Spring Break Border Sweep
A Brief Summary of Recent Events in My Life

The streets and markets are all but emptied of hand-holding powder-wearing women, the Osama Bin Laden t-shirts are fewer and farther between, and the samossa shop doesn't have as many customers. While my Burmese friends waited out this week of heightened security in a nearby refugee camp, I've been enjoying my unexpected spring break, getting to know some other foreigners in town, educating myself on the situation here, and generally chilling out. Things are beginning to get back to normal. Here are some updates of a fairly random nature:


Sources say about 6,000 illagal Burmese refugees have crossed back into Burma. Work permit procedures should change soon so that only the Burmese government can issue permits.


On St. Patrick's Day, not knowing it was St. Patrick's Day, I encountered a party in the middle of the street on the way home from the local reservoir. I mean it blocked off the street. Try as I might to get around the commotion, two other falong and I were sucked into the fray and handed glasses of cold beer. I tried my best to communicate with the drunk middle aged Thai women who were hitting on me, but to little avail. Various women had been hooting at me all afternoon, mostly because they thought I was crazy for taking my shirt off to get some sun. (Thai and other local Asian folk bundle up when it's hot--they don't want to darken their chemically bleached skin).

Thirst quenched, we hit the road again and I peddled the six kilometers back to the office to sozzle off the nast of a reservoir filled with discarded batteries and other scarey things.


Thailand is in the middle of one of its increasingly severe dry seasons. Elders say it's never been this bad. Waterfalls that used to flow all year are now dry. Farmers can't irrigate their rice crops. The mid-afternoon temperature peaks at about 39 degrees Celcius (102 Fahrenheit).


St. Patrick's day night (Wednesday) I called the three people camped out at my organization to see if everything was ok. No police, no ominous signs. I got the "all clear." Looks like this sweep was aimed mainly at migrant workers.

I moved back into my home that very night. Before I left my other office, I stole a shrivelled orchid to add to our garden at the house. I felt this was justified, seeing as no one at the office took the time to water it. (A month and a half ago, I uprooted a few spreading succulents from the city post office and planted them in our garden. The cacti--resembling "Hens and Chicks"--are doing quite well in their new home). Hopefully the orchid will revive too.


Yesterday I visited a million-dollar compound run by a group of Virginia Baptists. The disparity of their wealth bubble was striking. Plopped down in the midst of barren brown landscape full of shacks was a fenced-in manicured green lawn and a chateau full of imported American toilets. A more tempting reason to convert has never been better engineered. Ask the converts what Jesus taught and you're unlikely to get an answer, but they will be able to sing "Jesus loves me" by rote. On a related note, the migrant school on the same dirt road was nothing but a stand of decrepit buildings when we went by. Two months ago, it was up and running. The only thing inside now was an old chalkboard. The old students have had no choice but to convert.

After we left the compound, a man in aviator shades pulled up next to us on his motorbike and said in a very Virginian accent: "Three falang on a motorbike. You don't see that very often. Where y'all from?"

We told him we only owned one bike and that we were from the States. He claimed to be from Oklahoma and that he too was "just passing by, lookin' at the school." He was obviously from Virginia and obviously a Baptist.
I don't trust a man wearing aviator glasses. You can't see his eyes.


I've been doubling my efforts to find worthy local organizations to fund. The most needy cases I've so far found are: an orhpanage low on food whose headmaster has gone into personal debt to pay the rent, a clinic without enough bandages or malaria medicine, and an industrious man who teaches vocational-technical skills out of his home. All of these causes are in desperate need of funding are no one else I've found could put a strong foreign currency to use. Though I can't post the details online, email me to get more specific details. I have photos and other information at the ready. Remember that your currency will go ten times further in Thailand than at home.

More later. Peace out.