you know you live in mae sot when...
a boy is strolling down the street at night with his big elephant“I’m not a tourist, I’m a visitor. I’m here visiting my sister”
Doi Pui National Park
“Whatever Carl”, Kim replies “I’m a tourist”
It’s nice for me having my brother here, so I take a small break from work and do things around Thailand I never have time for. Though there’s been a lot of discussion lately on what it means to be a tourist. – with me putting my foot down and saying no to treks to hilltribe villages, bestowing upon my brother and his friend a rant about socio-political ethnic imperialist issues.
Carl feels bad about his desire to go to “Tiger Kingdom” – a small park where for 15 minutes you can pet tigers and pose for photos; so today to wipe off our touristy glimmer to us I had my brother meet with some awesome Karen environmental activists, then we decided (kind of on a whim and with some negotiation) to go up to the national park on top of the mountain around Chiang Mai and hike.
Now when a trail head sign says “Beware of Leeches” with three exclamation points, maybe one should heed it instead of saying internally “no it will be okay, and marching ahead” with our fickle tourist brains. One would also think that after getting leeches on ones body within 5 minutes that the next action would involve turning around – but we plunged ahead – me with my flip flops and Kim with her jean skirt. We can summit this, what do these park officials know about leeches — oh crap there are two – get em off me. So we hiked through fog crested forests, aiming for the summit, but being hindered by leech removal every 50 seconds.
The summit turned out to have no view point, so we turned around quickly, mostly because it turned dark with looming hostility. “Why does it feel like 7pm?”, then the rain dumps and we run down the mountain. The leeches weren’t as bad because we were so wet they couldn’t stick to our bodies.
So we lick our pride wounds (and wash our bodies) and admit that sometimes yes, we are tourists, then will go pet tigers tomorrow. But I still put my foot down and will not do the treks to hilltribe villages
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- A summit without a view
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- Doi Pui National Park
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- Up to the trailhead in the saungteaow
Bro and Sis at the Grand Palace Bangkok
Wat Umong tunnels
This one was for our parents...
For some reason Chiang Mai Zoo has a James Bond shooting range...
My Mae Sot ladies....
This week has been intense, full of goodbyes, drenched clothes, strange decisions, and too much work. Seems like good time to count my blessings – or at least give a solid ten.
1) The ladies above: Ohnmar, Jen, Ari, and Tan. One for sure just left for US, one might leave soon to (who knows), and goodness knows what will happen to the rest.
1.a.) That Ohnmar got off the mountain range in Himalayas okay and didn’t need helicopter evacuation
2) Finding vintage New Zealand chedder that makes Ari exclaim in ecstasy “a man will never satisfy me again”
3) Oo Nie Kie’s laugh
4) Ladies are great, but also must give props to my Mae Sot guys – who let me hang out with them as they write amazing music for Burma (and also feed me and inspire me). Pictures cannot be posted as I’m pretty sure almost all my guy friends here, save a few are illegal. Oh well, you can just draw a portrait in your head.
5) Burmese breakfast
6) Little kids gathered around a tiny hole fishing
7) Having a job that is frequently challenging, fulfilling, and surprisingly effective in helping the world (oh and that pays me something)
8 ) Realizing that what divides old friends will not outweigh what binds. Fear of division because of different careers is ridiculous and should not keep us from being ambitious.
9) The ability to be healed – all kinds of healing – though recovery may be slow. Best of luck to all who dengue right now.
9.a.) mosquito repellent.
9.b.) prayditation
10) Last but not least that my oldest brother Carl arrives in a few hours to Thailand !
This morning I listened to a program about Women War and Peace in Liberia, focusing around the documentary “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” about the women who bonded together, across religious, ethnic and other barriers to hold leaders of the country accountable to bring peace.
It’s good to be reminded quite powerfully about the capacity of women, and what they DO and CAN bring to the world, as well as the power of film. I won’t say too much on this – but just say you should watch it yourself.
Here is just one amazing extract from the interview:
” I had the most extraordinary moment during the shooting of the film when we had an opportunity to sit with one of the warlords who’d been present at the peace talks. And I asked him, “How is it possible, in a country where fifty percent of the women have been raped, for one woman threatening to strip naked to cause such mayhem? I don’t understand.”
And he said, that you have to understand they were our mothers. And the only way your mother would do that is if she were driven to total desperation. And there was something in that moment there that caused every man in that room, no matter what he’d done during the conflict, to ask himself, “What have I done? What have I done to get us here?” And talk about changing the dynamic of the room, you know? That is the last thing on earth that would have happened in the hearts of those men had the women taken the place in the room, had they abandoned the moral discourse, had they let it go and acted the way they were being persuaded to act.
And I really do believe that, you know, the majority of conflicts, you know, in any place, Africa, anywhere, are really made possible by, you know, there’s a core group of bad guys, you know? And there’s a Charles Taylor in every one of them who really can’t be penetrated, who really is a sociopath or a person without a conscience and is almost inexplicable to us.
