Village Life

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.