I've just returned from my
second visit to Mae Sot on Thailand's northwest border. I would say this trip went more successfully than the last one because 1: we didn't get bogged down in a muddy garbage dump, and 2: I was not suffering from Dengue Fever.
My boss, Geoffrey phoned me at 4:45 Saturday morning telling me that his rental car had been delivered and that he was on the way. I was ready to go, and we were on the road north by 5:00. By 11:00 we had turned west at Tak. After clearing three military checkpoints with no trouble (the soldiers didn't even look at us), we were in Mae Sot by noon. The last hour to Mae Sot is a harrowing high-speed drive along a one-lane winding mountain road.
We checked in to our rooms at the Erawan Hotel (nothing like the one in Bangkok). It has simple facilities, but the large, clean rooms are everything you need for a stay in Mae Sot. I was booked in the same room that I had last year. We didn't stay long at the hotel, and after dropping our luggage off, we were off towards the school.
I've talked about this school before. I won't go into too many details because I don't want to just repeat what I said last year. Skyblue School is situated at the outskirts of Mae Sot near a landfill. Most of the students are Burmese refugees, and many are orphans. At the school all of the signs were in Burmese and English, not Thai, and the principal and English teacher whom we met both wore
longyi.
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| Skyblue School |
Since it was the weekend, the kids were not at school. We delivered the money and supplies to the headmaster and looked around the simple schoolhouse. It's very different from where I work in Bangkok.
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| a classroom |
Leaving the school, we walked through the housing area. I've written about this before, but it is still shocking to see people living their lives in an actual garbage dump.
There are dozens of little shacks cobbled together from whatever the families can find sitting amongst the garbage. What amounts to a path winds its way through the "village", and Geoffrey and I trekked along the loop.
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| the camp |
This year has been drier than last, and although we did have to jump over a few puddles and do some creative pathfinding around disgusting black ooze, we managed to avoid the muddy mess that we got ourselves into last time. Again, I found myself wondering "how can people live like this?!". I know they have no choice, and it really makes me feel amazingly grateful for what I have. I was wearing the same shoes that I ruined last year, and I still felt irritated each time I stepped in a little mud. The children we saw for the most part had no shoes on at all.
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| someone's home |
The people seemed a bit surprised to see us; two
farangs wandering around must be a strange site to see even if they have met Geoffrey before. No matter, the people smiled and waved and cheerfully greeted us with "
mingalaba" (Burmese for "hello").
One thing that I noticed was that even the crudest shack had its spirit house. No Thai home would be complete without one, even if it's made from old wood, discarded metal, and some cardboard.
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| spirit house |
As Burma opens up Mae Sot is going to continue to develop. It's the main border crossing between the two countries. The Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge is opened for business, although at the moment it's only possible to get a one-day border pass to Myawaddy on the other side. Still, it's becoming a bigger route for shipping. This development of course has both its positives and negatives. Mae Sot, once a mostly forgotten border town, is in the process of undergoing a superficial makeover. Part of the landfill had been landscaped and turned into some sort of reservoir. That wasn't there last year. Unfortunately, with these developments, the refugees who lived on that land have to move. They don't want to move into the official government refugee camps, because they are afraid they will be stuck there for the rest of their lives. Even the school is in some danger of being forced to close as development increases in the area.
As he does every time he visits, Geoffrey brought with him a thick stack of twenty Baht notes. It's not a lot (about $0.60), but he hands them out to the kids that we see. It's amazing how such a small gesture can bring a big smile.
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