2010 Elections in Burma? Eh, not exactly...

As you read this, you should know a friend of mine who lived in Rangoon before moving to Mae Sot told me that when he went to 'vote' on the constitution in 2008, armed soldiers followed him into the polling booth and watched him fill out his ballot. Kinda makes you not really want to go back to the polls, huh? It gets more disgusting the more you know, but we'll start with this for now. It's only Tuesday. And if you're wondering if this election nonsense affects the ethnic health care systems? The short answer is... yes.

(and nevermind the little flowers - they were bullet points in the original document)

OFFICE OF THE SUPREME HEADQUARTERS
KAREN NATIONAL UNION
KAWTHOOLEI

Karen National Union Statement on 2010 Elections

April 26, 2009

1. Defying the requests of the United Nations and democratic forces in Burma, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) is pushing ahead with elections in 2010.

2. Internal repression is at an all time high.

• Burmese Army attacks against ethnic civilians continue.
• There are more political prisoners than at any time for 20 years.
• All media is censored.
• There is no right of freedom of assembly.
• There is no right of freedom of speech.
• Political parties cannot be formed without permission from the SPDC.
• Existing political parties supporting human rights and democracy are severely restricted, and members who are not in jail face regular harassment.
• Other political parties, especially ethnic political parties, such as the Karen National Union, are banned.
• Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest.
• There is no election law.

In these circumstances, it is impossible for elections to be free and fair.

3. Even if free and fair elections could be held, the elections would not bring about any change in Burma. This is because the constitution enshrines military rule into the law governing Burma.

4. The principles of the constitution were written by delegates that were not representative of the people of Burma, and were instead hand-picked by the SPDC. During the process, the SPDC drafted every word, and rejected every proposal for change.

5. The constitution was approved by a rigged referendum. Aside from any “vote no” campaign being banned, abuses included denying aid to our Karen people in the Delta after cyclone Nargis, unless they agreed to vote “yes”, forcing people to sign the forms without voting, and forcing people to vote “yes” against their will.

6. The constitution would go against all democratic norms, including:

• The Head of State must be from the military
• The Army is not answerable to the government or Parliament.
• The Army has veto power over all laws passed by the Parliament.
• No basic rights are guaranteed by the constitution.
• All existing repressive laws will remain in place. There will be no freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly, no free media, and no open democratic debate. No prisoners will be released.

7. The constitution grants no ethnic rights, no autonomy, and provides no protection or promotion of Burma’s many cultures, including Karen culture.

8. It is incorrect to state this could be a step on a path to reform. No change of the constitution can be made without 75 percent approval of parliament. As the SPDC will have a minimum of 25 percent of seats in Parliament, they can block any reform. Even if Parliament did vote for change, the army can veto the change on grounds of national security.

9. There will be no democratic space opened up by having a Parliament. The military parties and their allies will dominate the Parliament, and the military parties will decide the agenda of the Parliament. Media remains censored so there will not be any open political debate in media. Those naive enough to argue that there will be political space in the Parliament should look at the National Convention, which will no doubt be used as model by the SPDC. At the National Convention no free debate or discussion was allowed. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma described the delegates as being under virtual house arrest. Delegates were even told what to eat, and when to take a bath.

10. Regardless of the Parliament, the civil service and economy of Burma has been militarised. Military personnel, their families, or their allies, control the ministries and all key sectors of the economy. They are responsible for the day to day running of the country, and there will be no change in this sphere.

11. Attacks against ethnic people will continue. There is no reason to think that the current military attacks against ethnic people in Eastern Burma, which the United Nations has described as breaking the Geneva Conventions, will end.

12. It is clear that the elections and constitution will not bring about peace, democracy, human rights and stability to Burma. Rather, oppression will continue.

13. In fact, by not addressing demands for freedom, democracy, or granting any ethnic rights, resistance will continue, destabilising the country as long as dictatorship, in whatever guise, exists. Further, the failure to grant any ethnic rights, and pressure on some ethnic ceasefire organisations to disarm, could lead to division within them, and some may split or return to armed struggle.

14. Only true democracy, basic human rights, including equality for ethnic people, will bring peace and stability to Burma. We therefore call on the international community to work for these goals, rather than accept the fraud being perpetrated by the SPDC.

15. We are disappointed that Gambari appears to have endorsed the SPDC’s 2010 elections and constitution, even offering UN assistance with the organisation and monitoring of the elections. He is advocating a path promoted by the regime, rather than acting as an impartial facilitator for tri-partite dialogue, which is his mandate.

16. We call on SPDC to follow the demands of the United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Security Council, European Union, USA, and others and engage in genuine tripartite dialogue leading to genuine change in our country.

17. We call on governments around the world not to endorse the 2010 elections and instead redouble efforts to persuade the SPDC to enter into genuine tri-partite dialogue.

