Article: Stagnant but Hopeful

Thailand hosts over 150,000 refugees from neighboring Myanmar in nine camps along the border. In four such camps Planned Parenthood Association of Thailand (PPAT) takes charge of the reproductive health services. I was invited to attend a routine visit to the refugee camps and excitedly accepted. Non-refugees are not allowed to stay in the camps so all the staff of the reproductive health centers are refugees that have been trained to provide services. Nurses, like the ones I was traveling with, stop by to handle the larger problems once a month.

We passed heavily armed soldiers and fences to enter the camp. Ten years ago there had been some attacks on a camp so safety was a concern. They smiled and inspected my passport and special permission card and lifted the red and white bar so the car could pass. We drove down a dirt road lined with bamboo huts on either side packed tightly together. We were in a valley with steep hills on either side and as I looked up I saw houses upon houses until the jungle got too thick for more.

The PPAT center looked like any of the houses. It was raised on stilts with bamboo floors and a banana leaf roof. The walls were covered with pictures of genitalia with various infections and cartoons about safe sexual practices. Inside equipment was sparse with a manual blood pressure machine, a scale, and two small examination rooms. While the nurse did pelvic exams, I worked with the peer educators teaching them computer skills on the donated PC in the back room and chatting about our respective lives.

While shy at first the men and women in their early twenties began to warm up to me as I showed them pictures of my family (which I always keep in my bag as an ice breaker). My friends were so tall! How old was my grandfather? Was this your house? Eventually they also shared with me. It was astonishing to think that we were the same age but they had been married, had children, and had experienced some horrific events in their lives already. My twenty four years seemed incredibly easy in comparison but I suppose it’s unwise to compare.

They were able to joke with me, “If I go back to Myanmar, boom! Landmines, I’ll have no legs!” one said in fits of laughter. A young man explained to me that he was very lucky because his parents had been resettled in Norway. However he didn’t seem phased by the fact that this meant he would never see them again. One of the young men started the trip to the camp with his family of six but was the only one to make it. Another woman said she had been born in the camp and never knew any other life. I had to fight hard not to be overwhelmed with sadness for my new friends.

While clearly an improvement from the places they had escaped, life in the camp was stagnant. The farming lives they had once enjoyed were over as the camps were crowded and there was no land to farm. Instead people had to depend on the food and supplies given to them by the camp administration. There was little employment and thus no way to proactively better their situation. The peer educators were lucky in that PPAT employed them which brought in a little money and gave them something to do. For the most part everyone expressed a feeling of waiting. They were waiting for a third country to welcome them so they could start a new life.

I stupidly asked, “what third country do you want to go to?” to which the response was invariably “whoever accepts me first!” Norway, Canada, and Australia seemed to have been the countries who had been most generous to the refugees as each person knew someone who had managed to get there. For this reason people were excited to practice English with me so they’d be ready if an Anglophone country accepted their application for resettlement.

Two of the peer educators had just been accepted by Canada for resettlement and were full of questions like “How many seasons are there?” and “will I be close to the water?” It was so heartening to hear their excitement for their future prospects.

I also got a glimpse of a source of joy in camp life when I toured a music school set up by a Dutch NGO. It was bursting with adolescent boys playing old guitars. I sang a song with them and practiced the four sentences I had learned in the Karen language which is spoken by the majority of the refugees.

Unfortunately the sun began to set and I had to leave in accordance with the camp regulations. I had so much stimulation to process and so many emotions to work through. I left behind all the business cards I had hoping that someday some of these people might contact me with a story of success or a way I can help.