But a person alone can’t make these systems run. He needs to be supported by these expanding concentric circles of supporters, who really are not all of them as impenetrable and who are, for one reason or another, kind of slouching into the moral system. And they live kind of this life of bad faith, you know? I think, in their hearts, they know they’re doing the wrong thing, but there’s more money in it or there’s more power in it or this is just easier- “
just a heads up to those who notice, at the end of the interview they mention how the woman Leymah Gbowee just gave birth to a baby girl, named Jaydyn Thelma Abigail.
Mae Sot Family: Tonight we did a big showing of “Amandla: Revolution in Four Part Harmony” aka my favorite movie. Had amazing talk afterwards, played music, goodness all around. I will save a longer post for my thoughts on music and revolution in Burma and South Africa….
Texas Family: My younger siblings just sent me some letters giving updates on their lives accompanied by photos. Here are some snipets to give you a glimpse of how amazing they are.
From Maren [age 12] : “At 6 a.m. Emily, mom and I went to Grandmas. A long drive of 14 hours and agonizing scenery. We passed through many deserted towns and even went through Steins the haunted railroad town. By the time we got there it was 7 p.m. We were all tired but I was ready to go swimming, so I did for an hour.”…”On Monday, we went swimming in the morning and I taught mom how to do a hand stand underwater and how to go underwater without getting water up your nose. It was an interesting experience.”… and many other mentions of swimming…
From Anna [age 15] : “On Sunday, Dad went to another ward so it was just Thomas and I. Since Thomas helped with the sacrament, I was stuck sitting by myself with a whole bench I would have gladly shared with someone. That was one of the weirdest experiences ever.”…”Tuesday passed by uneventfully, but Wednesday rocked because I got to sleep over at my friends’ house and go to the lake with them. The five of us stayed up until 2 being the crazy teenage girls we are. I almost got them to watch the fast-forward version of the good version of Pride and Prejudice, but even then it was too long to watch. You have to know my friends to know how crazy we truly were that night.
The next day was the first night of Youth Conference- the dance! I was extremely excited because I am a dancing machine, but the cultural hall was burning.”
From Thomas [age 17]: “At the Library, I found an old version of Don Quixote de
La Mancha from 1946. It was an old hardcover version with many full-color pictures in what appeared to be watercolor and ink. In short, it was beautiful. Anna and I are trying to figure out a way to “rescue” this book from the library.” On discussing Youth Conference “The dance on the first night was extremely hot, since the AC wasn’t working in the tiny little Boerne Cultural Hall. I wasn’t feeling very well, and so only danced with one girl who apparently I really needed to (Five girls asked me to dance with her)*. .. The dinner was not so great, however, as it was pork and not brisket, and it was fatty pork at that. Still, it was food. When we went to our host families that night, Sister Thomas had pizza and snacks for us, which we ate on full stomachs. Afterwards, Brother Thomas took us to his gym, similar to Lifetime Fitness, and it was amazing. We swam for about thirty minutes, then dried off in the dry sauna. Everything there was new, clean, and huge. And to top it all off with a real Texas feel, every toilet had its own TV hanging in front of it.” [not sure why that is Texan]
*note: (At dances what happens often is friend’s of girls who don’t get asked to dance approach Thomas and ask him to ask their wallflower friend. Thomas then asks the girl and not only dances with her, but talks and is a true gentlemen. He also asks enough girls usually so its not like “oh Thomas asked me, my friends must have intervened and geez I didn’t know I was ugly.” He’s a saint.
I ate breakfast alone this morning. Ripped my flat bread, dipped it into the bean curry, and sipped the Burmese tea – alone, reading. A child squealed, the same child that Tan held the other day so that the woman could prepare the tea.
The past few days have been filled with jubilation, community and music, revolving around the birthday of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. “She is like a candle, and you are in a room and it is all dark, and there is no knowledge, and then how do you say, then there is bright, yes that is what Daw Suu is.”
Last night at AAPP a visiting European band rocked the cement floor that is usually reserved for afternoon cane ball games. I rode there on the back of a friend’s motorbike, then danced and laughed with a host of beautiful people. To discover that one has a community, and that it is energetic, creative, and supportive is an overwhelming thing. Former political prisoners, activists, musicians, graffiti artists, teachers, Scots, Palaung, Burmese, man, woman, child. Then tonight was the concert at Mae Tao Clinic, and once again the vibrancy.
Joy is a breaking of something, when you see a child’s bodies or anyone’s burst and break open – and the joy, the eager shuffling of an old woman in a beautiful worn sarong. “Tear open the massive dark” an old Buddhist nun said at some point following it with the promise “and death you to are destroyed.”
My Karen friend who just left the hospital, fighting a bad case of dengue fever is still planning on going back to her village; even though her mother told her that people from the town over have now fled into Thailand. She tells me as she lies on her floor taking her medicine that she still wants to go and help her people, that though she may not be able to start her school, she will still leave.
