An 8:45am Musing

Today, right now, with now-lukewarm coffee and a stack of emails to address... I miss Africa. All of it. The entire continent. I miss the mystery, the hot sand, the intensity, the enormous pristine clouds against the impossibly blue sky. Carrying things on my head.

I try to balance things on my head here but people laugh at me.

Five Months, Four New Years, and a Little Holiday Called Song Kran

Me, Catherine, Cristabel and Oivinn - Soaking wet

Thai New Year, also called Song Kran, but really known as the Water Festival, is potentially the weirdest celebration I have ever attended. For an entire week, Song Kran involves everyone in town, piled into the back of pickup trucks, drinking beer, inching down the street, while throwing water on passersby and everyone else who is piled into the backs of their pickup trucks, drinking beer and inching down the street who are throwing water on them. It is a time to pay homage to Buddhist images, clean house, meet girls. Historically, the "sprinkling" of water on the elders is to wish the receiver good luck and blessings in the new year. Perhaps it started out that way. These days, it's an all out free-for-all that bears some resemblance to a water park/club scene where major streets are blocked off for public partying to a degree that is certainly illegal in the US - and where anyone has permission to soak down anyone else with a Super Soaker. Any medium for transferring water is acceptable - buckets, as stated, garbage cans, water guns, hoses. Everyone participates, and, surprisingly everyone has fun. It would never work at home. Oh, can you imagine the lawsuits, the scantily-clad women, the drunken brawls that would take place? It would not exactly be a family-friendly event.

A few quiet moments with Cristabel and The Great Gatsby before the water started

Day One started out - dry - peering around the corner and assessing my options. The two kids are currently hosing down the scared-looking white couple clutching tightly to a camera bag in a Ziplock. The middle-aged British guy who owns the hamburger restaurant has a bucket filled and ready to go. The old Thai lady on the corner is grinning ear-to-ear, cheerfully spraying down a truck of people with the water gun that is as big as she is. I quickly decided there was no hope. I attempted to dart behind them all without being noticed. I made it around the malicious Brit with no problem, but the old lady and the kids saw me, and ambushed me with heavy artillery before I could devise my next evasive tactic. "Stop it!", I yelled. "I don't want to get wet!" Ha, you scoff. Your blogger exaggerates, perhaps. I can run fast, you inform me. It can't be that bad. Your plan is resistance, I ask? On the grounds of personal liberties, perhaps? Politely informing your would-be assailant with a gleam in his eyes and a overflowing water bucket in his hand that you prefer not to get your hair wet? Ha. You better just hope there is no ice in the bucket.

I was at first annoyed, feeling rather guilty for being so boring when everyone else was clearly having so much fun. I have decided that people all over the world can be divided into camps - those who like being splashed at the swimming pool, and those who don't. I am afraid I am in the latter. "Don't shoot me in my FACE", I hollered indignantly, to one particularly obnoxious shirtless white dude, who was having a blast reliving his frat days. "You don't even know what Song Kran IS!" I begged, ducked, evaded, grumbled until finally, dripping, aware that I could not possibly get ANY WETTER, decided that it was time to play. Grabbing a water gun, I began hosing down obnoxious frat boys, little old ladies, punk little kids. We hopped in the back of a truck, armed with small and heavy artillery, and for hours cruised the streets spraying down everyone spraying down us. I have never had more fun.

1. Cat getting attacked 2. Cat's retaliation

Riding in a tuk-tuk is the WORST for getting wet. Because traffic is just inching along, the tuk-tuk occupants are sitting ducks.

I would upload the really great video I shot of the whole water dousing event, but as COMMUNIST THAILAND HAS SHUT DOWN YouTube it appears that this will no longer be possible. Please, whoever made fun of the king - you've made your point, now TAKE IT DOWN!

Note to those still confused by the Title of this post: Karen New Year, Our New Year, Chinese New Year, and now, Thai New Year = 4. You're welcome.

