Change (New Blog)

Monday was a day of change for many people following Burma's sham elections on the 7th of November.

After we found out the news that the school was temporarily closed, students began to get sent home. But the road to the border was blocked by Thai police, therefore P Say Heh's boarder students could not return to their home as it is on the road to the border. A teacher said that they would be waiting until they heard news that they could go back. He said that it would be good if we could tell a story or something to take their minds off the situation.

So I cycled to the Nursery where all the teachers were sitting together, one of the teachers was crying. I asked what was wrong she said got a CD player and took the younger kids (KG - Grade 6) to sing Fischy music songs. Afterwards, I went to the school office and many people were on the internet looking at news webpages and videos of the fighting. I blogged and emailed a little bit then went home.

At night I was going to have dinner with GA but he came with his friend instead and said that we should go and help at the temporary camp. They had already been and were hungry so they ate a little then we went by motorcycle. The temporary camp is only a 10 minute walk from where I live.

The was a beautiful sunset over Mae Sot. But fear was instilled in the 30,000 refugees who had crossed the border that day. As night fell, they were frightened the clashes between DKBA and SPDC would only get worse.

This is the motorcycle journey up the highway, you can see many refugees walking towards the temporary camp.

We went inside and I have never seen anything like it before. Thousands of people sitting down in this huge field (the Thai military base). Whole families sitting on pieces of cardboard, in a little amount of clothing. I saw many heavily pregnant women, single mothers with children and newborn babies, little kids running about without parents. The only slight comparison I could make is to a huge festival but everybody is cold, hungry and scared.

There were maybe 100 tents set up and families were inside..

A pregnant woman walking through the crowds of people.

We asked the Thai authorities if there was anything we could do to help. They said we could move a load of water from one site to another so we started doing that.

This is the red cross water area.

While we were moving the water, the Thai authorities were setting up shelter tents.

When we finished with that the Thai authorities told us just to wait and see if there was anything else we could help with.

We started talking to a family of a mother and three young children. GA gave his shirt to the mother for the baby because he would get so cold in the night time.

This is one of the lady's children. Loved the camera!

GA got talking to some monks and took them to his house for shelter and food for the night.

While they were away I walked around the camp and saw that they had a medical tent set up. People were gathering round for treatment.

A Thai-Burmese translator.

I'm not sure why this photo is half orange, very frustrating. The Thai authorities were fantastic and so helpful.

They had an area set up to queue for food. There was a man on top of a car making announcements in Burmese..

People waiting in the area for food.

These videos are in the food area. People were being told to sit down and stop pushing in the line by the Thai authorities.

I was sitting beside two women, one had an adorable baby who laughed whenever I spoke to him. Very cute. The second woman said she was a teacher in Myawaddy and her husband and children were inside the camp. I asked the woman with the baby if she was going to get food (as she was waiting in the area to get food) and she said that she couldn't go and stand in line for food because people were crushing every time the line moved up and her baby would start crying. Nobody else was there to take care of her baby while she queued for food.

Then I saw a tv crew behind me and they were interviewing the Mae Sot district officer. Also the man who I had to apologise to last year when I got taken away by the police from Hle Bee school!

I went home a bit later.

It was such an intense day and night and it's sad to see that things are becoming worse for the people who are still in Mae Sot.

Louise x