First Day in Mae Sot...

8/31/09 5:55pm

...proved to be an interesting one. It started when I got up bright and early with the expectation I would start working around 8-9am. When I woke up it was raining, like it had been doing the whole night, and it was a sharp realization that I had not remembered nor prepared for the rainy season which we are entering; not a very smart move on my part. So I waited a bit until there was a break in the rain and went on my first excursion to town in hopes to locate a poncho and umbrella. I did end up locating what I needed but in the process kept on being reminded how CRAZY and PSYCHOTIC the street dogs are. I don’t think they can even be considered dogs really, they are more like fluffy gone bad. For those of you who have not had the opportunity to experience such animals, feel lucky. They really are completely psycho and unpredictable, right when you think “oh my god, that one is gonna bite my leg off”, it turns away with complete disinterest in you and right when you think “good, that one doesn’t see me”, it’s like it has eyes in the back of its head, turns around and gives you this extremely eerie glare/growl/lunge/whatever. It’s completely unnerving. I won’t go on forever about this but I SWEAR if one thing would drive me out of this country it might, literally, be those damn dogs.

So after my first excursion to town it was obvious there was miscommunication somewhere down the line and I had not yet received a call to start my first day. The problem is that I can’t just show up to work. The organization is a sensitive one so the location is intentionally discreet. I got a general location from the guesthouse manager but even he, who has been here forever, couldn’t quite say where it was. Finally we got a hold of each other and I biked near its location to then be guided in person by one of the employees. The location was down this dirt side road in a very indiscriminant building. When I entered with one of the employees there were about 10 Karen women sitting around a table having their weekly meeting. We introduced ourselves and I answered any questions the women had and asked some myself then we were soon off to a “welcome” lunch. At lunch one of the women asked me how long I will stay, I told her about 6 or so months and she said that wasn’t enough, that I needed to stay about 2 years instead. Hmmmm…guess we will see. I spent the rest of the afternoon helping the office manager write and edit a progress report for donors in Australia since she will be flying there next week to meet with them personally. I got to learn a lot today about the unique challenges organizations face working in refugee camps, such as high turnover due to consistent resettlement which can impact the strength of the organization, and I also was shown a photo of Barbera Bush’s visit a while back as she was looking at goods for sale by this organization….wonder if she actually bought anything…. All in all it was a good first day and I anticipate most of my days to go about this way, dogs included.