morning thoughts

I woke up with the sound of what seemed an endless and boring Thai speech coming through a bad quality speaker, I guess attached on a pick-up. You see them regularly in Thailand but now it was not even 7 am. I feed the leftovers to the chicken (of the neighbours) and think of chicken kept behind fences and fed with special expensive chicken food. I smile when I look at our outside ‘kitchen’. Not so much later I witness a cockfight next to our house. It was my first time to see the two animals in a struggle to measure their power. Peter and I wonder why. “There are no people who make them do this, nobody had put a bet. It must be about the hens!” They are bleeding but finally give up and both retreat defeated and exhausted. I think of them as a symbol of the struggle between the military regime and the people of Burma. There is pain, blood and exhaustion on both sides but no result yet.

At the same time one of my ‘brothers’ continues his work on a campaign project to convince his people in the mountains of Burma to go and vote against a constitution that keeps the military regime in place. It will be a dangerous project. If one of them gets caught with the pamphlets and T-shirts or with the cameras that will be used to report about their observation of the referendum, …. I don’t want to think about it. Fear does not change anything.

Yesterday I was one of the many guests at the house of one of the parliamentarians elected in 1990. The neighbouring house was a newly build place hosting four young woman who set up a Kayan Women Organisation. Several English diplomas of successful participation in training courses decorate the wall. The girl who received them hardly speaks English but proudly shows me pictures of her meeting with Pinheiro, the special rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council, in 2005. The next house is the house of Padoh Mahn Sha, the man who was murdered there on the 14^th of February. It was the house where my Estonian friends and I were warmly welcomed on the 14^th of January. I feel an indescribable discomfort.

Among the many people were mothers and sons who had not met for eight years or people who had made it to the promised land to become so involved in their work as computer programmers or cashiers in the supermarket lacking time to follow what happens in their homeland. There were fathers who had not attended the wedding of their sons or who had not seen their daughters for three years or more. The group of ten guests arrived on Monday with a one day visa. “Yes, the fine (bribe) for overstaying your visa is pretty expensive but we traveled three days from Phekhon to Mae Sot, to see our family and friends!” A 21-year old boy is excited and tells me about his plan to stay, find a job, study and go to America. Another one, I think. He also asks me advice about what to do with girlfriends and tells me he never saw a computer. I show him the office helping migrant workers in Mae Sot and urge him to go and ask a lot.

I think about the road I walked since nine months and where I am headed. I don’t know. Yesterday I felt a bit lost, disappointed and desperate. I hope today brings me hope. Hope for my friends.