Lauraland: Mae Sot

Kings and Queens of the Bongo:

Hello and welcome to Lauraland: Mae Sot. I arrived one week ago after a long and twisting bus ride that effectively left my rear end numb until yesterday. Already in this past week I have wined and dined like the best of them, passed time at a house party, and hit up the local bar/lounge, Italian restaurant, and even the bagel place. Bagel! This word was nearly a vocabulary pariah prior to last week. But just say it with me, it feels so good… Bagel! Place! A place where they sell bagels!

Indeed the days of lusting for such western delicacies as bagels, peanut butter and pasta are over. Why? I can buy them at one of the few ex-pat catered restaurants, one of the four (four!) 7-11s, or, just like a gem from the gods, take a blithe jaunt over to the Tesco Lotus Express (aka COSTCO lite, Asian style). Mae Sot is, in a nut shell, heaven.

But even in heaven we have our ups and downs. I have outlined these strategically below in one of three categories: the good, the bad, and the fugly (fat + ugly):

Good:

• Superb food both Western and Thai. In the latter category we have the mango/ sticky rice/ coconut milk combo, with gorgeous yellow mangoes peeking out from every corner in Mae Sot as it is the hot/ mango season.
• Incredibly diverse office staff. We’re talking majority of people are quadralingual (a word?), consisting of Thai, Karen, American, Canadian, Singaporean, Irish, etc.
• Walkable streets: There is some semblance of a sidewalk here, much welcoming the stroll from place to place. What’s more is that the street dogs are nice and those that are not are tied up! Brilliance!
• There are gazillions of acronyms uttered from the lips of all those who live here. Acronyms on the Thai-Burma border= NGOs. Lots of acronyms= lots of NGOs. Indeed, Mae Sot is rife with NGOs doing fascinating, life-saving work.
• Such fascinating NGOs are staffed with equally fascinating people. Here’s Jim. He spent years in Bhutan expanding health for disadvantaged youth and now trains a team of backpacking medics. Here is Beth. She worked as a chef for 15 years until she decided to up and go abroad. Now she is a human rights trainer. Like that.
• My new office not only has air-con, but is also abuzz with (mostly) functioning wireless internet.
• I have a sweet house and roommate. Her name is Shona.
• Flat city= breezy bike-cruisin’.

Bad:

• Flat city= drainage issues. Drainage issues= smell eminating from sewage system that is both repulsive yet disturbingly intoxicating at the same time.
• No breathtaking lake to the tune of Sangkhlaburi.
• MSG is rife in the food here and local NGO-staffers have resigned themselves to it. I guess they’ve chosen to fight other battles.

Fugly:

• Dogs at the end of the street humping when I left for my run. Upon returning 30 minutes later, humping proceeded assumedly uninterrupted. Now for the kicker: these dogs were (one) fat AND (two) ugly.

The flip-o side-o

Why do all these crazy cool NGOs work in Mae Sot? Well friends, Mae Sot is located smack-dab in between many refugee camps that dot the Thai-Burma border. These places, referred to with the more cheery label of “camps,” define a lot of activity and life that takes place in Mae Sot. If something weird happens up in camp, its effects ripple on down to Mae Sot on many levels.

In fact, I am here because of the camps. I am working in one camp just north of here, teaching an intensive course on management (your assistance in instructing the fascinating topic of needs assessments is welcome…) and I will begin work up there next week. I did, however, pop on by last Friday to say hello to the future students (a rockin’ crew) and get a wee sense of just what the camp and school were all about there.

I was immensely excited Friday morning, as visiting a camp is something I have wanted to do forever. In a massive, plush and air-conned organization truck, the school program administrator (also a former camp resident), driver and I wound along a lunch-spewing road, curve upon curve, car making those squeaky rubber-on-concrete noises that I thought only existed as movie car-racing sound effects. When we arrived I gasped not at the poverty, but rather at the sheer beauty of this place: a cluster of houses situated atop hills, a place exposed to clean air and a fabulous breeze. The houses were small bamboo huts with thatch roofs, crowded together, row upon row, and the whole place took on this tan, sun-stained color, the houses and dirt blending together from a distance. Externally, the camp was breathtaking.

Upon entering camp, however, this false sense of beauty was replaced with a slap of reality. Inside it was clear that life in a refugee camp is hard living: there is a lack of things to do, places to go, jobs to be had, food to eat, water to drink, and freedom all around.

These are my thoughts from just a few hours in the camp, and I’m sure many will come in the days and weeks to follow.

To turning in early and fugly dogs-

:) Laura