On our way back the early next morning, we met extremely nice people on the train. There was one man from the CBI – Central Bureau of Intelligence. Yes we are lucky people to meet so many police and intelligence people on our whole trip, but we were able to make them believe what we said to them. We didn’t pretend to be locals, and we gave our true identities. We told him everything, except about the mission of our trip. We said that we had just been touring. They said that my family had guided us completely wrong, because those aren’t tourist areas at all. If you go so far, from Delhi, you must go to Darjeeling and Shillong. He taught us some card tricks and bought us delicious mangos. He also introduced us to a very nice family. Sometimes people have so little exposure of outside world I feel surprised. Things which seem so natural for us, is completely new for others.
The lady was surprised to learn about other currencies, and she didn’t understand that Jang didn’t understand or speak Hindi. She was quite amazed that 2 girls were traveling all alone. But it was inspiring for her too. I must say, I think it is very difficult for an Indian girl to travel alone in India. In India girls are always very dependent on others. Although things are changing, I can only speak for New Delhi, it is becoming modern and more modern every time I go there, now you can see boys and girls walk hand-in-hand, which I think you couldn’t even see 2 years ago. We explained that we had come with our own money, which we had earned ourselves.
In Asian countries the whole concept of working along with studying is not there. So it is only natural that the child is dependent on his/her parents. Also it is very difficult to find a job after graduation. It is better if you know someone. Everything only works if you have contacts. The train trip went very fast, because we had such good company to talk to. By the end of the 28 hour train-trip almost the whole compartment was our friend. We had to wait for about an hour and a half at the train station for my mother and aunt. My mother had just come to India with my grandparents to settle them down, because my grandmother had been extremely ill. We stayed 4 days in New Delhi, giving feedback to some organizations and people, about our trip to the Northeast and hanging with my family. Then we took an 18-hour train-trip to Calcutta/ Kolkata, stayed one day and flew off to Bangkok.
The airport in Kolkata is the most difficult airport I have ever passed. They check everything very thoroughly. My grandmother’s sister (living in Kolkata) told us that, there was some tip-off, that an Indian Airlines flight will be hijacked one of those days. That is why the tight security check-up and of course we were flying with Indian Airlines. We were lucky that we were 2 hours before departure time, because sometimes I arrive 5 minutes before. They checked everything. We had to take out all batteries, and I had forgotten to take out my pocketknife out of my hand luggage, but no problem, we would get everything back at Bangkok airport. We stayed in Bangkok for 2 days and relaxed, because Monday we would start our normal work at the office again.
There is great difference between the Thai-Burma border and the Indo-Burma border. There are many NGO’s helping and working with the Burmese community. Sometimes I feel a bit cynical, especially after seeing quite the opposite on the Indian side, where there is not a single NGO (for the Burmese community I mean). They all try to manage by themselves. On the Thai side there are many kinds of projects, workshops, trainings, seminars etc. for different people. But sometimes you see corruption.
My personal experience was, when I was attending this four day training on child trafficking. Most participants were all very young motivated enthusiastic people, highly inspiring to me. After the 4 day training we made a plan, the 14 different participating organizations would all focus on different aspects of the child trafficking project. For those who don’t know what child trafficking is, it means that children are being either kidnapped or mislead and used for various things, as house-worker, gang begging, drug smuggling, prostitution, and illegal adoptions.
Yesterday I got to learn, that in Mae Sot, a big Thai border town, about 10 children from Burma per month are disappearing and mostly are going to Bangkok for foreigners. Few days ago, an 8-year old child was just taken in broad day light from the market. A car rushed by, grabbed the child and drove off. This is a very big business, sometimes children are used as organ donors for rich children. Knowing all this, these 14 organizations try to focus on different aspects, some would give trainings to children and parents, some would focus on making audio cassettes, other would train teachers and community leaders about child trafficking, other would focus on data collecting/ research and others would do publicity. But now I heard that everybody is just sitting and waiting until the money will flow in. But there is so much people can also do without much money; such as pre-research, writing questions for interviewing, collecting newspaper clippings, other information, script writing etc. I also heard that sometimes the people here are only interested to go to workshops, if there is some kind of incentive as a certificate or money involved, otherwise they are not interested. Sometimes people ask help from others, without trying themselves first. They give up before hand, or think that they have no time, and transfer their responsibilities to others. It is important to try yourself, even though you make mistakes. By making mistakes you will only learn not to make those mistakes again.
Sometimes I feel the only thing all the organizations do, is writing proposals all the time. What are you doing; I am writing a proposal. Oh, I just finished writing my proposal. I have to write my proposal. And than the money which flows in is not used for the real purposes. It is quite sad, especially this work you say to do for poor people. But than sometimes it becomes a bit commercialized and instead of working together and helping each other, people are competing with each other, because of the proposal writing. Many people become greedy, because it is relatively easy money. You write a nice proposal and money flies in. But it also creates again a dependency structure, which on the long run can be ineffective, as people have never learnt to earn their own money, but just learnt to receive. How can you ever be independent in this way? The Indo-Burma border is quite the opposite, also because the Indian government doesn’t allow International NGO’s in those areas. So they have to manage by themselves. Although it is much harder, but they collect money from their own society and try to do by themselves. Although money is a big problem, because without money they cannot start anything. There are no proper education and health facilities for these people. I mustn’t say NGO’s are bad, because many are doing very effective work and are showing positive results. But I just a got a bit disappointed in that first very active group and later such a laid-back group.
Another difference between refugees in Thailand and India is that in Thailand refugees from Karenni State, Karen State are recognized as refugees and can stay in the refugee camp, but are practically stuck between the borders. They cannot go back and they cannot go into proper Thailand. They depend on outside help. They have good education opportunities till 10th class. But for the older people it is quite difficult, because they have no ways of earning a living. They live on rations. Imagine eating the same food day-in-day-out for the last 11 years. Some students are able to go out the camps, and continue school at different schools. The Shan people are not recognized as refugees, they come into Thailand as migrant workers, and they are only permitted to do ‘lower’ jobs. They have a hard time, because they cannot travel freely around. They have to pay high amounts of money to go from one province to another. One trip costs approximately 3000 Baht = Euro. 80, because they have to travel illegally. While a normal bus trip costs about 250 Baht. Also their children cannot attend school. And if they can, they cannot get a certificate, because they don’t have legal papers. On the Indian side there are no travel problems. Although there are no official refugee camps, they can still travel more freely than in Thailand. Nobody will ask for ID cards or whatever. Their children can go to school, but the families have financial problems, so they can’t send their children to school.
It is very interesting to see so many different people and groups active outside their own country, trying hard for future Burma. You can see on what areas a country has to focus, to make it a developed country. The MP was a very good example for me, that when this politician will return to his country, he at least will also think of the poor in his country, in most cases the politicians forget to think about the poor, as he himself has lived in poverty. I also talked a lot with Tuidim about the whole Burma struggle. Everybody is very much fighting for democracy, but then the western countries will run into Burma, and start more or less a same kind of exploitation of the natural resources of this country. Burma will be opened to new colonization of western countries, which will attract many interests.
At this moment Burma is still in the womb, and is preparing for its delivery; there are many obstacles, complications, struggles and it will have one of the most difficult deliveries ever in history.
Concluded...
(The author attends the University of Amsterdam in Holland majoring in International Communications) |
