SANGKLABURI, Thailand. ​Sitting on the front porch of the Mon Women’s Organization building in Sangklaburi, it’s 9am, the sun is up, the humidity is down. Four saffron-clad Buddhist monks have visited the house opposite to receive their daily alms.  I just got a call saying our BGET team and the Mon women returning to their HQ inside Burma, have transferred from the 4x4 truck to a bus, and will arrive at Nyisar soon.
The BGET boys and I arrived in Sangklaburi on Monday after a grueling twelve hour journey by pick up truck. Although it was all on highway, I was trapped in the back of the “King Cab”, tiny seats behind the driver and passenger. I think Toyota is overstating its case calling it a King Cab, “Princeling Cab” or “Fourth-in-Line for the Throne Cab” would be more apt! Plus the seats had no padding left and the shock absorbers were shot. In short, I suffered the whole way from  a painful rear end and frequent loss of blood flow to that area. This brings me to my main gripe about Thailand – the hardness of the sitting and sleeping surfaces. All the chairs are made from hardwood, and the hardwood around here is the defining standard by which all others are measured. The mattresses are of horsehair or some such unforgiving substance. When I stagger from the truck, blood circulation not yet fully restored, I am welcomed by the sight of the restaurant table and benches all crafted from Terrazzo, which is concrete with stones embedded in it, ground flat and polished to a gleaming surface of diamond hardness. When staying in the village or other guest situation, we sleep on the hardwood floor with  only a thin raffia mat to keep the sleeping bag clean, – padding value zero! Everyone else is apparently cool about this appalling oversight in Thai culture, which is otherwise very civilized. I have heard that there is a cushion somewhere in South East Asia, but for me, this is now taking on the status of a Creation Myth – “ Once upon a time, our ancestors used to live happily on top of a big plush cushion, but then one day someone complained that it was not soft enough, so they were thrown off and we have been condemned to sit and sleep on rock-hard surfaces ever since”. But if a bruised arse is the highest cost of the transforming experiences I’m having, then I pay it gladly.
We gave the solar training on Tuesday and Wednesday to the Mon Women’s Organization. There were six women and one man in the class, including our translator. Again I find myself in a multi-language soup, which  is fun, but always leaves me wondering just how much the information got changed as it made its way from English to Thai, thence to Mon or Karen. In my worse nightmares, what started its life as, “Never, ever get the battery acid in your eyes or mouth”, ends up as “the battery acid is a little caustic, but it really brightens up your teeth”. I taught in English, that most of the women understood, with additional clarifications in Mon. The BGET boys taught in Thai, which was translated wholesale into Mon. The entire training was one long, love-fest of good feelings, frequently punctuated by gales of laughter. This is the way the Mon people like to have their interpersonal relations.  I want to cry when I think that there is very large group of well-armed thugs, just over the border, who have a stated policy of repression and genocide against such sweet people.
The Mon are one of the original peoples of South East Asia, pre-dating the arrival of the majority Burmans. The Mon brought Theravada Buddhism, which is now the predominant religion in all of the SE Asian countries. They are physically slight, extremely handsome in a refined, delicate way. The Mon  are originally a lowland culture, like the Thai, in contrast to the other ethnic minorities in Burma, like the Karen, Karenni, Kachin and Chin, who have traditionally lived the mountains, since their arrival from points north.  Mon language is written in a script that has since been adopted and adapted by the Burmese language. In short, Mon culture is very ancient and sophisticated, originally dominating most of present day Burma, yet today, it  is fighting a rear guard action, just to preserve its language. Like the Karen, the Mon have an armed resistance against the SPDC. But also, like the Karen, they are riven by factional splits, that the SPDC exploits and which reduce  their effective fighting force.
The MWO have branch office in Sangkla, where I am staying, which  is  a base for education and communications. Teams of Mon youth come here to do courses in English, Journalism and Democratic Rights among other subjects.   It was very inspiring to hear her talk the politicization of the Mon youth, and their optimism for a positive democratic future.  When they cross the border back into Burma, they have to be careful not to carry any incriminating papers, as they will be searched by the  border guards. Like Leo Ferre, the French poet said in the 70s, “Rien dans la main, rien dans la poche, tout dans la tranche!” There’s nothing in my hand, nothing in my pocket, it’s all in my mind! (Where you can’t get at it!)
There are many Mon people in Sangklaburi, some were born here and have Thai papers and full rights. Many others were born in Burma and have almost no rights, they are “unrecognized refugees”.  In contrast, the Mon in Sangklaburi, do not fear arrest, but they cannot leave the immediate district without a travel document, even to go to the regional capital, 2 hours away by bus. The document contains the destination address, the number in the party and the hour of expiration. The Mon Women’s Organization and similar groups are tolerated in Thailand as long as they do not agitate, hold demonstrations or publish subversive material. The Mon are not trapped in a camp like Mae La, but they are exploited, forced to accept low wages and they cannot own a house, a car or get a driver’s license, not even a business license.
Sangklaburi is quite a contrast to our beloved Mae Sot, being much smaller and  located on a gorgeous lake in a much more tropical zone. The lake is man made, formed by a hydro-electric dam, commissioned by the King about twenty years ago. Despite that, it looks very natural and  provides food and  long-tail boat transportation for the local community. The town is spread out and only has one wide main street, whereas other streets run down  peninsular ridges that drop into the lake.  There is a Mon side and a Thai side, connected by a modern road bridge and also, the longest wooden bridge in Thailand. The road virtually ends here, but Three Pagoda Pass, a border crossing point to Burma, is just 10kms away. The pass was held jointly by the Mon and Karen rebel armies until 1990, when it was over-run by Burmese forces. Like Mae Sot, Sangkla, has it’s share of political intrigue, spies and the occasional murder, but it’s not the  growth industry that it is in the gritty old border queen! 
The area is surrounded by jagged, forested mountains that march off  into the distance, in ridges of subtly lighter and lighter hues. It’s picture perfect. All the more poignant, given the mind-bending situation that the Mon are in, when one considers that the Thai-Burma Railway, built by the Japanese using  Allied and Burmese slave labor, ran through Kanchanaburi, the regional capital about 100kms away. This area, gorgeous as it is, has been contested since the days of the Mon/Burman empires, and before. As always, the ordinary person, who just wants to raise their family and live a peaceful life, is caught in the middle and ends up paying the highest price.
I hope to come back here next year, but I’ll have to get used the humidity, which is a good deal higher than in Mae Sot. As I write, there’s a tropical storm just above, trying to decide whether to drop it on us, or move on and plaster somewhere else. But that’s why it’s so green, isn’t it?

