The Joys of Volunteering
Thailand
Some time ago, traveling in northwestern Thailand, I spent three weeks volunteering at a medical clinic on the Thai-Burma border. The clinic has contacts literally the length of Thailand’s border with Burma, and helps Burmese refugees living in the camps in Thailand, dispossessed Burmese who are refugees inside their own country, and even poor Thais, of whom there are a considerable number, who can’t afford hospital care.
But the clinic also does community development work: pre-natal clinics, nutrition education and some vocational training. Basically, if there’s a need or someone asking for help, a way is found to render assistance.
While I was there, they got a call from one of the refugee camps that an upstanding family man and member of one of the churches in that particular camp had been caught without a pass in Chiang Mai, arrested and transferred south to Mae Sariang, a city located about midway between Chiang Mai and Mae Sot, where the clinic is located. He was sent to Mae Sariang because that’s where he was supposed to be in the first place.
The caller said that Eh Kaw Taw, whom I quickly re-named “Ecuador,” because that’s the only way I could remember his name, was in imminent danger of being deported to Burma, where he would immediately be at risk of arrest for porterage or forced labor. In addition, his wife & three kids, back ‘home’ in the refugee camp, had been persuaded by somebody that life wasn’t nearly so difficult back home in Burma and they should pull up stakes and move back (thus proving the wisdom of the Thai policy of making life in the camps as close to intolerable as possible within the letter of international law so it would be easier to persuade refugees to leave the camps and take their chances with one of the worst violators of human rights on earth).
Somebody had to go up and spring this guy, and I was one of those chosen. We were three. Anne is a trained Physician’s Assistant, or PA, who speaks Karen, the language spoken by the guy we were to fetch. (The Karen are a large ethnic minority whose territory once included a large part of eastern Burma. They were also one of the last armed insurgent groups still resisting the Burmese junta – until they were largely defeated by superior arms and lack of interest on the part of the rest of the world.) Dr. Kate is an Australian doctor who volunteers in the clinic and does missionary work in the refugee camps. For a woman with a huge long list of professional certifications after her name, she does “helpless” better than anyone I’ve ever seen. I was along for the gray in my beard (age is more-or-less respected here) and any edge in the negotiations that my apparent age might give us. So we had the brash young American PA/linguist, the Australian missionary woman (who only needed the white gloves and floppy straw hat to complete her costume), and the old guy.
I can’t tell you how many miles it is from Mae Sot to Mae Sariang, but I do know that it’s six butt-busting hours in a song taew on a road that has definite possibilities for motion sickness. A song taew is a pickup truck with benches along the sides of the bed and a cap over the top. They start out full and pick people up and drop them off along the way. There’s plenty of opportunity for people to become close during the trip. There’s also plenty of fresh air since, while there is a roof, there are no sides to the cap. (Fortunately, it didn’t rain on our trip.) The crowding didn’t seem as bad as the stereotyped pictures I’ve seen of Latin or Indian buses, but I think it’s close.
The road goes through some spectacularly beautiful country. It’s mostly flat, or at least the road is, for the first hour or so out of Mae Sot. There are beautiful rolling hills leading up to the real mountains, with plenty of rice paddies and banana plantations and even occasional cornfields. Up to the point where the real mountains begin, the road is a good one, with a real center line and nice wide shoulders for pedestrians, motorbikes and farm equipment. There are spectacular views, and the air is surprisingly clear.
But when you get to the mountains, that changes dramatically, much like the canyon roads of central Utah’s valleys. The road is still paved, but it loses its shoulders and nice center line. The sides of the road get steeper, both up and down, and agricultural efforts become much less organized and obvious. From more or less regular-sized patches of rice or bananas, we’re faced with what looks like real honest-to-gosh jungle (except that they insist on calling it ‘forest’), and there’s a lot more hunting and gathering than tilling of the soil going on.
In the midst of all this mountain and jungle grandeur there are a number of refugee camps with a total population of something like 50,000 people, most of them Karen refugees from Burma. We made many stops to pick up and drop off people who probably had passes to leave their ‘home’ camp for specific destinations during a specific time period. Extremely colorful people. Example: we picked up one Karen woman maybe 4’6″ all wearing the most beautiful maroon outfit. Traditional dress. She had a pipe clenched in teeth already permanently stained red by years of chewing betel nut, a mild narcotic. She also clutched, in addition to her purchases of vegetables, a chicken, which was trying its best not to look scared.