18. The Karen National Union is a democratic organisation, committed to human rights and democracy in Burma. We are working for a peaceful, stable, federal Burma. We stand ready to enter into genuine tripartite dialogue, as facilitated by the United Nations, at any time.


The Executive Committee
Karen National Union

Laos - Lao Language

Laos is really funny. Lao and Thai languages are similar - but not the same. But Lao people seem to believe and therefore tried to convince me that they are, in fact, the same langauge. My friend Jeff believes this is because they are exposed to so much Thai TV, books, and music, they hear it as the same language, without thinking about it too much. But, when they speak or write, they don't use Thai, they just use Lao.

Therefore, you speak Thai to them, they understand, but they respond to you in Lao, which you don't understand. When you say you don't understand, they tell you it's the same language. Then you say, "Well, they're close, but they're not really the same because some things are not the same" and then you get strange looks, then laughed at.

Then they ask something if you are in Laos with any 'moo' which you only recognize as the word pork or pig in Thai but with a rising tone. So you ask if they said 'moo' with a rising tone and get laughed at again. "No, not moo (rising tone) - moo (high tone)! Ha ha ha! You said 'pork!'"

Then another person chimes in to say that 'moo' with a high tone is the same as 'peuan' which is the Thai word for friend which makes more sense (No, I'm not in Laos with any pigs, but I am here with some friends).

You confirm - 'moo' and 'peuan' have the same meaning. Then you get laughed at again as they respond with a sort of Lao "Duh!" They say, "You can say 'moo' or you can say 'peuan' - it doesn't matter, it's the same word. Thai, Laos - it's the same language"

I get that one has the option of saying either one, but from the people I talked to after that, not one person ever used the word 'peuan' - they only used the word 'moo'. This leads me to believe that 'peuan' is just the Thai word and 'moo' is just the Lao word and that's that. I mean - in America you could say 'amigo' and most likely everyone would understand you, but that doesn't mean that 'amigo' is English or that English and Spanish are the same language, right?

Things are feeling a little rocky, so to smooth things over, and to shut you up, they offer you some Lao whiskey. And you drink it. And then they ask, "So Lao and Thai are the same, right?" And you nod your head in agreement.

Laos - Life To Do List

I made some new German friends in Laos and they helped me check off two items from my Life To-Do List. Thanks guys!

1) I said "Gesundheit" to a German person!

2) I checked in at the airport and then with time to spare before boarding time, went back to town!

This was especially exhilarating because the tuk-tuk back to town broke down half-way. No worries! We got to town eventually. I enjoyed my last chicken/lettuce/cucumber/sweet chili baguette sandwich and my beloved banana-mango fruit shake. We then grabbed another tuk-tuk back to the airport, I kept my fingers crossed for no breakdowns, it worked and we arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare!

Laos

I take back everything I said about the cold season not being cold.

I'm in Laos right now and I'm FREEZING! I bought a hoodie but it's not very thick, and therefore not very warm. I haven't taken my hoodie or jacket off in three days. I didn't bring shoes, so I'm wearing my Mickey Mouse socks with flip flops and I'm not even the slightest bit embarrassed cause all the Lao girls and ladies are doing the exact same thing.

It is cold!

Burmese Mushroom Man

This is the Burmese word for 'mushroom'. It looks like a man. I like it.

Wash with soap and water (2x)

Even with the good Western food, air conditioned malls, movie theaters and motorbike rides through the mountains, the thing I love most about Chiang Mai right now is the toilet paper, western flush toilets and soap in the bathrooms. Even if it's not all three all the time, public bathrooms in Mae Sot are 0 for 3, so even 1 for 3 is a step up. And No Poe Refugee Camp, where I was for 8 days before coming to Chiang Mai, had one tap for every five houses so running water in the bathrooms or kitchen was kind of out of the question. Most washing areas had some sort of soap, but it was more likely to be dish washing soap or detergent than a bar of soap. And because the water to flush the toilet and the water to wash your hands after using the toilet are bucketed out of the same plastic garbage can, it's hard not to think about all of the cross-contamination.

Anyway, today, the training center where I'm taking my class, the coffee shop where I studied and did work, the Japanese restaurant where I ate dinner, and the house where I'm staying, all had/have all toilet paper, western flush toilets and soap! What a treat!

And in case you're wondering about my job, among other things, I take things like this and then work with Karen people to figure out how to get similar messages across to little children in Karen State. Over the month of October, we had two trainings. From those, about 10 songs about handwashing, diarrhea, dehydration and breastfeeding were written, at least half were recorded in a recording studio at No Poe Camp and at least one karaoke music video was made. It's going through some edits right now, but I'll get it up on Youtube as soon as I can.

The video below was the public premiere of our first hit, Thay Na Seu, from the training held at No Poe Camp. They gathered children, taught them the song, taught them the moves, then sang it with them while one guy played guitar. After the song, they asked all the children to wash their hands (with soap and running water at the tap) and then our people put cookies in the childrens' little clean hands. Yay public health! (And yay for hopefully having enough pictures and videos of little kids singing, dancing and washing their hands to keep the donors happy for the next 6 months!)

