Umpiem

Tuesday I traveled to Umpiem refugee camp, about 2 hours drive south of Mae Sot. It is home to approximately 17,000 refugees, mostly from Karen State, some of whom have lived there for 11 years. I went there to visit a new junior college, for which they have asked me to help develop a public health curriculum. Camp education generally stops after 10th standard, although a number of vocational 'post-10' programs have been established in recent years. This new idea is to create a system for higher education through the camps. There are nine camps in Thailand (officially, and one 'unofficial' camp), of which 5 are participating in the program. Each camp has established a junior college, at which accepted students spend two years in general studies, before choosing a 'major'. For the final two years, the students shift camps according to their interest, with each camp school featuring one topic. One is focusing on management and administration, one on education, on on southeast Asian studies, one on public health, and I can't remember the last one. The first cohort of students have already started their general studies, and will be graduating to the 'upper division' in June 2011. Which leaves me with 6 months, few resources, and little time with which to develop a two year public health curriculum. But that's another story...

Umpiem camp clings to the side of the mountains, the southern edge of the ring which encircles Mae Sot. With our four wheel drive, we were in the lowest gear for much of the trip from the camp entrance to the school, which being the most recent construction, is perched in the highest reaches of the camp. Being dry season, we achieved the hilltop without incident, but in rainy season, some of the roads are impassible, and our driver described having to put the engine in reverse in order to descend the steeper slopes.

The day of my visit was Eid, and although a small minority of the camp are Muslim, a visitor on this day would easily assume the opposite. Passing down the main road we saw at least 20 cows being ritually slaughtered, and broken down in preparation for the evening's feasting and celebration. Kids decked in their finest, with faces painted, ran and played in the streets, contributing to a light and festive atmosphere, a testament to people making the best of their situation, even when that situation is a refugee camp with few options for the future.

It was my first visit to this camp, but it was exactly as I expected. Homes closely spaced, built in initial haste, but added to and refined over the years. Pigs and ducks tied under the raised floors of traditional bamboo huts. Homes selling a few vegetables, tea, or fried snacks out of their front windows. People washing clothes, and food, and bodies from communal spigots in the street. And people, everywhere, most of whom with little to do.

A couple of white expats walked slowly up the road with cameras, taking pictures of trash, and animals in the streets, and latrines. I knew they were there to do an evaluation of camp management, but it still looked like an odd form of tourism as they wandered through the camp, so obviously unconnected to the people and lives around them.

At the school, I had a great discussion with the students, about their motivations for participating in the program, their goals, what they hoped to accomplish after graduating, most of which related to serving their communities. They were all very motivated and bright, eager students, pursuing what is essentially the highest level of education available to them. They are stateless persons: unregistered in, and unwanted by Burma, and considered temporary guests by Thailand, without the papers to travel anywhere outside of the camp. Many spoke of a desire to return to the villages they came from, leaving unspoken the need for the peace that would enable that to happen.

After meeting with the students, I was invited to lunch. It was a very traditional spread, of rice, soup, chicken curry, stir fried morning glory, omelet, and one of my very favorites, beh bo, a spicy fermented soy bean dish. It was a kind gesture, and I warmly accepted their invitation, but it still felt a bit odd to be eating in a refugee camp, knowing that the entire population there is dependent on outside food aid. Even so, they do not hesitate to share what they have.

Being on the highest hill, the school has a sweeping vista of the entire camp, falling away on the slopes below. Umpiem weather is particularly windy and cool, and the brisk fresh breeze seems to heighten the beauty, but also stir up a sort of restlessness within the soul. The view of bamboo huts tucked into the green hillsides is serene, but also jarring, to think of all these people trapped here - literally walled off by barbed wire from the rest of the world, no where to go, and few options for their future. Its sobering, and as I drive back out through the gates at the close of my brief visit, I wonder how it must feel to the residents to watch me so easily leave, a right I have based solely on the accident of the geography of my birth.