A Final Word: Be That Person

Coiled garden hoses posing as snakes:

I write to you from the place it all started from-- my very own home computer room in Waban, MA. Just as I started off this blog some 15 months ago, I will now draw it to its close. Indeed, here you have my final entry of what has been a meaningful and necessary outlet for me over this incredible journey.

I've returned. Yes I'm back home in Boston-- back to a place where I feel comfortable, not foreign, back to a place where I can unpack my belongings (albeit temporarily) and get some of that much desired R&R. The last 2.5 months since touch-down in the U.S. have been an amazing whirlwind of weddings, street-strutting in NYC and San Francisco, camping out under gorgeous redwoods in Northern California, carting a group of American teenagers around Ecuador, hanging-ten in Darwin's famed Galapagos, and finally returning back here, to my original home!

I'll be in Boston and its environs for a month, more or less-- with fun friend-visiting trips in between it all in an effort to catch up on so much that's occurred in a year of Laura-absence-- and then it's westward ho! to the land of hippies still attempting to legalize pot, vegan restaurants, Ghiradelli chocolate, and sea lions: San Francisco.

Below you will find 3 items of note: 1) Musings on reverse culture shock, 2) Lessons learned by Lady Laura, and 3) A final note to daydreamers everywhere. Enjoy any or all...

#1: Musings on Reverse Culture Shock (or RCS)

As I sink my feet slowly back into Americana, I come to many realizations, which can only, logically, be conveyed through every one's brave and concise pal: the bullet point. So here you go, the shocking, the confusing, the wonderful:

• Dogs. They don't attack me here-- fabulous! They don't stop, drop, and hump... and then get stuck together in their humping-- stupendous!
• Chairs. They're here, they're there, they're everywhere. You just can't get around them. I must say, I find myself desperately wanting to a) sit on the ground when inappropriate, or b) remove my shoes in public places so that I can curl up my legs cross-legged style in most improperly.
• Diversity: America is made of so many different people, languages, customs. It's gorgeous.
• No props where the props are due. Where's our respect for the elderly? What's going on with this fear of them and old age? We think they're bad drivers, that they're crazy, that they smell. Botox is all the rage. What about the beauty and wisdom in accruing those years? America has some things to learn from Asia in this respect.
• Children first. We stand up for children, their rights and their importance in society. We hear their voices and take them into account. Awesome.
• MSG alert: I need not request my food sans MSG directly after ordering. Very nice.
• Flat electronics: What's going on with you people?! I thought BIGGER was better! Not flatter! It seems the evil razor bunny just spawned more and more flat, shiny babies until they populated every one's pocket, purse, and fanny pack-- including my own (purse that is. I may consider myself an adult, but I'm nowhere near mature enough to dawn the f-p).
• Nostril pleasures: The streets of America smell good (except for those few crusty corners of NYC, and the "urine block" just off of Van Ness in SF)
• Plastic coated foodstuffs. How can we disguise the four-legged, mooing, uddered cow so that even a fool won't know the difference? Place it on a styrofoam tray and wrap it in plastic, baby. It's amazing how we know so little about what we put in our mouths.
• Cleanliness. Americans ever-so-incessant put-trash-in-its-place PSA has paid off, and this country is pristine like no other.

#2: Cultural learnings from Thailand/ Burma to make benefit glorious nation of Lauraland

Here's what I have learned:

• Respect your elders. There is so much wisdom and beauty accrued through their years.
• Ride a bike. It's fun, cheap, and good exercise. And you see more things.
• Use natural light. It feels better, is cheaper, benefits the environment.
• Everyone's needs are valid. Even if you grow up in a place of moderate comfort, this does not disqualify your needs. Sure, you could save those $100 bucks on a new pair of sneakers to give to a foundation. But if you need the sneakers, buy the damn sneakers! Don't go crazy with the excess, and don't forget about the rest of the world and generosity, of course, but keep in mind that it's okay to make yourself happy.
• Find out what you want to do, and go do that. So what if you want to be a human rights activist, a financial consultant, a real estate broker, or a pest-controller? Doing one of these things over another will not make you a holier or less scrupulous individual. Time and time again my students told me to go off and do whatever the hell I wanted in my life-- they would do the same if they had their freedom.

