Teaching OT in faraway places

It is a simple story, simply told. There is no bloodshed, little horrific violence (and that only mentioned quietly and simply), yet it is powerful. It is told by someone called “May” she seems to suffer from bi-polar disorder (if I understood my quick glance at the rest of her blog rightly) and she tells Thay Htoo’s story, with empathy. Read it. The saddest thing is that it is not really an unusual story.

I came across a fascinating blog today, G Walker is an American spending the summer working with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in the Mae La camp over the (Northern) summer. He seems to be a jurist of some sort, and provides a nice short summary of how the camp is run.

He also has a fascinating post on the project he will be involved with to introduce a wider range of punishments into the camp justice system, in particular a “restorative” community service component for minor offences and young offenders.

These posts are really interesting both for the information they contain about the official workings of the camp, but also to listen to an idealistic American specialist as he engages with people whose life, culture and experiences are so different from his. To me the reading is made more interesting, if also somewhat frustrating by not knowing anything about who G Walker is, all I know of “him” (and the gender and nationality I have assigned are guesses!) is what I read in the
blog he started on May 22nd after arriving in Bangkok!

A statement from the TBBC (Thailand Burma Border Consortium - the organisation that runs the camps) dated the 7th says:

The refugee camps haven’t been directly affected by the cyclone and the damages are minor. TBBC have had reports on a few houses washed away in Mae La camp due to heavy rain. Although Mon and Karen States were declared as disaster areas by SPDC, initial reports from our partners suggest that there have been no significant problems in the conflict areas. This is however subject to confirmation as no reports have yet been received from one or two vulnerable areas.

If you are concerned about the rising cost of your grocery bills, spare a thought for the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, the charity consortium that runs the refugee camps full of ethnic minorities fleeing genocide in Burma (the military who took control of that country in 1962 call it Myanmar), their annual food bill has risen from US $16 million to 23.5 million since January! What that means is (unless donors can stump up the difference - and $1.2million has been pledged so far by the Netherlands and Ireland) that refugees “food baskets” will be cut, again.

Here are some interesting “Reflections from Mae La refugee camp on the Thailand-Burma border” from June last year that I had not spotted before. Among the bits I would draw your attention to are these:

Over the past 10 years, Burma’s army has destroyed more than 3,000 villages. Forced labor, rape, torture, and summary executions are among the humanitarian atrocities perpetrated by the regime against civilians. As a result, an estimated 500,000 ethnic civilians currently are internally displaced in eastern Burma, and there are believed to be more than 2.5 million Burmese, including migrant workers and refugees, in Thailand.

…

I believe resettlement is the appropriate option for some of the people in the camps. But third-country resettlement will not “clear out” the camps or end the atrocities in Burma. The military regime continues to force tens of thousands more civilians into Thailand every year.

Therein lies the real tragedy of this situation: the failure of the world to stand up against one of the world’s most repressive regimes and most flagrant violators of human rights. Villages are burned, ethnicities are displaced, and innocent people are forced to run or be killed. Yet, how often do we hear about the situation there?

Here’s an article from this month’s NZ Baptist magazine.

Jasmine at work in the kitchen that supplied the visitors with delicious Karen food

A refugee camp seems an odd place for a spiritual retreat. Is a place where food is scarce, people are forbidden jobs, banned from travel, suffering the physical and mental scars of decades of strife against a brutal and unrestrained military dictatorship somewhere to refresh the soul?

It may not seem obvious, but that is what we did. We must admit, some aspects of life in Mae La are not conducive to spiritual renewal: The toilets double as “shower” rooms but have mud floors. We are not used to sleeping through noise, so band practice starting at 5AM, with choir finishing at 9:30PM, followed by chatting and even mobile phones till late into the night just through the partition next to our sleeping mat, left us tired!

Yet our four weeks in the Mae La camp were part of Tim’s sabbatical from teaching at Carey, and “leave of absence” from work as a family therapist for Barbara, and a Big(ger than usual) OE for Sarah (a University student). It is not as daft as it sounds, we learned in Africa that often people who have the least can teach the most about relating to God - Kiwi Christians often look embarrassed giving thanks for a restaurant meal, African Christians will naturally pray over a glass of cool clear water.

Pastor Dr Simon Htoo principal of KKBBSC at the Jubilee. Pastor Simon was the second ever winner of the BWA Human Rights Award after President Jimmy Carter.

Karen refugees certainly don’t have much: a roof over their heads - usually made of leaves since “permanent” materials like corrugated iron are forbidden, some food - because refugees can’t work officially, rice and some fish-paste is provided for each registered refugee family (naturally it’s shared with those who are not yet registered), and safety in Thailand - the army of the Myanmar Government won’t burn their homes down or “recruit” their young men as porters and work them to death here… but they do have faith, hope and love.

Many Karen are Baptists, and have been for nearly 200 years, Christianity is deep-rooted here. We visited a village of IDPs (Internally Displaced People) whose village was burned following an army raid. They had rebuilt not only homes, and a temporary church, but a school that attracts children from villages in Burma and from the refugee camps - all with no help from any government, and only a bit of help from NGOs: one charity gave materials for permanent classrooms another feeds the children with rice everyday, vegetables and fish-paste twice weekly, and meat once a month. We were at the village to celebrate their new permanent church building, with tiles and a bright blue roof. The singing lasted hours, as you can imagine it was a time of great joy.

We went to Mae La to teach (Tim - Old Testament Narratives, Barbara - Human Development, Sarah - English) and to share in the jubilee. The Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Bible School & College was founded 25 years ago in Burma, but 18 years ago moved to Mae La, when the army burned down the school and the village around it. Today, some students were born as refugees, but others have crossed the border recently and do not know the fate of the rest of their family.

The refugees we met are Christian and their faith is in Jesus (who else can a refugee trust?), their hope is in God (humans have tormented them and let them down - they used to hope that Westerners would help against the military dictators, but after years of waiting that hope is less strong now) and their love comes, not only from Karen tradition, but also from the Holy Spirit working in them.

After all, maybe a refugee camp is a good place for spiritual renewal! There’s a popular quote about tourists leaving only footprints and taking only photos. It makes some sense, but it misses the real point of travel. When you go elsewhere and live among a different people you are changed. If you are not then you have failed to really be there no matter how long you stayed!

So, when we visited the refugee camp at Mae La though we went as teachers it was inevitable we’d learn more than we could teach.

For more information:

Karen Konnection an American Baptist site,

Christians Concerned for Burma [warning some pictures are gruesome],

There is a new blog Timelight @ Mae La - Weblog that is being filled with photos from the camp. This page We are the People! We are the Pigs ! is a very good introduction to Mae La. Though the pigpen looked smarter than most that I saw!

I hope they won’t mind if I reproduce one photo with its caption (the idea is to show you how good they are and encourage you to follow the blog as it develops!).

We also prayed for all the people in Burma to become free.