The lyrics go like this (I think):

Before you eat (2x)
Wash your hands (2x)
Wash with soap and water (2x)
Your hands are clean! (2x)

After going to the bathroom (2x)
Wash your hands (2x)
Wash with soap and water (2x)
Be healthy! (2x)

When someone has diarrhea (2x)
It spreads really easily (2x)
Wash with soap and water (2x)
Prevention! (2x)

Woo hoo!

The video below is the concert from our first training in Mae Sariang where it all began.




If you want to read more about these two last trainings, Sam, the other fellow, wrote a lot in her blog.

Here are her entries on the Mae Sariang and Noh Poe trainings. Lots of pretty pictures too!

93F degrees = Cold Season? Really?

No joke!

November is officially "Cold Season" here in Thailand. Some people even call it "Winter".

Right now, it's 93F/34C degrees outside.

Yes, nights do get colder (tonight will be 71F/22C). Sometimes I even wear an adorable scarf at night when I ride home on the motorbike, but I don't think anyone in Wisconsin would consider 71F cold.

Therefore, I would like to propose changing the name of the season to the "Colder at Night" season.

Thai people, any thoughts on this?

Mingalaba from Chiang Mai!

I'm in Chiang Mai now, taking a Burmese class John Okell, who is known as one of the world's experts on Burmese language and culture and even invented a Burmese font! Yes, this is a bit strange, because he's British, but he's studied and taught Burmese for years and years and years and years and he definitely knows what's up. So much so that the Lonely Planet uses his transliteration style! Woo hoo!

Here's what Burmese looks like. Nothing like Thai. All totally new. I copied this from a language site. I can't exactly read it yet - but I can sound out some of the syllables.

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

We're learning how to read and write and speak and listen which is awesome, but so far the coolest thing I've learned is that "Mingalaba", which most people know as "how people say 'hello' in Burma" isn't really that. It was adopted as a formal greeting between students and teachers in the 1930s as they were trying to move away from British-run colonial schools. The original, longer version means something like, "May this day be filled with auspiciousness" or something like that. Then, as Okell suspects, as Australian tourists started to show up, they asked, "How do you say, 'G'day' in Burmese?" No one really had a good answer, as people greet each other by asking, "How are you?", "Where are you going?", "Where have you been?" or "Have you eaten yet?" when they see their friend on the street.

But the Australians weren't satisfied with those answers, and so to give them something more concrete, people eventually said, "well, I guess in school we say Mingalaba" and it grew from there.

Now it's the official greeting for students teachers, and foreigners. It's standard in hotels and tourist restaurants, and people in cities will randomly say it to foreigners, expecting to hear the same in response. But two Burmese people would never say it to each other, with the possible exception of a Burmese person going into a hotel or tourist restaurant.

If you're not in a city and say "Mingalaba" in a rural area, it's likely you'll get strange looks as people try to figure out why you think you're a teacher greeting your students in the morning.

Weird, huh?

My transportation recently

A songtaew is a covered pick up truck with two benches (song = 2, taew = bench) in the back.
In some cities they act as buses, or communal taxis where people say where they want to go, the driver agrees or not, they agree on a price and then the person jumps in.
Songtaews are also the transportation that can get you to places that buses and mini buses don't go. For example, up and down the Thai/Burma border.

People can sit on the benches, on the floor between the benches, hang off the back, or sit on top with the luggage. At one point I counted 20 people either sitting in or hanging off the back with probably 8 to 10 more sitting on top. The songtaew goes maybe about 40mph, slower in the mountain parts where the road comes and goes. When it goes through a village it honks the entire time to let everyone know it's arrived. People then come running out and jump in or on and the driver continues through the village, honking, until we get back to the mountains, potholes and cows. To stop the bus you press a little buzzer and the drivers stops. It's extremely uncomfortable, really slow, and really loud, but it's cheap and it's the only option if you don't have a car.

October 14: 6 hour songtaew ride from Mae Sot to Mae Sariang (Should have been 5 hours, but the driver took the songtaew/passengers to do his errands and catch up with friends, so it took 6)

October 15 - 21: Mae Sariang Training

October 22: 5 hour songtaew ride from Mae Sariang to Mae Sot

October 25: 6 hour songtaew ride from Mae Sot to Nu Po Refugee Camp

October 26 - November 1: Nu Po Refugee Camp Training

November 2: 6 hour songtaew ride from Nu Po Refugee Camp to Mae Sot

November 4: 6 hour bus ride from Mae Sot to Chiang Mai for a 3 week Burmese course.
Air conditioning, full, comfortable seats that recline, a separate area for luggage, only 4 stops, a toilet on the bus, free water and snacks and possibly even a blanket? This is going to be luxury.

From the Thailand Burma Border Consortium - http://www.tbbc.org
(Thailand = gray, Burma = green)

Hazel!

