View from the Camp

Below you will find some images from camp. I hope this helps you get a better sense of it all.

:) Laura

Free Bike Showers for Those Who Wait

Hey there supersoakers, buckets of oddly colored water, and thin layers of wax expertly patterned over all car exteriors:

Welcome to Songkhran

Yes, hallelujah lord, the famous Songkhran, or water festival, is upon us. Indeed every Thai summer, in the throes of heat, exhaustion, and smoky air due to slash and burn agriculture (see also: I love me some slash and burn), there comes a time when everyone just drops it all, cuts loose, picks up a beer and a supersoaker, and pours water over everybody and everything. Some call it crazy, others call it brilliant (at least until they're sick of drenched clothes and their cell phone dies from a sad purse-drowning).

Every year, to bring in the new and splash out the old, people around these parts celebrate by dousing each other (strangers, grandmas, neighbors cats, etc.) in water for about 5 days in most towns (Friday is a holiday, as are Monday and Tuesday-- if you force your employees to work you can go to prison...), or 10 if you live in the motherland of Chiang Mai. On my windy and nauseating drive back from camp today I was greeted with the early Songkhraners-- the eager teens on summer break who have nothing to do but splash water on suspecting passers-by. The greatest joy seems to come when throwing water at the people who will truly get wet-- there's no wasting this stuff on cars-- bicyclists and motorbikers are preferred. If you can get a white lady on her bicycle-- even better.

Excitement level= higher than that of the national security of the US.

When the Durians Come Out, The Sarongs Come Down

Okay. I'll be the first to admit it. In fact I'm quite proud about it. I like durians.

What are durians, you ask? Ah, friends! Durians are those things you've always wondered about! They are those green, spikey, smelly objects you see in Chinatowns across the globe.

Known to the ex-pat population as anything from "gross" to "smelling like my old gym socks," the durian is a fruit that ripens to a lovely flavor around this time of year. The sidewalk is lined with farmer's trucks, the back opened for the view of passers-by as durians teem from them, oozing like slime on the show "You Can't Do That on Television." While I had eaten two durians in the past-- one in Sangkhla and one in Chiang Mai-- and appreciated them, I had never come to a true love of the durian until I happened upon an amazing one in Bangkok. My friend and I guiltily carried the thing home with us, shoving chunks of the oddly-textured gooeyness into our mouths, attempting to down it all so as to hide its infamous smell. In fact, durians are banned from most hotels for that very reason...

Anyhow, the taste was utterly delectable-- a thing I'd liken to a fine, stinky cheese. This is a note to you, oh Westerners, to open your mind and hearts to the dear durian if you stop off in Asia...

In another note, it's also known as a mild aphrodisiac, hence the above subtitle.

We Don't Want No Debbie Downers

Right. So I'll be the first to admit that while this work is incredibly fulfilling, it is sometimes a mental handful. I mean, going to work and speaking of village burnings, forced labor and rapes is not for the weak at heart. It seems the consensus in dealing with the craziness that often ensues here on the border is to never mention it when you don't need to. It is for that reason that those who do speak openly about the conflicts that abound in a social setting are utterly unwelcome. At least by one Laura K that is.

I've found that anyone who crosses into the talk about the negative over three times in any one conversation is placed on my do-not-voluntarily-hang-out-with list. I'm sure they are lovely, well-meaning people, but it seems to cope in this setting, I'm just gonna have to avoid them like the plague.

Hello, Goodbye
As I come up on the final month of my year-long stint on the Thai-Burma border, I can't help but ponder if another year is in the cards for me. While I'm making no commitments at this point (see also: a no commitment motto= dastardly awesome), one factor that comes into play is what my social life would be like here if I stayed on for another year.

What's fascinating and possibly obvious is the fact that any community of ex-pats is quite transient. It was salient in Sangkhla, and it is salient yet again here. So often my conversations with foreigners here begin with "so how long will you be here?" No one's intending to be nosey, but we are, in fact, feeling out the amount of time we ought to devote to this friendship, or possibly even this conversation. If the answer borders on the "two-week" side, it's likely to be a no-investment situation. If they instead spout out "six months," we would definitely be more into it.

This interest level is not out of rudeness, as I felt upon arriving both in Sangkhla and now in Mae Sot, but rather out of a genuine effort to protect oneself, and I now understand why. It's utterly heartbreaking to make friends with wonderful, interesting, globally-aware people, and then to say goodbye so frequently. The international social scene is different in so many ways. And this is one of the most fundamental.

Life Ain't No Pie If You're Stateless
Over the weekend I was feeling an overall melancholy, as we sometimes do as living breathing things, and I've tried to place the source. While I can't quite come to a conclusion on it, it seems to have started just around the night I sat down with a friend in Bangkok (I was there for yet another visa trip-- this time involving acquisition of a work visa-- hooray for well-oiled international NGO machines!) and we blabbed away as she updated me on her life.

As I knew before, she is illegally working in Thailand and living under the radar along with so many others who have left Burma for various reasons (economics, human rights, etc.). While she had high hopes for her work in Bangkok upon first arriving one month ago, she has since come face to ugly face with the reality of being an illegal immigrant, nonetheless one from Burma, who lives in Bangkok.

Together we ate fried veggies and rice as hot tears poured out of her huge eyes. It was 9 PM and she had just gotten back from work and was exhausted, full of the heat and the sadness of the city. We talked of long hours, little pay, the constant fear of arrest, and the racism against Burmese and Muslims and people with dark skin. We talked of her family of 7 relying on her and her father's and little sister's heart problems, and her desire to call some place home but knowing that in that place, Burma, she and her family are persecuted for involvement with the National League for Democracy (Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi's party). We talked about waiting to move to the refugee camp when there is space so that she and her family can then begin the wait in the camp to then go to a third country. We talked about the world and how this is not an isolated experience. And then we cried and held each others hands like little monkeys afraid of a hunter.

For the world's stateless, there is no safe place. For my friend, for now, there is no freedom. Can you imagine a life where your short-term hope is to get off a waiting list to go and live in a refugee camp? What a world.

In sum
Many thanks for a-readin. I'm off to the bicycle, which leads to the street, which is increasingly becoming lined with children plus super-soakers... I have a feeling the waters of Songkhran will wash away the madness and bring a fruitful, wonderful, water-drenched year.

here's to a bike shower!

:) Laura

ps. Thanks to Carson, who thanks her friend Hayden, for the use of these spiffy subtitles and overall tidbit format.