Mae Hong Son

I've spent the week in Mae Hong Son in northwestern Thailand. I got to practice my prescreening skills meaning that I interviewed refugee families to verify that we have their correct information and then talked to them about why they fled Burma and why they can't return. It was an interesting process. The process is mostly administrative. Most of the people we met with have been outside their country of origin so long that their children, now adults, were born in the refugee camp and often the children didn't know the stories of why their parents fled in the first place. They know that their people are oppressed and that if they go back they will be mistreated but when asked why their parents fled they aren't always able to provide the details. This is not what i expected. I did meet with one family who said they have a distant relative in Salt Lake and they wanted to join them. You can imagine my joy!

Today I got to go to the Ban Mai Nai Soi refugee camp (the processing in this area takes place outside the camp so this was my first visit to the camp). It was similar in many ways to the Tham Hin camp that I visited on an exchange I participated in through the government several years ago. Here is a link the report I gave to the State Department about my trip in 2006. http://www.cal.org/co/coexchange/McConkieReport.pdf In the camp we did some follow ups. We met with a few families to clarify information or gather further information to process their case. For example, we needed contact information for a spouse that was incorrect, we needed to verify which state one case preferred to resettle in since he said he had a friend in Colorado but he also had family members going to Georgia. It was interesting to meet with families and follow up on their cases. When we had delivered all the bad news and gotten all the updates we needed we went to listen in on a cultural orientation that was being held for refugees who have been approved to go to the US. It was fun to see them learn about education and American culture as well as practice writing their names and saying basic phrases. Several of the photos I am uploading are of the orientation.

Each night after work I went out with one of the caseworkers and did various activities. One day we hiked to the top of a nearby mountain. We rented bikes for the several days we were here and went on bike rides around the town of under 8000 people. We tried new (to me) restaurants and new foods. She introduced me to the most delicious foods and treats. So yummy! The big Loi Kratong festival was celebrated our first night here. You will see photos of people letting go of lanterns. The lanterns are like hot air balloons. You light a fire under them and they heat up and the heat carries it into the sky along with all the regrets of the year. It was beautiful to see the lanterns fill the sky.

Tonight, the whole crew of us (there have been 6 of us here) had dinner together. We fed all of us at a nice restaurant for $30! I just can't get over how inexpensive and delicious the food is! After dinner I went for a nice long massage. 90 minutes of bliss for a cost of only $7. Not bad eh? She was able to work out part of the kink in my neck from this super hard pillow I've been sleeping on. I learned that in Thai when you get a kink in your neck they say that "the pillow bit you". That's exactly what it did!

All in all the trip was educational, both professionally as well as socially and culturally. It was another fabulous Thai adventure! I never did get to see the big temple on the hill...guess I'll have to come back!