My days usually consist of meetings at the local partner's office, meetings at our office, and meetings at someone else's office and none of these places have AC. So if I can find time when I don't have to be in meetings, I can come to Hazel, my favorite coffee shop, to get my work done.

Sure, there isn't much competition as it's the only place I know in Mae Sot that has a steady supply of air conditioning and wifi, but it's more than just that. There's a big, comfortable couch if you're feeling lazy, or tables and chairs if you feel like getting down to business. They make adorable designs for all of their hot drinks. They have a frequent drinker's card. And best of all, because foreigners seem to gravitate towards AC and wifi, there are always interesting meetings to eavesdrop on.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I heard someone in a group of Christian ladies say, "if you really need someone, you know god will provide someone," which I thought was kind of nice. As I listened longer (not my fault, we were all on the couch and they were talking really loudly), I realized the lady had been referring to her friend's search for a good housekeeper. Really? God provides housekeepers too? I had no idea. Anyway, because I don't work with or see native English speakers that much outside of my organization, it's really nice to just sit and listen to other people talk every once in a while.

Only downside: no toilets, have to walk to the other side of the parking lot to the semi-nasty squat toilets. Not the nastiest, but still not very fun. Thank goodness for hand sanitizer.

Pictures below: Mocha and White Chocolate Latte

Read this! (10/6 Edition)

This is why I work in Mae Sot, Thailand and not in Rangoon, Burma. (And why the Australian government is a little dumb.)

The Need for Border-based Aid

Picture below: a map drawn by one of the MCP (Malaria Control Program) medics showing where the clinic is, where the villages are (with 1 MCP Village Health Worker, hopefully!) and where the Burmese military (SPDC) is set up. Pretty much, neither transportation nor security are ever safe or easy even to the clinic, which is why we try to have someone trained in each village to help diagnose, treat, and education about malaria. (I deleted the names of the villages in case there's anyone from the SPDC trying to read my blog!)

Cows!!!

Today on my way to work I drove by 9 cows. This is pretty average.

On good days, I pass three albino water buffalo too.

(Picture below: My neighbor Bobby! For real!)

Mae Sot Thai Massage

I realize that I say this a lot, but, I'm going to try to go for short posts often, rather than long posts not often.

I start today.

---------

Today I finally got the 2-hour Thai massage at the government run massage place on the highway. I'd heard good things about it but it was always full whenever I've tried to go. This time they were closing, but a nice lady decided she would stay to give me a massage.

I thought the 2-hour massage would be like a 1-hour massage but doing each thing twice as long. I was totally wrong. There was a whole new set of twists and pulls that I had never done before!

2 hours, 180 baht ($5.38, 3.69Euros, 44.68 Quetzals).

I'm on a mission to find a place that smells nice, plays nice music and gives good massages. I have a feeling it's not going to happen in Mae Sot.

They scored super high on giving good massages.

The room didn't have any nice smells, but the clothing they gave me to put on smelled nice and the lady's hands/soap in the bathroom smelled nice too.

There was no music and the lady had the TV on playing horrible Thai sitcoms, so no points there.

Very good to know about, but I'm going to keep looking.

(Picture below: Not the place I went)

Mae Sariang, Thailand

Mae Sariang, a small border town about 5 hours north of Mae Sot.

My partner organization had its bi-annual six-day malaria control program training in Mae Sariang. My coworkers and I went along to train, help out, learn more about the program, meet the medics, make a lot of copies, etc etc... A little hectic, not much time for sleep, but a great time anyway. The pictures focus on the fun little parts of the training, but don't you worry, we had all the standard training type pictures too. They're just not as interesting.


First things first, we were given amazing Karen (but not spicy) food everyday for lunch. Along with a plateful of cucumbers! Heaven? Yes! Below: Karen pumpkin curry

We rented motorbikes and drove around the hills of Mae Sariang the first day. This was a good idea because the rest of the week was spent waking up early to get things copied and then staying up late revising forms so that they were ready to be brought to the copying place in the morning. Definitely no time for motorbiking. Below: Scenery from the ride to the training location, Our hike from the driveway to house we used for training, and my new shoes. The hike is way steeper than it looks and, unlike in this picture, it was usually really muddy. I bought new, $1 plastic rain shoes to battle the elements. This is a continuation of my quest to have the exact same wardrobe as the mahouts at ENP.

I watched a chicken jump in a window, walk across the keyboard of my laptop, and start heading up the steps of the house. I panicked and waved by arms, but the chicken didn't care. An old lady, however, came to rescue, by grabbing the chicken by the neck and throwing it back out the window. This is another chicken, who didn't try to walk on my computer.

Our training was long, intense and tough, but one of my co-workers kept it real by playing American club hip hop during the breaks. I took the role of trying to get the trainees, Karen jungle medics, to dance to it. It wasn't easy, and even though the success was small, it was worth it.

