Ringing in the New Year, Karen style

The Karen New Year celebrations are bigger in the refugee camps than even across the border in Karen State, Burma. (Though please don't ask me about the cultural or historical background of Karen New Year - I don't know). I went to Mae La camp for the festivities where there was dancing, singing, football games, and rice wine for all. Peace, man

Sassy Karen women

Photo op with the football team

Winter has finally arrived to Mae Sot. Everybody has been telling me it has been winter for a month-and-a-half, which has utterly exasperated me. "What do you MEAN how I am handling the cold?! - It's 95 degrees!!" Three days ago however, without warning, it felt like the cold front from the North Pole rolled in. It it cold. I am in three layers of shirts as I type. Hang on, I'll check the Weather Channel so I can accurately report..... According to weather.com it is currently 55 degrees here. Don't laugh - I'm freezing! Everyone is running around in parkas and wool hats too. I wish I had a parka this morning, bike riding to work with wet hair - not fun. Well, I might not be having a white Christmas out here in Siam, but as least I will have a cold one.

On an entirely unrelated note - can anyone tell me WHY the sidebar of my blog is showing up at the bottom of the page? Better yet, can anyone fix it for me? It's getting really annoying. I have a funny feeling that the problem and the solution has something to do with the template in HTML code. So if any of you techies out there could find it in your heart to assist an, er, technologically challenged blogger, I would be eternally grateful. Really, I would. Send me a photo and I shall even devote an entire post to praising your HTML skills. I will send you dried seaweed. I will name my firstborn child after you (unless you have a weird name, in which case we will just use initials)...