bare feet is a great invention...

Two things. Two people :). Just some thoughts.

One of my favourite people in my TEFL class is an American; he is Christian and his name is *Rorey. Rorey came here 5 years ago to teach english at a small Christian school and he is now expecting his first child with his wife, a Burmese hilltribe woman (I met her today... wow, she is so beautiful!). He and his wife and others smuggle themselves into Burma to work with his wife's tribe, called the 'Karen', who are mainly the tribes in the south that the Burmese army is targetting right now. The military wants complete control; the hilltribes want democracy and they will not comply, so the army is trying to corral the tribes into military-controlled areas, literally making them work for the army. If the hilltribes do not comply, the military hunts them down. Rorey and his group delivers medicine and rice to tribes on the run, and teaches in refugee camps (he speaks Northern Thai and a Burmese hilltribe dialect! I am so jealous). The army lays landmines and makes captured hilltribesmen walk in front of them to clear the way; they also lay them on trails and near signs; Rorey has friends that have died or are missing arms and legs from the landmines. There are many official UN refugee camps on the border of Burma, in Thailand. Many people run from Burma and end up in refugee camps, as migrant workers, the kids may make their way to orphanages (such as the temple dormitory school I am teaching at right now in Chiang Mai), but they can't speak Thai or English, and have no capital: everything they own they carry on their backs, and their villages have been desecrated and landmined by the army. In Chiang Mai (where I am right now), about 3 hours from the border of Burma, almost 100% of the sex workers are illiterate Burmese women and children. The sex trade is so massive and compled... it feeds off of poverty and war, and the innocent lives of hundreds of thousands of women and children. Ach.

second. Today I saw the caring stupidity of western compassion. *sigh. It is beautiful... but kind of redundant. A western man came to talk to us today while we were at the orphanage about how disgusting the place looked a year ago when he arrived for the first time: hundreds of boys slept in one concrete room with a couple folding mats, they had one computer in the school for a teacher to demonstrate on, etc. This man created a charitable organization to raise money in order to buy paint and bunk-beds, and later, mattresses. Now the big cement room has bunk-beds and a green wall... and the government has agreed to donate computers and projector.... which is lovely, but this is probably the first time these kids have ever slept on a bed: they are accustomed to sleeping on the floor with their families. Secondly, the new mattresses are sitting in a pile in storage, because, unless you you live a town house or in a hotel in Chiang Mai, you don't have a mattress (you should feel my bed... seriously). The monks taking care of them don't know what to do with them, or how to take care of them (I've just investigated my bed... I thinks it's a Styrofoam block... I am actually very fortunate). Yet, though they have bunk-beds and unused mattresses (though no mosquito nets) the orphanage is in shambles and the administration is terrible. There are four monks taking care of hundreds of kids; the children are left alone other than when teacher's come during school hours during the week. What it needs is teaching on health and sanitation, mentoring and counseling, awareness of child abuse (who knows what goes on in unsupervised dormitories), administration/organization skills, and a trained nurse on site.... *sigh, not mattresses. Thankfully, they are bringing in a woman to teach the girls how to comb lice out of their hair. Community development and sustainability among local people is so, so, crucially important.

I have been so stressed with school and Thai lessons this week... I am looking forward to the end of the course very much; I am exhausted. I have Monday and Tuesday off this week and am hoping to visit a rehabilitation centre some friends I met are building outside of Chiang Mai for trafficked victims through their organization called 'COSA' (Children's Organization of South East Asia). They currently have six girls waiting to come, as the half-way house these girls were staying at had been closed by the government.

Well... Cheers everyone! Thanks for the Thanksgiving wishes!

with love,
Nicola

ps. Ah, nothing is better than having your feet stuck in shoes all day and then traipsing about it bare feet. Mmm... I went for a walk after school today and a man asked me why I didn't have any shoes on. I answered, 'Pra wa nii mai choop kha'. 'Because I don't like them'. And that's all there was to it :).

*I changed his name as he was a bit wary about telling me his stories; what he's doing is completely illegal... so just in case ;).