Forum-Asia: 2000-2006

I have reached an impasse in my packing. I no longer have any idea which item should go in what box. I have thrown away unused stuff, most of which at the time I acquired them seemed to be very important. For almost the whole week I’ve flipped between CNN, Star Movies, and HBO-the only English channels on my limited cable tv- watching half of Contact, Strange Days, Assault on Precinct 13, Myth of Fingerprints, etc. while stripping my walls bare and my cabinets empty. The more precious DVD films remained unwatched.

I’ve always hated packing. I always discover I have more things than I originally thought. At some point I need to decide what sentiments attached to what possessions are worth taking home, and which ones are the goodbye things. Strange that this is not so difficult when it comes to my colleagues: Anselmo, Rashid, Pia, Miwa and Ruchi are easily goodbye things. Heidi, Ruki, Zac and Sammy would be good to keep in touch with, and Chian, Susan, Rod, Victor, and Ed the ones I’d miss most.

A young staff asked me what the hell went wrong that such a mud slide of resignations of staff should happen. I could not give any one explanation as matters have reached a level of hostility and complication which may confuse him further. Yet I urged him to stay on, and learn the most that he can from the organization: the networks and alliances, issues and advocacies, initiatives and mechanisms, limitations and strengths of NGOs. These are valuable background which he needs to establish his perspective in this kind of work, despite his own frustrations within the secretariat.

As for myself, looking back at the organization I worked with for six years, I see not much has changed within us, or outside the larger world we engage in. Especially within the organization, there was still one man in charge of all matters at work; unaccountability over funds and strategies; program staff still didn’t know what the others are doing; decision-making is still non-transparent and unilateral, and the organization’s leadership are still very much engrossed with their individual gains from their friendship with the Executive Director. It’s sadly the same dog with a different leash, as we say in the Philippines.

Iin the last last two years I realized my Executive Director is in the dirty war international NGOs wage internally and externally to gain political advantage, just like any corporate boss. Lately my colleagues took to reading Dilbert comic strips to laugh about our situation. My Executive Director demonstrated that none of the strategic plans, collective management and responsible assessments matter so long as one knows the tricks to play with funders, partners and co-workers.

It’s hard to work with people like that especially when I consider myself from a grassroots background where precision and well-planned work meant the difference between concrete gains for the people and utter loss of confidence by them. Naively perhaps, I expected civil society colleagues to be at least sincere, with a genuine will to help even when skills are lacking. But Rashid justified this reality: international NGOs are in competition for funding and respect which make any means necessary to achieve this end; that NGO funding comes from the same source that exploits and aggresses on the poor economies and support militarism worldwide; that it was necessary to play and play hard to keep ahead-- and it was “better us with the money than others”. It seemed to make sense at the time but I think only to a certain extent.

So now stopping dead in my tracks, like the impasse I've reached with my packing, I told a long-time friend “I’ve got to re-wire my brain to understand again that I am still trying to make a change.” Thus to go forward I need to go back to where it all started- with friends and family and the life choices I've made a long time ago.

Quick Get-away

Pla smelled grilled seafood shortly after choosing a spot to sit at. Aside from being a favorite picnic area, the reservoir in Mae Sot province seemed an ideal swimming place for foreigners. The water was very inviting if one won’t mind the cold mountain breeze. But being a place away from the sea, grilling seafood seemed the ultimate feast. Pla was clearly torn between ignoring the food and introducing herself to the locals for some bite.

“Hmp, it might not even be fresh…” was her self-resolution. This helped her to pretend it’s not there at all. Pla flicked her brochure open. “This waterfall is on the way to the border area. We can swim.” she started. “How much to rent a car to go to the camp?” I asked as if I didn’t care for the waterfall. “Not much. I could share.” Pla was more into the swimming so I suggested going to the waterfall after the camp, on the way back to town.

The next day was my first refugee camp visit in Thailand. The last refugees I remembered seeing were in Palawan, Southern Philippines, where so-called “boat people”- refugees reaching the Philippines by boat- used to live. But that was hardly a ‘refugee camp’. It looked more like a settlement. Back then, Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines were completely free to roam around the city, establish businesses, and integrate with the local population. Their children were even partly supported to go to school. That was more than twenty years ago. I don’t know whether they are still there or had gone back to Vietnam or moved on to the US.

This Karen camp near the border was like a fenced in WWII prison camp where bamboo huts and thatched roofs, wholly supplied by international humanitarian agencies, crowd each other behind twisted barbed wires. Food was brought in by aid groups as well. I asked if they did some planting but Pla said they needed land for that. The most they have are small patches of garden where vegetables for house consumption were grown.

Karen refugees are not allowed to work legally in Thailand. This camp alone has immobilized more than 1000 families, so that all they could put up were small stores and handicraft shops which could not be accessible to shoppers in Mae Sot unless they intentionally visited the camp. Still I observed some activity here and there. Sunday church, laundry washing and houses being built. Volleyball and basketball courts were empty, ice cream and other refreshments were being sold, but there weren’t many buyers.

