February 19--Tuesday

I'm now in an internet cafe and other people are waiting for the computer so I must keep today's posting brief!

Yesterday we were unable to visit Mae La as had been planned--the Thai military had one of its rather whimsical changes of heart and wouldn't let us through the gates. So we made a stop at the Karen Women's Organization store outside of camp--they sell handicrafts to support all the work they do inside the camps. Then we made our way to the one-month-old Processing Center which has recently been established to centralize the interviews and medical appointments for those refugees coming to the U.S. We specifically met with the cultural orientation team and now have a much clearer understanding of how the refugees coming to the US are prepared (or tried to be prepared, anyway) for their resettlement. I'll have to give you more detail on that later.

Today we made a rather hair-raising 2 hour drive through the mountains to the Umpiem camp which is south of Mae La. We were much more restricted in Umpiem--we were only given permission to be there for a couple of hours so we had to keep our visit rather efficient. Fortunately, I walked right by the Karen Women's Organization offices in the camp and was able to have a good conversation with them, with the translating help of Duane. I will be using much of that material in an upcoming episode of the Real Women, Real Leaders podcast series so be ready to check that out!

The two camps are quite similar in many ways, of course, but Umpiem is at a much higher elevation so it's very cool--we joked that it might be better preparation for being resettled in the northeastern US!

Unfortunately, I must go now so I'll have to share more with you later. We will be in a van for 6 hours again tomorrow heading to Bangkok in preparation for our journey home. I hope to be able to post once more from the guest house in Bangkok tomorrow night but if not, I'll wind things up once I'm back on my home computer with more reliable internet!