During some other breaks, my supervisor lead a couple of mini yoga sessions. They seemed to love it, even the medic with a prosthetic leg. In triangle pose - "Ok, now put your foot completely on the ground." "I can't! Ha ha ha!" Below: Yoga break and the trainee with a prosthetic leg. Super sweet guy, one of my faves, he also has a tattoo that says, in English, "I hate you but I love you." He speaks Karen and Thai, so I could actually talk with him, which was nice. Not so much verbal communication with most of the other trainees. The leg looks pretty good, huh?

I learned that the Macarena is a big hit in Karen State.

I learned a couple of Karen action songs. When we asked about one of them we were told it was about "killing Santa". We got really confused. We knew they were Christian, but we didn't know of a Christianity that was anti-Santa. We said, "Really? You're killing Santa? The happy, fat guy in red?" and the whole room nodded eagerly. It was weird. About 5 minutes later, someone finally realized the song was more likely about killing Satan, not Santa. They confirmed it. If you can find a Karen speaker and ask him or her to pronounce Satan, you'll see how eerily close it sounds to Santa. Someone really should have considered this before naming Santa, Santa.

We went to a creepy karaoke place which I had been assuming wasn't a creepy karaoke place because the girls working there were so unattractive. I was wrong and I'm sorry for judging. Apparently, no females are too unattractive, overweight, or old to work in a creepy karaoke place. The women there weren't creepy to us (2 co-workers, one girl, one guy and me, all American). People bought beer for us and requested songs they wanted to hear sung in English. Which was nice, kinda, but a little uncomfortable when we had never heard of the song (Westlife - My Love). I think we kind of rocked it, though.

The next night we tried another karaoke place, which didn't have girls working there, but did have a continuous slideshow of young Asian girls in lingerie as the background on the TV screen where you have to read the words from. This place also had Winnie the Pooh vinyl table clothes just to balance things out. Just like America...

For breakfast one day a co-worker and I went to Mae Sariang's morning market and ended up with a strangely Southern, yet very much Thai, breakfast. Below: Before (waffles, fried chicken, sticky rice and crispy roti, and soft roti) and After (lots of bags!)

The day I got back from Mae Sariang, I actually was able to meet up with some US Campaign for Burma people and go with them to Mae La Refugee Camp. It's the largest camp on the Thai/Burma border and there are somewhere between 40-50,000 refugees there. It was quite a feeling to see the actual place I had heard and read so much about. We walked around and went to an English class. In talking with the people there, they're mostly just really really bored. They come to English class because they finished high school and they're bored and it's something to do. Some want to move to America. One kid's dad calls from Fort Wayne, Indiana every night. He's waiting for paperwork to get finished so he can go there too. Some don't care for America, but want to work in Thailand or go back to Burma. A lot of the refugees I know in New York came from Mae La. I actually had the address, in Mae La Camp, of the son and daughter in law of a Burmese guy I used to meet for English conversation class at IRC in New York. It didn't work out this time because the camp is huge and we were in a completely different zone, but I think within a year, I'll be able to make it happen. Below: English Class Students (future business man in the hat, and future Fort Wayne, Indiana resident in the striped shirt), Huts, Karen Women's Weaving Project, Happy Little Kids and Not So Happy Little Kids.

This concludes the interesting events of the first two weeks of August!

Lots of learning and lots of mud!

8/3 - It's been a while...

A lot has happen since my last blog entry. Sorry about the weird picture sizes. The ones from my computer came out small and the ones from the internet came out huge. Don't know how to fix this.

For this entry, we = my 4 roommates/colleagues/friends + me.

• I bought a bicycle.


• We went to Trivia night at one of the two foreigner/NGO bars and one of the questions was a 3 note name-that-tune and I got the correct answer - Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer.

• We bought and ate a ton of cooked bugs at the weekend market.
It’s a classic, “I live in Thailand” photo-op.


• We found roti guy #1. Outside 7-11 #1. His roti was really oily, not served in a convenient way and he was kind of a jerk, adding egg and charging more when he knew we only ordered banana. (I was inside 7-11 and the other girls didn't know how to make him stop.) But his banana rotis are only 15 baht, so far the cheapest in town. (Banana roti = flatten flour dough ball soaked in butter into flat thin circle, drop in oil, add butter, add more butter, add sliced banana, fold dough around banana to make a square shape, flip over, add more butter, remove from oil, top generously with condensed milk and sugar.)


• We moved into a house. It’s got 4 bedrooms, fans installed on the walls, screens on the windows, hot water showers, one western style toilet that you flush by scooping water from a plastic garbage can into the toilet and one squat toilet in a permanently flooded second bathroom. (The architectural geniuses made the first bathroom drain into the second bathroom with no slant in the flooring of the second bathroom to drain the water out of it.) We have two spirit houses outside our house to keep us safe from ghosts. Our neighbors are cows. We rented it fully furnished, which was really exciting because most houses for rent in Mae Sot come unfurnished, which means you have to buy not only the furniture and TV, but the stove, the sink and the shower too. Here's our house, chairs, one of two spirit houses and our neighbor, Bobby.