The children were very small. Yellow powdered faces wore ready smiles for any English speaking visitor but they had very small voices and very small frames for their age. Pla started giving away sweets and pencils. Pla is one of the paralegals providing training to refugees on the laws of Thailand. Her country is not a party to the refugee convention but it has a lot of bilateral agreements with neighboring countries. She is learning Karen, and has to wear Karenni shirts to be able to train more effectively. She said more than 60% of her classes are male. The few women there always had to leave early to prepare for the meals of the day.

Khun Bom, our driver, is from far northern Mae Sariang, a very skilled driver who knows the various routes where refugees enter Thailand. He can get them and secure their safe delivery to the camps quickly. He doesn’t tell me any details but it was easy to see his popularity among some of the refugees. Tea is abundant where he stops.

In one of the few open snack benches in the camp, Pla didn’t eat her roti because it was too oily. She took time stirring the milk at the bottom of her tea. I didn’t take the milk tea at all. I preferred the clear tea beside it, which went well with the roti. At another table sat some Karens which Pla guessed were on security duty, and another had youths discussing the next game. Pla once mentioned that they used to beat up Burmese suspected of spying in the camps. How they are able to enter and spy in the highly guarded camp, or how they were able to distinguish Burmese from Karens, I did not ask.

Aside from the milk tea and roti, we had fried bread as well, and clear tea each. All in all it was only forty baht. “Where was the profit in that?” I asked. “They didn’t work, remember?” Khun Bom reminded that it might as well have been a friendly visit to an old friend’s house on a Sunday afternoon.

Pla was disappointed to have to swim alone in the Nam Tok Pacharoen that afternoon. Sundays were usually spent with families inside their homes so the few swimmers there were couples. Pla refused to waddle in the water with no one to talk to. I suggested climbing the falls instead. To get to the top I had to use the foot trail ala-Indiana Jones. I don’t know why I did not swim although I loved the water. I felt a depression which made me half-regret visiting the camp first before the waterfalls. Pla made up for the short swim by eating a whole half-kilo of very sweet mangoes grown right at the park grounds. They were really heavenly (next to the Philippine species of course) and she wished she brought some ice and her mother’s blender.

My weekend visit was almost finished. On the way back to town we stopped by a couple of rose gardens. Pla bought some for her house, where her mom runs a restaurant. She knew right away which my choices were because her daughter always went for the bright colors. Her mom’s cooking was the favorite in the village. Most of the houses there were rented by international humanitarian organizations in Mae Sot so they easily cornered the market. For a while, I tried my hand at waitressing, but found that the locals were more shy with foreigners serving at their tables, so that’s the end of that career option. Later that night I wanted simple
fried rice but somehow they managed to make it a special meal for us.

In the morning I said goodbye to Pla and her mom with a sincere invitation to visit me in the Philippines. It was the one time Pla’s motorcycle conked out, maybe because it didn’t want me to go… but my empty apartment and new laptop awaits in noisy and complicated Bangkok, so we persisted. Pla took her mom’s much smaller motorcycle and, balancing my pack in the front and my weight in the back seat, we reached the station and exchanged hugs. She was on her way to work so she didn’t stay long. I whispered a quick goodbye to the Karens and Khun Bom, and prepared for the eight hour-trip back with a bottle of water, my lunch coupon and cheese sticks.

Crossing borders for gourmet helpings

Tomato Salad Burmese Style

Ingredients:

Tomato (5 medium)

Onion (4 medium)

Ground Nut Powder (1/2 teacup)

Lime (1 big)

Leek (4 plants)

Vermicelli noodles (1 1/2 teacups)

Salt and sugar (to taste)

Chinese soy sauce (1 tablespoon)

Oil (4 tablespoons)

Instructions:

Take out seeds from the tomatoes and cut in any shape

Slice the onion and divide into 2 parts- one part for frying in oil

Heat ground nut and pound to make powder

Cut leeks into little rings

Fry vermicelli noodles till crispy

Mix everything together and place the crispy vermicelli on top

Makes 2 plates

Karen Pumpkin Curry

Ingredients:

Pumpkin (1/2 kilo)

Lemongrass (3 plants)

Onion (3 medium)

Garlic (1 clove-big)

Red Chili Powder ( 1 teaspoon)

Basil (2 plants)

Lime (2 pieces)

Pepper powder (1 teaspoon)

Turmeric (1/2 teaspoon)

Salt (1/2 teaspoon)

Sugar (1 teaspoon)

Oil (1/2 teacup)

Water (4 teacups)

Instructions:

Cut up pumpkin into small cubes

Pound lemongrass and twist into a knot

Pound the onion and the garlic

Put everything in a large saucepan

Add water and bring to a boil

Reduce the fire and allow to simmer until the pumpkin is soft and the oil comes to the surface

in about 15 minutes

Makes 5 servings

From "Momo and Bobo's Kitchen Cookbook", Borderline Tea Garden near Thai-Burma border; Mae Sot, Tak, Thailand. All dishes are vegetarian.