went to mae la refugee camp. bamboo city. 45 000 people nestled into the side of a tropical mountain... waiting. the 35 000 registered refugees get weekly meagre rations of rice, oil and salt. the family we visited were unregistered. they live (like everyone at Mae La) in their homemade bamboo house.
we were blown away by the impressive lunch they put on for us, which meant they would have (once again) gone with out.
we dropped of some beads and showed them how to make braclets. we're hoping to be able to sell them in australia to provide this family with a small income.
in many ways they refugee camps are quite incredible communties - people with nothing sharing everything they have. sadly though, there is alot of mistrust. people are scared of burmese military spies, who go into the camps pretending to be refugees. the result is a fragmented suspicious community who fear strangers - heart breaking.
4 comments:
Wow, was that your first trip to Mae La? Thanks for keeping us up to date, I am so blown away by your posts, inspiring!
BTW are you gonna join UNOH Bangkok? He, he...
what does BTW mean?
casey just told me ... 'by the way' - very clever.
Very interesting reading and stufff that more of us need to be aware of....so we'll DO something!
Ta Garth
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