The road continued to deteriorate as we climbed higher (deeper) into the mountains. Lots of water damage had reduced the road to about one fat lane, with some pretty steep exposures waiting to reward miscalculation. We saw no accidents or evidence of them, which must mean that our driver really did know what he was doing when he took both hands off the steering wheel on a steep descent so he could light his cigarette.
At regular intervals we’d see tall rough-woven bamboo baskets lined with banana leaves left beside the road. Our driver stopped beside one of them and honked his horn. About a dozen people materialized from the forest beside the road, each carrying one of these baskets, which our driver proceeded to lash to the rack on top of the cap. Charcoal in about 60-pound baskets. The driver bought them for about 20 baht each (about 75 cents) to take into Mae Sariang and sell for a profit. The Karen cut wood and bake it in the forest where it falls and pack it out to the road to sell for very little. So now we had a song taew with about 15 people and all their stuff, topped off with about a dozen baskets of charcoal on the roof. There wasn’t much weight on the front wheels by this point, but our driver was coping well.
By the fourth hour the scenery was really spectacular for those with the stomach for it. There were great views from the top of the tops of more mountains off to the east of us. Dappled with sun and cloud, they showed no trace of road or trail – though that doesn’t mean much because the forest swallowed up our own road almost as soon as we crossed a stretch of it.
On another part of the road, there were people out gathering bamboo shoots in the forest. I can’t really imagine being on foot in that jungle doing things like digging up bamboo shoots, especially since I saw a (gorgeous) green snake about 5′ long offer to take on the song taew and everyone in it when we disturbed its crossing of the road. Dr. Kate, ever the jolly one, told me that that kind of snake is responsible for a lot of amputations in Thailand because its venom destroys the area it’s injected into, causing permanent damage and excruciating pain. Thanks a lot, Doc, I’ll pass on that forest walk.
We did see a group of bamboo gatherers, though, who were using two elephants to carry their product to the roadside where the wholesalers could weigh and buy it. Depending on whom you talk to, working elephants are either the saddest or most bored looking of God’s creatures when they work. They define “plod.” I’ve seen them a couple times in the forest now, and they still excite me. (I’m considerably less excited by the out-of-work timber elephants that are used to beg with in places like Chiang Mai, but that’s another story.)
Well, this is taking rather longer to tell than I thought it would. I swear all these things happened on this trip, but I suppose I could get to the point a bit faster.
We were on a mission. We arrived in Mae Sariang weary to the bone and wishing we could wait until the next day, but we had things to do. We tried to go to the guest house of our choice, but were told that it was closed while the owner had some elective surgery done. Our only other alternative was a guest house that can only be described as a dump, but we took it. To save money, and to give ourselves moral support, we all elected to stay in what’s called a “dorm” – essentially a large room with lots of beds. It’s kind of like a bunch of friends (which we are) sharing a tent on a camping trip (and we were definitely camping).
After we dumped our stuff we went off to the prison to see a young friend of Anne’s. He was in on a weapons charge, having been caught with a gun when the house where he was staying was raided. (The Thai police periodically raid places where they know Burmese ‘illegals’ are staying, to look for people without passes and student army members. Anne’s friend was spending the night in the house and evidently got caught with someone else’s gun under his pillow.) He was jailed for two years, half of which he’d already served, and we wanted to look into the possibility of ‘arranging’ some kind of an early release for him. That turned out not to be possible, but we felt better for having tried.
Then we got down to business. We were directed to the local police station, where Ecuador (and about 50 other Burmese, including women and children) were being held. The three of us trooped into the station, where some of the policemen were so surprised to see us that they stopped watching TV and playing chess. Of course none of them spoke English, and we don’t have a dozen words of Thai among us, but we managed to convey the idea that we wished to inquire after the situation of one Eh Kaw Taw. This caused a flurry of excitement.
We were quickly joined by an apparent trustee, a Karen kid who speaks both Karen and Thai. He provided the link between us and the Thai policemen. (Let’s see: English<->Karen<->Thai) With his help we were quickly joined by Ecuador, and the negotiations began in earnest. We wished to purchase his release, we explained, because his wife and 3 darling children in the refugee camp missed him so greatly. He is their precious jewel and they need him to take care of them. (His offense wasn’t like the gun charge conviction, I learned. We could purchase his freedom by paying what it cost to keep him for the 26 days he’d already been in custody.)
The officer in charge said there’d be no problem with releasing him if we’d pay what the state was owed. Fine, we responded, let us know what the damages are and we’ll pay them and be on our way. Four thousand, five hundred baht, he replied with a smile. (That’s about US$128.)