• I bought a mosquito zapper racket and named it Mortimer and then rest of the roommates grew to love him instantly. I stole this picture from a blog about Africa, but our Mortimer looks exactly the same, right down to the orange and snazzy lighting bolt design.


• We realized my roommate’s bizarre sickness was actually Dengue Fever. (We think it's from the old guesthouse we were staying in, not from the new house.)

• We found roti guy #2 - Supernice guy. We first met him at the Saturday market, which is great, but only available once a week. Turned out his regular spot is kind of far away and he usually closes before our regular roti eating time. We set our clocks and made the trek one day. It was worth it, but after roti-eating you really have to walk around a bit. We were out walking around and when it started raining, supernice guy he moved our bicycles under a covering! And we thought he was supernice even before that! Yay supernice guy! Not too oily, served in an easy to eat fashion, 25 baht.

• Roommate recovered from Dengue.

• The same roommate’s bicycle got stolen while parked with all of the rest of our bikes at the weekend market. It was locked. Didn't seem to matter. We talked to the police (by way of me saying in Thaim "Five people, four bicycles. Before, five bicycles! One bicycle gone already because of someone - we don't know who!") They pretended to care, but most onlookers told us "It's probably in Myawaddi (Burma) by now."

• We found roti guy #3 - Disco roti guy. He’s near 7-11 #2 which is actually closer, but on the one way road in the opposite direction. He's open late and has flashing lights, disco balls and I think music too. Nice guy, lots of choices, nice packaging, 25B.

• I got the first wave of Dengue Fever - felt like total crap, massive headaches and pain, couldn't do anything but sleep, but didn't realize it was Dengue. I thought it was because I had stayed up late working on Joel's birthday present.

• I started looking for a website where I could watch episodes of 30 Rock for free online.

• I felt surpsingly better two days later and went to visit a new refugee camp about 2 hours north of Mae Sot. These people came from an IDP camp in Karen state. What this means is that they had already had to leave their villages after being attacked by the Burmese army. And now, for a second time, they were attacked and had no where left to go except across the river to Thailand. I got tons more to say about this if you're interested.



• The next day I woke up with a fever, in massive pain, with a really gross rash all over my body. I realized this was the second wave of Dengue Fever. (The picture doesn't do this rash justice - trust me.) I graciously accepted the painkillers/fever reducers leftover from my friend who had already had Dengue. (You get it from mosquitoes, not people, so it's not her fault.)



• Two days later, when I thought I was capable of sitting in a tuk tuk to get to the hospital, I went to Mae Sot General Hospital to get tested officially and stronger painkillers for my back which was still in a lot of pain and made me feel like I was 100 years old.

• During the check-in process I got super nauseous and dizzy and then half passed-out in the bathroom. When I got back to the waiting room my skin was pale, cold and clammy, and I put my head down on bench to try to stop the spinning. This must have triggered something with the nurses, because they came rushing over. I got to skip the waiting line and was wheel-chaired to a hospital bed. They told me my I was hypotension (low blood pressure) and then they gave me my first-ever IV drip! The first half hour of coming back to life and feeling human again was actually pretty cool. The four and half hours folloing that ended up just being really boring.

• A blood test confirmed that I had the non-deadly kind of Dengue Fever.



• I had to give a urine sample (not difficult) while being attached to an IV (more difficult) using a squat toilet (very difficult).

• I didn’t do it right and while I was in the bathroom my IV got reversed and filled with blood all the way into the bag. I didn’t have the fancy-schmancy rolling things. I just carried it and then put it on a hook in the bathroom. This is once people stopped freaking out and it was almost back to normal.


• Props to KR, who thought she was coming with me to get a blood test, some drugs and head home and instead ended up hanging out with me for the whole 5 hour ordeal. I paid for her noodle soup for dinner and somehow she got me to agree to cook lasagna for her, although she claims I agreed to it before the whole hospital thing.

• We saw a frog in our kitchen staring at the wall. He was in the exact same spot for several hours, so we figured he was most likely dead, but he was just so funny looking we decided to let him rest in peace, whatever his state was. His name was Leonardo. The next morning Leonardo was gone. We were happy he was alive and had found the strength to move on from whatever heartbreaking story led him to stare at the wall for so many hours.


• I recovered from Dengue Fever.

• We found roti guy #4 - Mohammad Ali. He didn’t make this up. He likes his name a lot and likes making the boxing gesture when introducing himself. He's right by our house, but not always open at night when we need him. The least oily, nice packaging, has an English menu, speaks some English, 25B.

• Leonardo showed up two nights later, in the exact same spot and angle. We tried to brainstorm why. I think he made plans for a hot froggy date and was waiting for his lady frog to show up and when she didn't show up he realized he probably got the date wrong and went home. And him coming back was him realizing he had written a 5 and not a 3. In the morning, he was gone again.

