2nd week in Chiang Mai

Last weekend we visited Chiang Mai Zoo - well it is meant to be the biggest zoo in Thailand! Maybe the area of it is but there didn't seem to be many animals though - this is maybe because we went in the middle of the day but still it wasn't anything spectacular!

The week started off with a 5hr or so drive to Mae Sot (south on the border) where we spent the night, then the next day we visited the Partners office there and were taken on another hr drive to a refugee camp. We were going for a graduation of students who had been studying for 4 yrs doing different courses - this was the first group of students to graduate there. Wow what a sight in many different ways!





The camp itself is more like a big village, and I mean big there were over 50 000 people there who have fled the Burmese Army from the Karen state just over in Burma. The camp itself has been around for over 20 years. It is funny, at the graduation you see all these happy people with their cellphones and digital cameras, and it can be easy to think that they have life alright. But then when you think about you see how rough these people have it. They cannot go back to Burma, though many do - they do so in fear of their own lives. They can also go nowhere in Thailand where they have no rights or papers. To flee from the camp into Thailand (which won't be that hard) and get caught would mean being handed back over to Burma authorities which would mean prison or even death. So many people are in this crowded little camp of over 50 000 and that's all they have known their entire lives - they have never left the camp. They are not allowed to farm or grow their own gardens (not that there is apace to anyhow), so they are completely dependent on the NGO aid to survive. Yet despite all this is was amazing to see that every speech at this graduation (and there were a few) mentioned about how they wanted to help their people. It was commented that many of these people finishing school would go back and try and help their people in Burma.
The rest of this week has just been at the office - doing more post outs and working on the youth studies they have asked me to do. We were to visit a Children Home supported by Partners on Friday through to Saturday, but unfortunately it is Nell's turn to get a little sick so we had to pull out of that trip.
This next week are heading up North and maybe into the Shan state.

Hope you all have a great Easter - God Bless

Til Next Time

D & N