#3: A final word.

Lastly I want to say this: many people over this past year wrote emails, declared to me over the phone, or said to me upon returning that they wished they could do what I did this last year. And now I'm going to tell you a secret: you absolutely can do this, and indeed your energy, expertise, and general experience is still needed on the Thai-Burma border and countless other places just like it.

There is an immeasurable benefit to the culture and knowledge exchange that happens when one person moves outside their culture and devotes themselves to another, sharing of themselves and absorbing just as much.

Be that person.

So. There you have just a taste of the rumblings and ramblings in LK's brain. Overall, being back on American soil has been incredible, welcoming, beautiful and comfortable. I feel, for the first time in a long while, that I am not a foreigner. This is truly divine.

The next months will bring a move out to the charismatic San Francisco, a soul-crushing job search (see also: Laura's soul-- stomp stomp stomp), and an adventure-filled apartment search.

Wish me luck in my next endeavor. I wish you luck to you in yours...

Stripes, bright stars, and Barry Bonds-

Laura!

Words of Wisdom

Just a few quotes accumulated from the many, many hilarious writings of my students over this past year:

He is a dork among us.

When it's cold outside, I like to wear tampons around my neck.

She did not want to go the the hospital, so I did her.

Pickles (our cat) can kick Scrappy's (our other cat) ass as Scrappy is afraid of Pickles.

I am sure that I'm a virgin.

Can you give me a broom because I want to brush my hair.

Some Englishs have rash in their skin.

I want to kick H.M.'s ass when I get angry with him. (written by H.M.'s girlfriend)

Mi Kun was resentful when someone cut the cat's moustache.

Our teacher is a good teacher and also a good refrigerator.

They Can't Take That Away from Me

Juice-in-a-bags:

Hello and welcome to my last entry from Thailand, at least for now.

I sit here, in my regular internet cafe in bkk, awash in emotions of excitement and fear at what is to come in the next few weeks. Most of my goodbyes are said and done, the hugs hugged and the awkward pats-on-the-shoulders exchanged. The tears were all spent three months ago when I left Sangkhla it seems, but I have a suspicion they will flow as I depart from one of my best friends here tonight, as I check bags at the airport, at inopportune moments on the plane-- over a piece of gooey, perfectly cut plane-cake, or maybe when I see that the majority of the people on my British Airways flight are white and realize I can understand eveything they are saying.

Wow. I can't believe it's actually happening.

I'm ready and not-- ready to bid the teens yelling "falang! bai nai?!" (foreigner! where are you going?) adieu, ready to say bye to the mangy street dogs threatening to bite, ready to stop seeing women in bkk wearing numbers outside a "bar." But there are some things I will just never be ready to part with: my students from sangkhla who continue to feel much like relatives more than students, papaya salad and sticky rice, the Burmese/ Thai culture of sharing, the eloquence of someone who has been through the political and human rights crisis that is Burma and shares their experiences, the foot-high stools in Burmese tea shops, the excitement when I bust out in burmese at the market, and so much more...

As we travel this earth, be it 2 miles from home or thousands, there are some things that just seem so good and so right that we will never be without missing and longing, will we? It's like the song They Can't Take That Away from Me: "We may never ever meet again, on the bumpy road to love, still i'll always always keep the memory of..."

So lucky me, lucky you, lucky world. Adieu to this adventure, hello to the next, whatever curves and bumps may appear.

Love!

Laura

T minus 9

Hello there gremlins, rainbow-brights, and sparkling tortoise shells:

RAIN!

Indeed the unthinkable has occurred. After recent weeks of unending heat and a ruthless sun beating down on the earth and thus bleaching everything to a uniform tan, in just the past few days the unthinkable has occurred. It has rained.

The skies have opened up, seemingly releasing their pent-up moisture-anger of the last 6 months. And damn, that's a lot of moisture. I had almost forgotten the smell, the sound, the constant wetness of rainy season in the last months of incessantly dry skies, but indeed, it's back. Oh flip-flop slides and moldy garments! Oh joy!