• I bought health insurance.

• I found a website from China that shows 30 Rock for free.

• Someone broke into our house while we were sleeping and stole a bunch of my roommate’s stuff. (Not the Dengue/bicycle roommate.) Really upsetting for my roommate whose stuff was stolen, and really scary and unsettling for everyone in the house. She's just in Mae Sot for a couple of weeks, so she's crashing in our living room. She was sleeping right next to the REALLY LOUD BROKEN SLIDING door that usually wakes the whole house up when it's opened. Somehow the person climbed over the gate, opened the door, climbed over her, took her stuff, climbed over her again, and then left (leaving the door open) without waking anyone up. Around 5 my bladder awakened me and me opening my bedroom door woke her up. I asked why the door was open. She said she sleepwalks so maybe she did it. We were both 1/2 asleep so we didn't even think twice about it. Then when she woke up for real a couple of hours later, we realized what had happened. Well, first she thought maybe she could have sleptwalked and moved her stuff somewhere, but after a thorough search of the entire house and ground with no results followed by someone noticing motorbike tracks in the mud leading up to the side of the gate, we realized she hadn't sleptwalked at all. Again we tried to talk to the police, who were happy to sit and listen and write some stuff down, but who were pretty much completely useless.

• On the upside, one officer took a blue wallet out his drawer and asked if we knew the American whose passport was inside and wanted to take it to give it to her. I said yes and I walked out with a new wallet and passport, with zero record being made of the transaction. I actually did know her and when I gave it back to her, she told me she had filed a report and called to follow up on it several times. When the officer handed it to me he said it had been sitting in the drawer about a month.

• Leonardo has been coming back every night to stare at the wall. He's always gone by the next morning. I'm now thinking he's actually a hired spy working for the guy who got into the house. Ok, not really, but only because Leo is in the kitchen, which 6 inches lower than the living room. Therefore, even Leo was using x-ray vision to see what's happening through the wall, he'd still only be able to see the concrete underneath our bedrooms.

• I got an official light blue polo shirt for one of my programs. This is exciting! To save money, they dated the shirts 2008- 2010. Nice work guys!

• As if banana roti itself wasn't not already the least healthy thing on the planet, we decided to try it with ice cream on top last night. Guess what... it was amazing. We're thinking of submitting it to http://thisiswhyyourefat.com.

• I bicycled past an begging elephant today. I’ve walked by and driven by elephants before, never bicycled. Although I don't like seeing elephants walking around streets begging for food, I decided bicycling by an elephant is my favorite way to pass one if I must. It gives you enough time to make real eye contact, but not too long that you think he might step on you.

• I stopped by a carnival tonight and saw Thai carnies. I thought I was real smart by not playing those games that look easy but are actually impossible. But then I paid 20 baht ($0.59, .41E, 4.79Quetzals) for the worst haunted house ever. I should have remembered that throwing things at other things is always fun, even if you don't win a gigantic stuffed animal and just used that 20 baht for the 'pop the balloons with darts' game.

• The soundtrack for a car racing game at the carnival was an actual car alarm. I can't even imagine how the lady who runs that deals.

• I'll finish with some pictures of Karen food. I don't know what the dishes are. What I do know is that Karen food is spicy, salty and uses a lot of fish paste and vegetables I've never seen before. Anyone who knows what any of this stuff is, feel free to chime in.




• Tomorrow I leave for Mae Sariang, where I'll be for the next week!

7/14 - Vive La France!

Happy Bastille Day!!!

In honor of Bastille Day, I decided to try to answer, "What am I doing here?" People ask me this a lot. Here's my answer. I'm tired, so it's long. Sorry it works out like that.

Pretty much, it's figuring out how to give people access to quality health care under the context of political instability. And then making it happen and then monitoring to see if it's working. Because there are so many rural areas with no clinics, this is usually done by way of community-based interventions. This means training people to train motivated lay-people to give simple and basic health education, diagnosis and treatment in areas where facility-based options may be a more than a week's walk away. There are several different programs each with a different structure. I work on the malaria control program (MCP) and the village health worker program (VHW) both with the Karen Department of Health and Welfare (KDHW).

MCP is one of the oldest and most established programs with about six years of really exciting data that shows that what's happening is really working. Simply put, since this program started, fewer people are dying of malaria. There are more treated nets, more education, more rapid tests for early diagnosis and more treatments being taken correctly. And because of all of these things, fewer people are dying. Awesome, huh? The VHW program is really new and a huge step in community-based interventions. It's using VHWs to branch out on a scale that has never been done before. To do this well, there's a tiered system. Level 1 focuses on gathering data about the villages, and having VHWs give information about diarrhea, dehydration, breastfeeding, proper hand washing (and installing hand washing facilities, as in a plastic bottle turned faucet), how to make ORS (oral rehydration salts) and also distributing zinc to households with children with diarrhea. These are simple, yet really important and really effective. The zinc, in addition to being really helpful to reduce the duration of diarrhea, also kind of helps builds street-cred in that he/she looks more like a medic if they have something to hand out. If data shows that the VHW was effective, and the village is ready (in terms of security, transportation, etc), then the VHW can become a Level 2 VHW, where they get training on how to educate about prevention, make diagnoses and give treatment for malaria and acute respiratory infections which are the two most common reasons for death of children under 5 (I think this is right, not 100% positive). With these VHWs, people who have never before received any health education can learn really basic skills to prevent and treat the diseases that are causing ridiculously high rates of morbidity and mortality in Eastern Burma.

