Free at Last
Everything is negotiable here. There are no steady rules. They change on a whim. I'm a little worried that my fixer isn't going to fix anything for me. His only job before we met was to secure transportation from Bangkok to Mae Sot and lodging. He did neither. His only plan to get me in the camps is to talk his way in. He has no contacts. I think he talked himself into a job that he can't handle. Crap! Well he at least speaks Thai so he will work as an over priced translator till I can figure out what to do next. I am now paying 100 baht extra per person for the bus because the only ones left are V.I.P. The trip is around 8 hours and we are about 2/3 of the way through it and we stop at what I assume is a station to let people off. All of a sudden almost everyone starts piling off the bus so I pack up my things thinking we have arrived and head off the bus. As I descend the stairs, the steward lady starts yelling at me, "No. No. No. You stay. You go back on." So I schlemp my crap back up the stairs and sit back down a bit confused. My inept fixer comes down afterwards and tells me that all those people who got off the bus are Burmese and illegal and have been taken off at a border check point. Well now there's a shot right. Nope. We are driving away as he is telling me this. Too late. Can I fire him before we even get there. I'm thinking about it. He's not cheap. He should be better than this. Grrrrrrr.....Well, I guess we can sleep easy now that we are free of Burmese illegals. We set off into the sunrise towards Mae Sot- 90% empty.
posted by Stacie F. at
5:39 AM
1 Comments:
Since your on your way there, or near there, I did a wikipedia search on Mae Sot. Heres a useful posting for you:
Dr. Cynthia Maung (born 6 December 1959) is a Karen medical doctor who since 1989 has lived in Mae Sot, on the Thai-Burmese border. She left Burma (now Myanmar) after the 8888 Uprising and has since run a clinic treating Burmese refugees, migrants and orphans at Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese border, together with 100 paramedics and teachers.
She received Southeast Asia’s Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership and she was listed as one of 2003 Time Magazine’s Asian Heroes. Altogether she has received six international awards for her work. In 1999, she was the first recipient of the Jonathan Mann Award, sponsored by US and Swiss health organizations.
Burmese refugees
Dr Cythnia's clinic is located just outside Mae Sot, towards the Burmese border, serving a substantial local population of Burmese refugees. There is a substantial underground and volunteer economy in Mae Sot due to large number of Burmese people who come here seeking safety from their own military government, or employment. A large number of westerners come here, and to nearby refugee camps and Dr Cynthia's clinic to work with Burmese exiles.
Good Luck.
By
Brian Morowczynski, At
October 8, 2007 at 5:53 AM
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