​Due to the sensitive nature of the second epistle, I am not publishing it here. Please email us from the Contact Page and we will send you a copy.

Bicycles and motorbikes are everywhere and some motorbikes have 4 riders and two of the riders are talking on mobile phones! One of my daily joys is observing the rich mix of people here. Many men and women wearing longyis, the Burmese sarong. A large number of Muslim folk, the men wear kufias, the small pill-box hat, some young girls wear a headscarf. The Chinese trader who has his shop in one of the old wooden buildings and  his house is up above. His daughter goes to school with her arm around her best pal, a Muslim girl. The kids are well-loved. The Indian gem trader, born in Rangoon, haggling with the rich Thai woman from Bangkok. He speaks good English and tries to hustle me into a gem purchase, again and again, but it’s all good-natured banter.

I eat every meal in a different restaurant, trying to remember where the best ones are. Memorable meals so far have included Tea-leaf salad, banana-leaf salad, spicy pork salad, (was warm and included squid, shrimp, glass noodles and lots of lemon-grass and other very aromatic herbs), Bamboo curry and roti ( more like Indian puri, done in oil). Almost all the food is spicy hot, just the way I like it, but there’s a delicate sweetness too. The cost is very reasonable from a 66 cent Pad Thai to a $2 Burmese curry in a place catering to Westerners. The market street is of course a source of great sensual stimulation. Walking through the crowded alley, one can’t fail to notice the buckets of eels, the live frogs tied together with an elastic band, fresh water turtles  and the caged sparrows, all due to end up on somebody’s plate before the day is out.

There are quite few Westerners here, mainly working for NGOs. Apparently, the foreign community is divided by salary level and mode of transportation. Some big aid organizations are well dug in, sending back shocking reports about the plight of the Burmese refugees and getting large donations, much of which goes to pay for their tinted-window SUV, their servants in the big house and junkets to conferences where yet more reports are generated. The rest of us, who volunteer our time for free, ride about earnestly on funky Chinese bicycles and have to buy our own mosquito nets!

The plight of the Karen refugees in the camps is indeed heart-breaking. They are displaced and stateless. The Thai government lets them stay in the camps, but won’t let them leave or give them Thai papers or provide any assistance. That’s where the NGOs come in. But I have had it explained to me that the camp situation is about a lot of money and personnel concentrated on a relatively small population, maybe 150,00, yet not achieving great things. However, just across the border inside Burma, the need is huge and almost unaddressed. I have decided to concentrate on cross-border work. On March 17th we will do a training at a new clinic, serving around 400 internally displaced people. We will install a very small PV system, but even 2 fluorescent lights, a plug to charge a laptop  and batteries for flashlights and the crucial malaria microscope is a huge step forward.