Imagine there are 20 medics. Let's say each medic is generally responsible for a clinic that serves the 10 surrounding villages. That's about 120 villages who have access to health care. With the VHW program, a medic attends a training through KDHW, and then heads back to Burma and trains 20 VHWs from that area. That's 400 VHWs. At even just 3 villages per VHW, that's 1200 villages that have access to basic health care, including diagnosis and treatment for the most common illnesses. Also, with only a couple of villages per person, health education and prevention is actually feasible. Finally, the medic can now focus on the more complex cases that require more medical expertise. Cool, huh????

What do I do? As I said before, all of these programs are run by local health departments and organizations in Mae Sot that run things in Burma. For almost each program, there are bi-annual week-long meetings for supervisors and/or medics. The supervisors/medics hand over the data from the last 6 months, then talk about the good, bad and ugly from the previous 6 months, attend trainings on new and old protocol, including training-of-trainers, and finally receive more supplies (medicine, data forms, etc) to go back and distribute to the VHWs. The supervisors/medics then return to their areas, train their VHWs, send them on their way and keep tabs on them for the next 6 months.

Everything is run by the local groups. The programs are theirs, the implementation is theirs, the trainings that are held are theirs, the data collected is theirs. We serve as the 'technical assistance' for these programs. This means the we work directly with the coordinators of the programs in their office and we help get stuff done. Sometimes it's brainstorming new ideas for a new intervention or figuring out how to monitor the treatment of anti-malarial patients after an attack which has caused everyone to flee and relocate and sometimes it's double checking data and making photocopies. It changes day-to-day.

My days consist of a lot of meetings with people, with a little bit of time for me to do my part before my next meeting. Right now, I meet with my supervisors, people running similar programs within my organization, but mostly the local coordinators for the MCP and VHW programs. In the future, I'll start meeting with other people working on similar issues in other ways, outside of my organization. This week, people from my organization met with people from International Rescue Committee, Medecins San Frontier, Shokl Malaria Research Unit, Mae Tao Clinic and a ton of other groups in Mae Sot, and then even more groups through Skype conference calls. Very cool!

The founder/director came and spent the week of orientation with us. He's so cool, I didn't even realize he was the director until the second day. I thought it was just another person within the organization who happened to have the same first name. Oops. He's an ER doctor in LA who lived on a boat for a a bunch of years, who started this group over 10 years ago to 'fill the gaps' of the local health departments and organizations. (Get it?) It's definitely not about making a big name for ourselves. Most big groups, like IRC and USAID stamp their name on everything and everything they're associated with. We don't. The data, the papers, everything is owned by the local partners. In fact, we're probably one of the few NGOs in Mae Sot without a nice sponsored pick-up truck cruising around town. We keep a low profile and really exist to help the partners. There wasn't even an office until last year because most of the work is done at the local partners' offices.

As cliche as it sounds, our goal is to work ourselves out of a job. One common problem is that a big NGOs comes in, does the work for other groups (probably much quicker and more efficiently) but then something comes up, they leave, which often leaves the groups they were helping worse off than when they came and they have to either start from scratch or wait for another NGO to come and rescue them. My organization really focuses on capacity building so that we're not doing the work for them, we're helping them do the work. I know it sounds cliche, but it's a huge difference. Yesterday I spent about an hour helping the local coordinator type out a really simple email to order supplies from a pharmaceutical company in Bangkok. He had never done it before, and was nervous about typing in English and not putting in the correct information in the email. I could have had it sent in about 2 minutes, but the idea is that maybe next time an order needs to be made, he'll be able to do it in 30 minutes, then 15, then 8, then 4, then maybe 2.

This is what I do.

I help people who run programs which help the people inside the jungles of Eastern Burma live longer and healthier lives.

I like it.

Here are some articles if you're not bored of this topic yet -

Johns Hopkins Article

Malaria Control Program in Eastern Burma. (This is a program I work on!)

Access to Essential Maternal Health Interventions

More reports

Here is the outside of a restaurant with Thai, English and Burmese. The second picture is the Thai/Burma Friendship Bridge. That means - the other side is Burma. I know it looks like grass, but there's actually a river behind the grass. And if you look closely, you can see the top of an inner tube that someone used to swim across. I know it's not a great picture, but it's Burma.