The YouTube War and... just war

In military-controlled Thailand, the government has banned YouTube, a video sharing website, for a disparaging video clip mocking the king. Excuse me, am I in China? http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSBKK17066320070404

So, I am neck deep in editing and correcting a pile of best interest reports for unaccompanied minors in Mae La. I now have 15 new English-as-a-second (Or third. Or fourth)-language staff under my supervision (eek!) and spend hours a day figuring out what is often skewed, archaic English and making it sound... not weird. Like this. What is one to do with a sentence like "she rendered her hand in goodwill and pity toward the child"?? Or this one - "the older child is obviously far stupider than her younger sister, who is quite bright". My rather awkward favorite I stumbled upon last week was this unfortunate sentence - "the girl had all sorts of rashes in her woman parts"...

Help.

In far more serious news, the fighting is escalating right over the Thai/Burma border. On Saturday night, SPDC (State Peace and Development Council - Burmese military) soldiers attacked several KNU (Karen National Union - the resistance army) military bases. The areas of attack are adjacent to the river, directly across from Mae Ramat town and Mae La camp. There had been no fighting in that particular area for over five years, until this week. Several hundred people fled their villages when the fighting started and crossed the river into Thailand, scattering in camps and Thai fields. Some have already returned to their homes. Some are literally sitting in the village on the Thai side, watching their houses on the Myanmar side.

Tension is high in the camp and in Mae Sot, as families fear a repeat of 1998, when Burmese soldiers attacked two refugee camps on the Thai side and burned them to the ground. The official word is that there is no danger of attack; the Thai military says they do not have sufficient range to hit the camp. But, rumors are flying - of death threats and SPDC orders to burn the camp. It is nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction. The inhabitants of Mae La are terrified. The shelling and mortar rounds could be heard from camp on Sunday. Evidently, the refugees and camp authorities are on high alert, and bags are packed in preparation for an emergency evacuation. The SPDC and DKBA (Democratic Karen Buddhist Army - a split off of the KNU that has aligned itself with the military junta) have reportedly taken over several KNU battalions base camps right across the border - going through Thailand to get there. There are troop movements on both sides (Thai and Burmese), as no one seems to know if the situation is calming down or heating up.

Sometimes, I forget that this is still a war zone - albeit a quieter, less publicized one. Villages are being burned to the ground, women raped, young boys forced to join armies, the elderly coerced into forced labor, children left orphans as their parents are killed, families running for their lives. Oh yes, this is still very real. Just because we aren't hearing about it on the evening news or reading about it in the paper doesn't mean that the world is as it should be.

Pray, my friends. Pray for our world...

And.... she's back!

Your dubiously-faithful blogger has returned. And is currently at work. On a Saturday. Which somehow just feels very, very wrong. I am drinking an iced latte though, which can right nearly any wrong, thanks to the strange, out-of-place Starbucks-esque yuppy coffee shop in town run by my Thai teacher and her family. Speaking of Thai lessons - namely mine - it's not going so hot. Somehow, in the period of four short weeks of cable TV, Mexican food and The South, I have managed to forget at least half of the 23 words of Thai I was up to before I left. Sad. Friends, it has gotten very bad. I struggled to remember the response to "how are you?". This morning, when I attempted to order my coffee and tell him to make it "extra hot", I apparently asked the poor barista to "heat the goat very hot". Oh well. My trip home though has done something for my language, apparently. My friends pointed out yesterday that I had used "y'all" in at least 11 sentences over the course of the day. Oh my.

Sadly, my creative method of procrastination is not getting me out of work any quicker today. I will leave you all, to your exciting Friday nights and restful Saturdays. I just wanted to assure you all that I have returned from the Land of Plenty and am thrilled, no - happy... no - content. Yes, content - to be back to my cute, gritty little border town of Mae Sot. Home of refugees, small small English, Buddhist parades, gem smugglers and really good Pad Thai. Being home with my family and friends was amazing, and it was hard to leave everyone, but I still have so much I want to do here, and so much more I want to learn... like Thai. Stay tuned for exciting stories from home - or at least pictures.