Mae Sot Day 2
Today we visited the refugee camp. It has been hard for me to complete this entry because it has been so hard for me to process what I have seen and experienced. I am concerned that I won’t be able to find the right words to convey all that I saw. I am afraid that the pictures I took look entirely too picturesque. The pictures certainly cannot tell the whole story.
As we are driving up the road to get to the camp we pass two different Thai security stations. As we come up to the camp which is on the left side of the road there is mountain in the back and the sun is gleaming off the brown leaf roofs. It looks so peaceful and beautiful. I was kind of shocked at the point because of the beauty. As we get closer to the camp so that we can really see inside the camp the picture starts to change. The mountain becomes a barrier in which encloses the camp. There is only one way to get out and that is the road we are on. The houses are very close together. There are some gardens but not a lot of electrically poles. We first go to one of the camp stores to get a little more background information on the camp.
There are approximately 40,000 Burmese refugees living in the camp. We will not go inside the camp because our group is too large to safely pass through. We can however, see the different areas. We can see the religious row where there is a Mosque, Temple and Christian church right next to each other. We go the main gate area where there are shops for the refugees. There is a smell to this area that is not pleasant.
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| Emma in front of the toilet. |
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| View into the camp near the main gate. That is the mountain in the background. |
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| Rooster hanging out in front of the shops at the main gate. |
The first time you experience a "refugee area" is one you never forget. You did not mention how they appear to be treated and how long thier stay at the camp is usually. Since you could not go in what other information were given in the brief?
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of NGOs working in the area. There also is a democratically elected leadership within the camp for security. Everything that we saw was okay. We were told that the hard part is that these refugees were farmers. Children born within the camps are not learning farming skills. There is an NGO who has set up a farming skills center across the street from the camp to teach those skills. There is also a school structure set up within the camps. The children learn three languages - Karen, Burmese and English. There is a huge push for education because of the opportunities that education opens up.
ReplyDeleteThere is also possibility of resettlement. Length in the camp depends. Sol Mort stated he was in the camp for 10 years. This particular camp has been in existence for about 25 years.