Thank You!

Firstly, I’d like to say an enormous thank you to all of you that have shown your support since my last postcard. And to those of you that have chosen to contribute, thank you so much. It’s a cliché, but really, words cannot express my gratitude, it means so much to me that there are such amazing people in my life. So thank you thank you thank you. 

While I have made significant progress in the last week, I am not quite there yet though, so if anyone else wants to help in any way, let me know. But at this point, it looks like I’ll be back here in February! I am so excited about this, and it’s made work so much easier, I’ve just finished writing up a six-month communications plan for the Clinic that I will actually be able to implement. It’s fantastic.

So, how about that election then NZ? The results were not even remotely close to what I was going for, but I suppose that’s democracy. Although, I am really shocked that Winston is back. That’s just weird. Apparently voter turnout this year was the lowest it’s been since 2002, which is incredibly disappointing. Apathy is a terrible thing. At this stage, the electoral office is saying that only 73.83% of eligible voters actually bothered to vote. I find it really distressing that there are people the world over literally dying for the right to vote, and so many people from the place I call home don’t bother to exercise their right to vote. 

Anyway, last week I started taking meditation classes with a monk from Burma, King Zero, that was a key leader in the Saffron Revolution of 2007. He now lives in Mae Sot as it is far too dangerous for him to live in Burma anymore. He fought for the democracy we take for granted, and now he can't go home. Our first class was at the library and training centre he established, and this week he’s taking us to a monastery to practice. I love these things so much about living here: where else would you get the chance to learn such things off a real-life revolutionary, and work for a Nobel Peace Prize nominee? I love Mae Sot.

This weekend a work friend of mine got married, so eleven of us from the Clinic made the six hour journey up the border to Mae Sariang for the wedding. It was just great. We stayed with one of our colleagues that has a house up there, we all slept together on the floor in the main room, well, the two boys with us slept outside. I’m not sure why as there were plenty of other places in the house they could have slept and still been separated from us. The next morning we all got up super early (as is the local way), and got dressed up in our traditional Karen outfits, I have my own Karen skirt and my friend gave me an amazing top to wear, it wasn't Karen, but it was similar. It reminded me of some kind of Eastern European folk dancing attire with all it's ribbons and tassles.

We got to the church – the most quaint Catholic church I have ever seen. It even had stables with cows living in them at the bottom of the steps. The windows were open to views of the mountains and the recently harvested rice fields. It was picturesque to say the least. The whole ceremony was in Karen, except for the vows, which were in English, so I had no idea what was going on at any stage, although you don’t need language to understand love and happiness, as cheesy as that sounds. My friend, the bride, looked absolutely beautiful in her Karen outfit, with a traditional western style white veil, she was glowing. The whole thing was fantastic. 

After the ceremony we all followed the bride and groom down the street in a parade to the reception. Unfortunately, the food was a bit much for me, I’m not so into chicken feet and skin soup, and uncooked pork mince with congealed blood mixed in. But everyone else was into it, so it was ok. The reception was a dine and dash affair, as we had a six hour drive ahead of us on very winding roads that were partially washed away in many places due to all the rain we had in the wet season. So we all piled back into the back of the pickup truck (no safety rules here), and off we went. I felt terrible for some of the girls: it’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many people so seriously car sick. The drive was stunningly beautiful though, and we stopped off a few times to buy vegetables and things, and drop things off to peoples family members in one of the refugee camps along the way. The whole weekend was lovely, it was great to spend some time with my local colleagues outside of work, and it was wonderful to be part of such a rich cultural experience as a wedding.

 

Until next time.