Pooping elephant.

The past week I've been on a work trip to Mae Sot for a torture documentation training. It was a little crazy only being in Chiang Mai a couple of days before leaving again, but honestly, I prefer being on the move, so I liked it. The training was completely in Burmese, so that helped me start remembering some words and phrases. I was a little nervous that I'd actually forgotten all my Burmese language skills, but no worries, I've still got it. The little that I had, anyway.

I'm still in awe of the trainees. The fact that they are willing to risk their own security and travel back to Burma to interview torture victims and collect data for the report I'm going to write never ceases to amaze me. I sincerely love working with the Burmese human rights community. I've never met a group of people collectively more committed to justice, human rights, and progress for their country. It makes it so easy to keep coming back and working hard to do what I can to help.

Mae Sot is a town on the border between Thailand and Burma, and it's known for having a huge Burmese population as well as tons of foreigners working at Burma NGOs. It's sort of bizarre to be in Thailand but hear mostly Burmese and English. I didn't get out much; most of the time I was at the training or relaxing in my hotel room after the training. My boss introduced me to some people from AAPP (Assistance Association for Political Prisoners) and I got to go to their office, which was really exciting for me. I was traveling with my boss, who is American, and my coworker, who is Burmese. My coworker took me to the Burmese market a couple of times, and that was awesome. I was always the only white person there, so I felt like I got exposed to the real Mae Sot Burmese community. We (my coworker and I) also went to the Thai-Burma border, which I found just as terrifying as the last time I was there. Maybe it's just me, but I sense a distinctly tense feeling in the air on the walkway and in the surrounding area along the border. The only thing separating Thailand and Burma is a cement walkway with a railing, so Burmese people illegally cross over into Thailand every day. Thus the massive Burmese population in Mae Sot. There are dozens of Thai border guards who patrol with machine guns. Just looking over the border makes me really sad, to see how the Burmese people suffer just a few feet away from the much more prosperous Thailand. I feel weird about smiling to take a picture there, but it looks weird if I don't.

The only downside of Mae Sot was that my wallet was stolen on my last day. I don't know how or where, but it's gone. Luckily it only had cash and my debit card; my passport was safe and sound. So it could've been much worse, and I'm not worrying about it too much. After a week with such amazing people, potentially risking their lives and liberty to collect data for a human rights report, it's hard to let myself be upset about something that, from that perspective, seems so trivial.

On the van ride home, I mostly slept, but at one point I opened my eyes and saw an open-air store (as most of them are here) selling yard statues. As I looked closer, I saw that one of them was definitely a pooping elephant. Why would anyone want that in their yard?? Whatever. If you're into that kind of thing, you can definitely hit me up and I'll point you in the right direction.