And just as the weather seems to slip into its natural transition from one thing to the next, so do I. In 9 days, I will be on a plane headed home.

I'm filled with excitement as I think of friends and family. Smiles plaster over my face when I think of music clubs, theater, restaurants, JP Licks soft serve… It all has been a long-lost thought for so long. For so long, it's been Burma, papaya salad, rice paddy, human rights…

And just as these shudders of excitement run through me, shudders of confusion do as well. I can't quite imagine being distanced from my friends, students, adoptive families here. I can't imagine thinking about this situation from such a distance and not knowing how things actually are, here on the street-level.

I also wonder about those other things, those details about life in the US like: Am I ready to drive a car again? Can I stomach the American meal of large portions and pre-processed items? Will I be able to make it through a reality TV show without seizing on the floor in a fit of anger?

While all these emotions can be lumped into the simplistic-sounding "culture shock," I think they are worth more than what this trite phrase offers. It seems to me that upon returning home, those who live abroad for some time not only struggle with the difference between cultures, but the mental battle of having opened the door to the world, and the at times inspiring and other times paralyzing possibilities which that act engages.

Indeed I'll go home not thinking just of the change in weather, but very much pondering future actions, development, the world, inequalities, and my most effective place within all of it. My mind will be wading through the question of returning to this border and the people who have been my family for this past year or embarking on another adventure in my own culture, somewhere all mixed up in the sandwich shops and jazz venues of any cool US city.

In spite of it all, I'm immensely excited to arrive back in the US on May 17^th, hug my parents at the airport, and drop my heavy and dirt-dirt-dirty bags on the floor of the home where I grew up.

I'm also excited to see you, to talk to you, to hear about all that I have missed in exactly 12 months away from your life.

Much love, excitement, and cashews,

Laura!

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.

Contradictions Abound

Oh where oh where to begin.

Good friends, I write as I drip with sweat from every part of me. This week, as we creep creep creep into the Thai summer, has largely constituted of sticking to things. Sticking to chairs, sticking to clothes, sticking to your bike seat, sticking to other people, just sticking. It’s amazing how much sweat can come out of one’s body.

Despite the plentiful mangos and dreamily inviting nature of water festival being upon us, the oppression of the heat is undeniable. Today was clearly over 100 degrees; somewhere in that zone that becomes no longer distinguishable it’s so damn hot. On days like today the dogs are clonked out in a lazy heap in the shade, the flies grow heavy and clumsy, and even the mosquitoes seem to be relaxing.

Weather aside, all is a can of peaches here in Mae Sot. It’s amazing how, when you live in a place so distinct from your reality for so long (see also: sleeping on the floor for 9 months in Sangkhla) and then return to an environment similar to that from which you came (the hustle and bustle of Mae Sot), how parts of you suddenly bloom and reawaken, energized, as though their hibernation time didn’t drown them out, but rather refreshed them.

This seems to be what’s happening to me. I slowly find myself remembering the social norms of the West and coming back to the sarcasm and witty banter I like to throw about in a social setting. I find myself remembering how very fun it is to dawn clothing that shows off my white white shoulders, to think about the style of my outfit before exiting the house, to put on (gasp!) eye liner after 10 months of restraint. It is these small creature comforts that awaken me and remind me of home and all that which I was missing these past nine months.

At the same time this happens, these new parts of me that developed during my time in Sangkhla now dig their own small burrows in my heart, preparing for the wintry period that is ahead. My newfound abilities to hand wash and iron EVERYTHING slowly yawn and doze off, my foraging for bamboo shoots and vegetables in the backyard retires to the sofa, and my sarong-wearing waist readjusts to the world of zippers and flies.

It’s both funny and amazing how we as humans can jump from one world to another so easily. Of course there is that confusing time when everything is in question, when you ball your eyes out in goodbyes and stumble over your words with hellos and first impressions, but really, in just weeks, we can go from a town with no aircon and a number of trucks you can count on one hand to the world of wifi, traffic, and Tesco Lotus. What adaptable beings…

Before I head off to dinner and a night at one of the many bars in Mae Sot, I will leave you with some much anticipated words. I will tell you about the camp.

