Internship Field Experience near the Burmese Border

I slept on the mattress under the mosquito net.
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I work with Asian Partnership for Human Development, and they put on the "Pan-Asian Indigenous Peoples Program Planning Workshop" in Bangkok last week. I was the official secretary, and for two days the 23 of us were split into two groups and taken into hilltribe villages to observe, interact, and report.

First, they always put a nicely arranged plate of tangerines before you whenever you arrive anywhere except a formal office. This is good, because they can be a refreshing snack. We stayed in a "house" with our hosts- a catholic priest (who doesn't look like any priest you've ever seen) and his wife. So I have a catholic nun- Sister Evangeline, a Catholic father Joseph, Anil who is Nepalese, a Cambodian, a Bangladeshi, and a couple of Thai in this group.

The hilltribe is called "the Karien" and they are political refugees

Two precious Karien kids in the village.
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We eat more rice than I've ever eaten in my life. That's ok- I like rice.

The hilltribe is called "the Karien" and they are political refugees because the Burmese and Thai governments arbitrarily set up the border and now neither country wants to recognize the people who inhabited the land in the forest for hundreds of years.

They cannot have Thai citizenship, and are therefore denied any rights as a Thai citizen- health care, education, land rights, work permit, political representation, and often even human rights.

Minor roadblock...
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APHD works with these kinds of "indgenous people" to help them participate in their own advocacy, development, and freedom. I have learned so much in the short time I've been doing this internship, and I am so happy that I got to have this experience.

We interviewed and interacted with the villagers and they sang songs for us at evening prayer (they're Christian now). I slept on a thin mattress under a mosquito net. I also bathed myself by standing in a small shack with a "pour-flush" toilet, taking a bucket and filling it with water from a large rusty trough and pouring it on myself. Amazingly, a little soap and 10 minutes later and I really did feel clean.

Me with some local Thai and a village leader.
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The host and a priest from the neighboring diocese invited me to come back, stay, and teach anytime. It's nice to know that I could just go live in the forest in Thailand if I ever wanted to.