Back at CLC

Well, I'm back at CLC. My trip back from Mae Sot was uneventful. I managed to snag the front seat of the songtow to avoid seasickness, which was nice. I felt bad for the driver who was obviously used to having his passenger keep him amused for the six-hour trip. I was too tired to try and patch together a conversation made up of our 20-word shared vocabulary so I politely offered him some of my breakfast and then pointedly put on a pair of headphones.

About halfway between Mae Sot and Mae Sariang, there is a massive refugee camp. I am sorry that I don't have pictures, but my camera isn't working. It's huge, and every possible place is taken by makeshift houses with leaf roofs and bamboo floors. Some of the houses have walls, many don't even have that. This is the closest that I will get into a camp, as foreigners aren't allowed. This makes me angry-- if Thailand is ashamed of the camps, then they should fix them so that are are livable to the point where they can show them off to the press. Anyway, we picked up a man and two small kids (about 4 or 5 years old) and they were removed from the truck as we left the camp. As the man was led away with the two scared-looking kids, I noticed that he was missing a leg-- probably from stepping on a mine-- and was fitted with a prosthetic. Hopefully he was just returned to the camp, but I wanted badly to yell at the guard that took him away.

The police were very paranoid on the way up to Mae Sot-- every one of them took my passport and examined it. Perhaps this is because of the new law that would require them to wear a "Hello Kitty" armband if they break a minor law like overlooking a foreigner. On the way back they were calmer and only one asked for my passport-- of course, it could be that they were the same guards and they simple remembered me.

Back at CLC, very little had changed. No classes Thursday or Monday, which is fine with me because I am behind in my own classes. Friday was a speedbump between a day off and a long weekend and so one one really wanted to work. Monday is the Queen's birthday, and most Thais celebrate my treating it as a mother's day. So I had some of the classes make Mother's Day cards. This was a bit of a gamble as many of the poor kids either don't know who their mother it, or have a mother who is passed on or a refugee in another country. Some of the kids don't even know their parents names, and have no foster families to take a missing parent's place.