Umpiem Mai is a refugee camp of 20,000 people located south of Mae Sot in Thailand. Most of the residents there are of the Karen ethnic group of eastern Burma, but there is a good number of Burmese Muslims who come from Karen state, and a smattering of smaller numbers of people of the many ethnic groups in Burma. Most of the residents are there due to displacement from Burma’s military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), who have destroyed over 3,000 villages in eastern Burma. This involves a lot of fighting, raping, burning and running. The SPDC works together with the DKBA (a Karen force who came to an agreement with the SPDC a while ago) to quell the Karen insurgency for autonomy that has lasted since independence from Britain in 1948.

Others live in the camp not because their homes were destroyed, but rather because they are on the SPDC’s blacklist for one or more of a variety of reasons. Maybe they openly expressed disapproval of the SPDC, maybe they worked with the National League for Democracy (NLD—Aung San Suu Kyi’s party), or maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. These people are in the camps because they will be harassed, imprisoned, or killed if they return to Burma.

Regardless of how one ends up in the camp, the conditions inside are less than favorable. I’m struck by this image when I first arrived and climbed one of the many windy and treacherous mud paths towards the school where I would be working. As I sweated and huffed and puffed with exhaustion of climbing, I saw a woman squatting, sarong-clad, wiry and dark, beating a club against what appeared to be a pig hoof. It was a dinner preparation of some sort. She squatted in the red dirt, children milling about beside her, a bamboo and thatch one-room house at her side. To think that her dinner would consist of this in some boiled water with chili was disturbing, and somehow the savagery of the club and the rawness of the hoof can’t seem to quit my mind…

The camp is a hilly place, cool and beautiful, really. It’s much like an impoverished village with dusty shops here and there, one or two noodle shops and a handful of tea shops so characteristic of Burma. There are schools, building which are allowed a tin roof and a concrete floor, a hospital and a cluster of other more permanent buildings that house NGOs, a church, a monastery, and a mosque. Houses are to be made of bamboo and thatch only, so that they are temporary dwellings, despite years and years of residence by one family.

In the present dry season the air smells and tastes of dirt. A dust coating covers everything from houses to clothes to skin to food. The air smells of smoke captured between the mountains from the farms nearby who are burning their field in preparation for the planting that comes before the rainy season. The noise is one of playground chatter. There are little kids constantly yelling, crying, laughing, singing. There are husbands and wives conversing, sneezing, arguing angrily. There are cows mooing and pigs snorting. There are a few chickens, although most were killed due to a scare of that unmentionable disease that’s got the world on edge. There are goats baaing and rats scampering.

The camp tastes like oil and preserved food. Rations consist of rice, yellow beans, chili, oil, and fish paste. For all other things, you must find the money to buy them.

Power comes from generators you must buy, and if you don’t have this money then you live without power. There is a lights-out policy at 9 due to security of the camp. While Umpiem is not located very close to Burma, there is a small worry that the SPDC or DKBA will find and infiltrate the camp, setting it ablaze as it did about a decade ago to Umpiem’s two predecessor camps. The SPDC and DKBA struck one of these old camps at night, causing many deaths to those who couldn’t get out in time. The other camp was more fortunate and attacked during the day. The inhabitants were relocated here in the hills.

Dirty water pours from spigots in each section of camp, and little kids crowd around them with slime-coated old petrol plastics to fill up and carry home. There is no alcohol allowed in camp, yet alcoholism is rampant…

Camp is governed by a committee consisting of the Camp Commander (Thai authority I believe), many other parties, and section leaders. Camp is divided into a variety of sections. The school where I’m working is between sections 5 and 7, in a Muslim area, and not a day goes by without hearing a call to prayer emanating slowly from a loudspeaker.

People are milling about, sitting around at home, carrying things on their heads, chatting, staring, listening to music. People are generally waiting—waiting for the bamboo shipment to come in, waiting for a customer, waiting for news of friends, waiting to go back home, waiting to be resettled to a third country, etc.