Everyone on our team reacted with immediate consternation. Dr. Kate was particularly good. She was madly flipping through my Thai phrasebook looking for words she could use to claim abject poverty and inability to pay such a sum of money. “We are um, um, um, volunteers!” she managed to say, which is true. (We didn’t do outrage, because that causes everyone to lose face; poverty, on the other hand, is something that’s well understood around here.)
Our policeman said the Thai equivalent of “Well, let’s sharpen our pencil here and see what we can come up with.” He did just that, even using a calculator, and came up with the more acceptable total of 2780 baht, a not insignificant reduction.
Now, you may well ask yourself what use had been intended for that 2000 baht that we didn’t have to pay. Beats me. We did note, however, that our benefactor’s grouchy colleague tore a strip off him when he saw the final amount we were being allowed to pay. And it was the end of the month and we had noted a larger than usual number of road blocks and ad hoc check points between Mae Sot and Mae Sariang, which I was told were intended to encourage careless travelers (not foreigners, fortunately) to support their local constabulary. But none of us asked why we’d originally been asked for 4,500 baht but had it reduced to 2,780 when we protested. That would have been looking the gift horse in the mouth.
Having agreed on a price, we now had to complete the paperwork. Dr. Kate and I went to the courthouse to lay the money down, while Anne stayed glued to Ecuador’s side. Dr. Kate played her part so well, and I evidently looked so gray, that we were taken in an official police car to the courthouse. There it only took 65 people 20 minutes to take our money and give us a signed receipt, after which we were taken back to the police station.
But the fat lady still hadn’t sung. When we got back we were introduced to a police officer from the Immigration Police, who proudly told us he had been the arresting officer. (This naturally endeared him to us.) He told us Ecuador had to go with him to the immigration police station to do some more paperwork and be issued a new pass. He took us all there (we weren’t letting Ecuador out of our sight) in his flashy official pickup and we all waited while the paperwork was finished.
There were two more ploys before we were done. The first was when we had gone through all the hoops and paid all the money we’d agreed on. The immigration officer said something like, “Right. Now all we have to do is take him to Mae Som Lap refugee camp.” Dr. Kate acted like she had an attack of the vapours, Anne grabbed Ecuador’s arm like a leech, and I did my ‘darkly disapproving’ look. We did a number. What a team! “No! He must go back to his family. His family is in Mae Sot. He must go there!” (See, the camp they were going to take him to is smack on the border and very vulnerable to incursions by the Burmese army. It would be no big deal to forcibly repatriate Ecuador from there, leaving him prey to forced labor or porterage for the enemy.)
Well, we got that straightened out and then the cop said, “Okay, but you’re gonna have to walk back to your guest house; I can’t take you.” Dr. Kate did her helpless missionary schtick again, and before long we were safely back at our dump.
One more event, and after that everything is dénoument. While we were at the jail we saw the cell where Ecuador had been held with about 45 other Burmese illegals. Floor space equated about twice the size of a corporate cubicle for all those men. No beds, no mats. There was another, smaller cell with two women and three children. It wasn’t the Black Hole of Calcutta; I’ve seen worse conditions, both for crowding and for cleanliness. But it was still pretty bad. Inmates were fed, after a fashion, but they were given nothing beyond absolutely basic nutrition. We asked Ecuador what he wanted to do first, thinking he’d really appreciate a shower. Turns out he hadn’t brushed his teeth in 26 days. What do you think he wanted to do?
So we went shopping for soap, toothpaste, and toothbrushes for 50 people. Dr. Kate and I went out and grabbed all the stuff we needed and marched up to the police department and asked to see the Burmese prisoners. The police, pretty much in the middle of feeding, allowed us to hand stuff through the bars to the men. Our trustee friend made sure that everyone only took one of each thing. (Not much worry there, as Karens tend to share and take care of their own.) In a cell beside the men there were the two women and three kids – little kids. I had to wonder what dastardly crime those kids had committed to get tossed in the slammer like that.
Well, our job was done. We went back to the guest house, where our friend had showered and brushed his teeth. We got him a bed for the night and all retired early. The next morning we attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate the bag that Ecuador had been carrying when he was arrested. We gave up that search and were all on the bus for Mae Sot by 11:00 A.M. Another long, painful 6-hour bus ride later, we were back in Mae Sot trying to settle our stomachs.
The people I associated with on this trip were doing a lot of good work at great personal and professional expense. I was proud to be associated with them and I have felt a great sense of loss since leaving them and people like them.
