Mae Sot at Last

April 16th

At last I am in Maesot. It is a fascinating place.

I understand there are probably about as many Burmese here as there are Thai although it is a little hard to tell as many of the Burmese are illegal. They either stay here somewhere or travel by truck tube which is dragged over the river separating Thailand and Burma. They work here and because they are illegal they have no rights. They work on farms or in one of the many factories where they make a pittance and have awful conditions but that is still better than they would have at home, in Burma.

There are also so many ex-pats here to help the migrants or refugees. Some people are here helping while agencies are donors usually with money. (I heard an interesting term the other day "donor fatigue" - I bet there is evidence of that here too.) The help is often fragmented and it has no regulations so no one really knows what is happening in many situations. Schools are like this. Many have been started or picked up by all sorts of people but they are all doing their own thing. Registration of the migrant schools is becoming a reality, by law, and therefore schools will have to follow basic guidelines to become registered. Currently it is really unsupervised, unlawful and who knows what. 74 migrant unregistered schools have been located so far.

I have been at work 2 days and then we have the annual public holiday of New Year / Songkran / water festival. (It is the year 2554 here.) I have met the staff in the Migrant Education Co-ordination Centre (MECC) office and the wider Ministry of Education, I have enjoyed a lovely welcome with gifts, a pink Tuesday shirt and fabulous lunches. The staff are lovely, have varying skills in English language (some very good) while my Thai remains basic. I am looking forward to getting out into some schools very soon although all the children are on holiday for at least another month, and I also want to go to meet some agencies to try to understand their roles.

I have a funny orange bike for getting around on and a brand new red motor cycle. The traffic is terrifying so I have spent most of my time on the bike and just practicing on the "red terror". I have driven out into the countryside and seen rice paddies, and to the border to see a very hectic area but I'm not sure what is going on.

I have a cute little house with no air con (that's OK), a squat toilet and a dipper to flush (I'm getting good at that in spite of my creaky knees) and it is right in the middle of town down a quiet lane so that is all good. Six snarling, teeth baring, barking dogs live down this lane too but I am hoping they realise I live here soon and they will ignore me. I had to go shopping for furniture - nothing matches - it is just what I could find for the money but it is all OK.