The camp is a fascinating mix of brilliant activists tossed out of their countries due to their political activities and poor, uneducated individuals from farms just wanting to go back home. It is a place where you will find a state of the art school where the students are getting an education comparable to that of a private US high school and an orphan child entertaining himself with a dead rat at the same time. It’s the type of place where you will hear the Karen version of Tom Petty’s “Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee.” Camp is an unsafe place of refuge.

Camp is wow, camp is crazy, camp is exactly what you think it would be and what you least expected all rolled into one.

With this I leave you, friends. To dinner and beyond…

Love,

Laura

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

Goodbye

Bangkok Roaches:

I write from the comfort of a wood-laden, vegetarian-grooving guesthouse in the midnight breezes of Bangkok. I’m still very much in Thailand- my stomach grapples the evil MSG in an effort to digest it, the mosquitoes whirr and latch on to me, evoking swear words as they do, motorbikes perform daring and unimaginable stunts, and there are few moments when you can go outside without breaking into a sweat. Still Thailand, different Laura.

I’m different because I have said goodbye to Sangkhlaburi, my town, my home for the past nine months.

Just as nine months is enough to grow a whole baby and ready them to fight the evils of the world and enjoy in all the light-beams, nine months was a time for me to develop an entirely new and amazing life, complete with deep relationships, moments of happiness, pain, fear, and ridiculousness. In these last nine months, the people I have met and the people who met me, mainly my lovely and amazing students, have readied each other for a new world with an increased awareness of the globe and our place in it.

I left Sangkhlaburi on Sunday morning, February 25^th, to a scene of tear-stained student faces, all of which looked rather bullied and extremely pained. I viewed it all from my own tear-blurred eyes. I thought about the bus that carried me into this small, dusty town in a time that seemed to be ages ago and all that transpired in between.

Here are some things I have learned:

· MSG is the spice of the devil

· Roosters cock-a-doodle-doo at all times of nights, in the country and in the city, and no matter where you go, THEY WILL FIND YOU

· People want happiness and safety

· I’m afraid of street dogs

· The love from a mother to a child is unchanging, regardless of continent, how many children you have, and how many of these children die

· One really can get used to a breakfast of yesterdays rice and greasylicious eggs

· Some people find a fight to fight. Some people are born into one they have no choice but to fight.

· As open-minded as you are, it’s okay to never warm up to eating fish eyes and chicken’s feet. That’s just a part of you.

· Education is empowering. Giving it is empowering, receiving it is empowering.

· Reusing old materials feels good.

· If you smile when you feel sad, or if instead you cry, it is still the same feeling of sadness.

· People who live in high office towers in NYC and people who work on the rubber plantations of Burma all like to get new shirts.

· Some of the wisest people lack formal education, power and running water.

· When you cook food for one hour it tastes better than when you open a box with a mix inside, even if that mix is KRAFT Mac and Cheese (forgive my slander oh mother of kraft-cheesyness).

· Being used to pain doesn’t mean that pain is okay for you.

· Physical touch speaks volumes

· Being a mother to others feels amazing. Having others mother you is equally amazing.

· Will Farrel skits don’t translate easily to Mon culture

· Life is hard for some people and life is easier for others. Regardless, this has nothing to do with what you have done. This just happened.

· We are all one people who want the same thing. We are all one race.

Tomorrow morning I will hop on a bus to Mae Sot, a far larger border town that lies up north. There I will begin a new adventure with a new role teaching and assisting in education efforts on the border with an international education NGO for 2.5 months. I will skip back to the US at the end of May. This will conclude round one of the fight for freedom in Burma, with an unknown number of future efforts to follow, in forms unknown at this point. The future beyond this is wide open, the wind and your words of advice my guidance.

Three days ago I pulled away from Sangkhla, saying a goodbye unlike any other. Due to Burma’s dodgy phone lines, censored mail system, and infrequent email which is only accessible in larger cities, it’s possible I will never see or even contact some of my students again. Regardless of this knowledge, the impact these past 9 months have had on my life is immense. As I waved goodbye, I beamed with happiness through my tears. Half of my heart dropped fearing the gaping hole that would be left without the row of amazing people I watched outside the bus window, and the other half exploded with a love that coated all organs in my body. Despite the growing distance between us, my heart has permanently been stamped by my students—by their love for me, and mine for them.