right side of the hut from the bank of the stream at the quite distant southern bend. Although you could say that it was dark, the shadow and colour of the person rowing together with the boat were naturally very distinct.

A swollen topknot at an angle on his head was wrapped on one side... "Am I now mistaken Mi Paw? I think that Phyo Dote is with us."