Hence another day in the village life of Noh Bo, Thailand
and the hours seem to stretch beyond my understanding of the time-space
vortex. Since so much has happened in
the past two weeks and I have all but little time to truly elaborate on the
intense activities of my daily life here, I will provide key moments of
hilarity and the confusion of the traveller.
1. Meeting Thai
soldiers on the taxi-truck and having them try to hustle us into buying
cigarettes, getting random toiletry bags from them, then having one of them
show us a video of him cutting a man up on his phone.
2. Having a group of
Karen orphans (ages 3-8) roll clay into little balls, then lighting them in a
stack of clay, then leaving the fires to burn in the jungle (completely against
what the Boy Scouts have taught us!)
3. Playing arm
wrestle, leg wrestle, and whole body wrestle with 13-year-old Karen orphans.
4. Puking in the
woods… twice.
5. Having the
traveller’s stomach issues… and the only toilet around is a shack squatter
toilet in a refugee camp.
6. Realizing that the
only problems we come across are first-world traveller problems. (i.e. “I look
pregnant because my money belt is too full of money!” or “Dammit, can’t watch
Netflix because we’re in a foreign country travelling….”)
7. Thailand’s love
for sugar ceases to amaze me. The moment
when Sprite is considered a “bitter” drink is when I realized I will get
diabetes here.
8. Realizing that
life at Blessed Homes Orphanage can truly be considered a sitcom: take 30
undocumented orphan refugees from conflict zones under the care of a
26-year-old Norwegian and you get situations where moms in the USA die of heart
attacks.
9. Having virtually everyone in Asia extremely confused
about my ethnicity.
10. Finding a dead
body float past us as we swim in the Moei River that borders Myanmar and
Thailand…. Not so funny but worth mentioning.
11. The sweet sound
of singing children…. Also not so hilarious but beautiful.
A summary of my stay here is simple: I’ve been living in an
orphanage in a Karen village on the western border of Thailand for the past two
weeks. The focus of our documentary has
shifted towards education inside of the refugee camp, Mae La (which houses over
50,000 people). The subjects of our
story are 7 engineering students.
Interestingly enough, many of the students we have been meeting so far
left Burma (or Myanmar) to live inside of these camps for education. These camps seem to be more like permanent
destination areas rather than places of refuge for displaced peoples. The more I learn about Mae La, the less of a
hopeless place it seems. For a camp that
has existed for over 20 years, it has become something of a permanent place of
residence for many. I would not be
surprised if it becomes a permanent village in the future. There are six colleges, marketplaces
reminiscent of Indian alleyways, and even semi-paved streets. The Karen are such loving people with a
distinct identity and culture. The more
people I meet here, the more happy and lucky I feel to be alive.
Peace, love and good vibes to all the fellow dreamers out there
J.