In BGET, the Border Green Energy Team, I work with Salinee, the Director, Muang, the office manager, who are both Thai, and Thai, Sunti and Em, who are all solar technicians and are Thai Karen, born in the camps or nearby. (I realize there are a lot of Thais in that sentence,  but one of our techs really is called Thai). Plus there’s Jennifer, who is from the US. They are all in their twenties and have much fun together. Muang likes to listen to Thai and American bubblegum pop songs all day, and sing along with them. I’ve only been in the office a week and now I can just about sing along with them too! Tomorrow I will start 1 hr a day Thai language with Muang. To keep it serious, she’s charging me $3 an hour. You can see photos of everybody by going to www.bget.org and clicking on About Us, then Staff.  Right now my work centers around preparations for the two trainings I will do – customizing the training manuals, deciding who will teach what, checking that all the equipment works and communicating with the leaders of the groups we are training. I am also training our technicians, giving them a more in depth understanding of PV and batteries. They are very receptive and appreciative. An old, experienced codger like me gets a lot of respect in Thailand!

I feel very healthy. The weather is great. Since Mae Sot is in the hills  it is cooler than Chiang Mai was. The mornings and evenings are perfect for cycling, though it gets a wee bit clammy in the late afternoon. I’m eating so much, it’s just as well I have to cycle everywhere! Right now it’s the end of the cool season and soon the hot season will begin. We’ll see if I’m still loving the weather in April, when it really gets toasty!
But Mae Sot is a deceptive little town. After the daylight hours of tranquility and harmony, there lies an underbelly of crime, exploitation and political intrigue. I know this from reading “Restless Souls” by Phil Thornton and having his information confirmed by long-time residents.

Yesterday, Feb 29th, was a special day. The BGET team revisited the refugee camp at Mae La. It’s about an hour north of Mae Sot and is the largest of the several camps up and down the border, with a population of 60-70,000. It was established in 1990 and is mainly populated by Karen. The Karen are a unique people. They had a creation myth that said that their younger white brother would come back some day, returning to them their long lost book. Well, when the American Baptist missionaries arrived here in the late 1800s, many of the Karen converted to Christianity. Now 40% are Christian, the remainder being Buddhist and Animist. The whole 6 hours we were in the camp, I could hear Christian songs being sung to guitar accompaniment. The conditions in the camp are crowded, the buildings are often makeshift and the level of poverty is palpable. Most people will not be resettled to 3rd countries, and will remain there till the Thai government’s policy changes. But what is striking is that the Karen have maintained their dignity and their cultural cohesion and do not exhibit the hopeless and desperation one might expect. On the contrary, they are focused on the future and education plays a large part in the camp. I wandered into High School #2 and spoke to the headmaster. There are over 30,000 children in 16 Primary, 8 Middle and 10 High Schools established in Mae La in 1996. Classes include Bible, Karen, Thai, English and Burmese languages, History, Geography, Math and Science. There is vocational training too and I visited a rudimentary metal-working shop. There is a computer learning center that BGET installed the electrical power for. The system is a 1Kw PV array with diesel generator back-up. They have internet connection and mobile phones work there too. We were there this time to do a presentation to the students in the Engineering Studies Program on a Micro Hydro system that BGET had installed at another location, with the assistance of 7 of the ESP students. It’s difficult to get permission for camp residents to leave, but in this case it was obtained. So, the BGET team and the 7 participating students did a PowerPoint presentation in English and Karen, to about 20 other students and the Director of the ESP. English language skills are pretty strong in the camp. We were treated to an elaborate lunch of fish soup, cabbage salad, chicken and sweet and sour soup. It was humbling to be so feted by people who have so little. The ESP students are about 17-25 years old and seem a cohesive group with great camaraderie and constant joking and laughter. The Karen are obviously an extremely resourceful and enduring people. I just hope they can get back to their homeland, Karen State, just over the border, called Kawthoolei, in Karen language.

And then there is Oscar. He walked into BGET office looking like the Kung Fu master of ‘Little Grasshopper’ fame, who had been given the clothes that were left after Woodstock went home. He is 65, born Karen in Burma, but resettled in the US in 1968, by his father’s employer, a Scot. His education was old school British and he can recite long passages from Walter Scott’s ‘Lochinvar’ and Shakespeare’s ‘As you like it’. After 40 years in the US, trained as structural engineer, he has returned to help his people and rediscover his roots. He’s a gas, and I’m sure he will appear in future epistles from the border.