Sad to leave Mae Sot

Hello Everybody!

I apologize if I duplicate some of Jen's last entry but it has been awhile since we got to this. We have safely arrived in Chiang Mai yesterday enroute to Hanoi via Bangkok over the next few days. It marks the end of what was a beautiful and moving experience.

We have spent the last week and a half working with the Global Neighbors group from Prince Albert to build a school in a migrant village, supply 90 desks for children, teach and play with the migrant kids in some of the schools and get to know some of the most wonderful people in the world. The main orphanage and school (Hsa Thoo Lei) in Mae Sot is comprised of mostly illegal Karen refugees from Burma. There are many Burmese, Mon, Kachin, and other groups at the school and other villages in the Mae Sot area. The hardship that the children endure is not limited to only Karen people.

The kids and people there are such great hosts. They took our group through their school and spent alot of time looking after aall of us. Some were very brave to stand up in front of their peers and canadian guests and tell stories of losing their parents, homes, or siblings in the their journey to get to where they are know. They also hosted a beautiful barbecue on Monday night as a farewell, where the many excellent singers and performers got up and delivered excellent performances. The most moving moments were the ones where Jen and I spent visiting and playing with Eh Tah Tow, Look Htee Kheh, and her younger brother Hsa Law Tae Htoo. After visiting with them, each of them ran up to their room and gave us some of their favorite toys and pictures as gifts. It was an example of their incredible generosity. We are honored that kids with so little would offer so much to us, for the little work and time we were able to spend with them. It was wonderful. I also liked them because they appeared to enjoy my pretty rough magic tricks I tried on them.

We were also able to meet up with some of the administators and teachers in the school who were able to act as translators, guides, and friends to the group. We have photos of a few of them.

Hayso, an excellent guide through the Mae La Refugee camp and I believe is an excellent soccer player, and Karen language teacher.

Hong Sar, shown here with an australian volunteer Meghan, is an administrator at Hsa Htoo Lei and was able to spend some time with us showing us Mae Sot on bicycle, and correcting my faulty Burmese. He has a great sense of humor and is an amazing photographer. He showed us some of his work and it was very moving.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Mae Sot and will probably add some more experiences to the blog in the next few days of getting back to normal after our busy 2 weeks.

Jen is also not feeling well today. This is day 3 of some kind of stomach flu that comes and goes and got worse yesterday by the rough and windy road between Mae Sot and Chiang Mai.

Another incident of note is that yesterday, after Dave, our tour leader, checked us all out of the hotel after paying in cash (typical in Thailand more than Credit Cards) got a phone call from the hotel saying that they had not fully paid the bill. Dave gave them his credit card number for the balance outstanding and offered to pay the remainder when he returns in another week with another group of 17 to stay there for 2 weeks. We drove for a about half an hour and then were pulled over at a check stop by the military. Apprently, the hotel put an APB out on the vans and couldn't leave until the front desk clerk from the hotel drove out to meet us at the check stop and pick up the diffence in cash. Apprently cards weren't good enough. It was a misunderstanding and Dave paid the fellow but it was an unexpected delay for all of us in the group.

Stay warm to those back home and stay cool to everyone else in warmer climes.

Ted