Last night Ari and I had dinner with another Karen friend who is leaving for Wisconsin in a week for resettlement. You cannot judge whether a person stays or goes, it’s been 60 years of fighting. 60 years of shifts, restructuring, and ripping apart of families and home.
I chatted with a Burmese friend who resettled in the US a few years ago. ZMK sometimes with his shaved head and somber words speaks like a monk, “Every thing is for a moment ..actually there is nothing..you think you get something..it is just for a moment.. you cannot get anything when you leave from this world. If you think or believe you cannot get anything..you can forget or you can rid it off things in your memory..make it your mind empty..you get peace.”
“But I dont want to feel empty” I say, “I want to be filled. It is not that emptiness that helps us grow – but the striving – through the opposition in life we learn — if we did not have pain we would not appreciate joy. If we did not feel cold we would not appreciate hot.”
The same Buddhist nun before she told us to tear open the massive dark told us to be free and “full as the moon on the 15th day”
1) Mornings are divine: My mode of operation the past 10 years has been to wake up right before I need to be at seminary/school/work, throw on clothes and go. Then stay up till 2 or 3 am and repeat. Breakfast? maybe granola bar if I remember. This morning for some reason I couldn’t sleep, and so at 6 am I found myself awake. Ari and I had a conversation in bed about divinity, told her about my friend Jason Brown. “I think forestry and divinity should always be taught together, also maybe music.” I also went and got breakfast for me and my roommates, delicious delicious Burmese breakfast, and realized the furious glory of early morning mae sot – 3 kids on on one motorbike with parents going to school, busy tea shops, and even the rain that just started falling. I also read my scriptures while eating said breakfast. I think I will try this again, but no worries, I’ll never be as terrible as Andy Borowitz’s imagination. [ Must read this. I did think of Carl Brinton when I read it ]
2) Bangkok is massive: No really, it is freaking huge. Considering that most of Mae Sot could fit into one of the shopping malls, it’s a bit overwhelming every time I go, the unplanned urban cacophony.
3) I do like politics: “So Thelma what do you want to get your masters in?” reply: “definitely not anything relating to politics, perhaps I’ll study hot air ballooning, sailing, or do really bad community theater, but not politics.” Sometimes it reaches this point. Perhaps its because as human I am more dynamic than my 90 hour work week allows me to be. The strange thing is that I actually enjoy it the more busy i am- those 1 am meetings discussing UN strategy, though stressful are also a policy wonks adrenaline dream. Or perhaps its finding a copy of the Economist in Bangkok and pouring through it like my brother in Legoland – but this whole politics thing, ain’t so bad really – still might take up ballet…
4) Don’t take life too seriously: “I know you may disagree with this policy, but this one act is not going to suddenly ruin all chances of Burma ever achieving democracy, so is it really worth being a rude conceited jerk just to prove that you are master. No” [ wish I could say to a few undisclosed people.]
5) Health care is ridiculously expensive and doctors don’t know everything: 6,000 baht for a blood test that tells me nothing and once again I am left after 3 hospitals with no idea of what has kept me sick for a month.
6) There’s a difference between men and boys…. that’s all I’m gonna say.
On the bus ride back I swapped seats with a middle aged Thai man. He then quickly struck up a conversation with his new bench partner and they talked for hours. I figure that they were good friends, traveling together the route from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot. But then when the man got off in Tak it became apparent that perhaps they had not been previous friends and that this connection was brand new.
Life has turned a brilliant shade of green here with daily rain storms. Driving through the mountains I once again remembered their mystical abilities, or at least once again found myself believing that mystical things are possible – the nebulaic mixture of sunset, low hanging cloud, mountain and jungle steam. Changing of seasons never ceases to amaze me, and it also brings out my inner Mary Poppins, the changing winds whispering possibilities. “How long will you stay?” people ask me. “I don’t know” I reply.
Does anyone know what they want to be when they grow up? Or is it too massive of a question to fit into a singluar profession? What DO you want to be when you grow up?
There’s nothing that binds people like joint unknown gastro-intestinal problems… or so someone said once… possibly…
For the past few days my friend Jen and I have been held up in the trenches deep in Chiang Mai, waging battles against our bodies. We named our parasites Idi and Pol – nasty dictators they are. We have been essentially abandoned by Chiang Mai’s specialist doctors who scratch their heads and guess at what medicines to give us. Our weapons are minimal – staying in places where there are few bugs, clean toilets and water, antibiotics and trying to eat one meal a day.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial is going on and there is a lot happening, so I am still working some – but also realize that there are many other capable and concerned people also fearlessly working – that the burden of action and responsibility is shared – and its okay if I take time right now. Away from Mae Sot and away from office I remember the vibrant pull I feel for creativity and simple joy. I read emails about court cases, attacks and asean human rights body, but also then burst out into a jazz tune frequently or use maggie’s living room as a dance studio
