Naw Ree Kah, 37 years old, is a new arrival. She has six children.

She has already lived in the camp four months, staying with her relatives.

She cooks dinner for her family but to this day she hasn’t received any ration from the authorities

She just shares with her relatives and tries to buy rice and food for her own family.

‘My husband works outside the camp in a Thai farm

to get some money in order to survive,’ she said.

‘If we received a ration, it would alleviate our burden.’

Naw Ree Kah used to live in Tar Krah village. She explained about her life in Burma.

“I had to pay many kinds of taxes such as the porter fee.

And we were also required to go to do forced labour.

I was fed up with having to pay taxes and I could not bear to go and do forced labour.

So I escaped and came to the refugee camp”.

This is another family of new arrivals. Naw Ma Cho,

46 years old and a widow, has already lived in the camp

one year and five months. But she too hasn’t received any ration.

She is now cooking breakfast for her family.

They collected this water to last the whole day.

They use it for cooking and washing the plates and all other purposes.

Naw Ma Cho has five children.

The other three are trying to find any kind of jobs outside the camp while the family don’t receive any food yet.

In Mae La camp there are nine thousand four hundred and forty four new arrivals who don’t receive any ration yet.

They are finding it difficult and hoping to receive the ration soon.

This little girl is having lunch with fish paste and a cup of tea.

“My lunch is simple, almost everyday the same. My mum could not provide a special meal for us.

I rarely eat fish or meat. Sometimes I wish to have that too”.

]]> http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/the-new-arrivers-and-their-food-in-mae-la-camp/feed/ 10 aiklu http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/thailand/ http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/thailand/#comments Sat, 10 May 2008 16:35:43 +0000 aiklu http://maela2images.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/thailand/ ]]>

The rainy season is coming and people have to go to the market and buy things for covering their body in the rain. Like an umbrella, hat, etc…..

In the rainy season it is not easy to ride a bicycle and the ground is slippery.

There is a lot of mud and especially when it is raining.

Although It is the rainy season, people are playing sports because we have a competition.

Some people struggle very hard, because they want to give their best in the competition.

This is one of the gardens in Mae La camp. Everything in the garden is green again,

the people start to plant vegetables along the river for eating and selling.

The football field in Mae La camp is very useful for the refugees who want to have good health by exercising or playing sports.

This river is flowing across one quarter of the Mae La camp.

It is a beautiful river and many people enjoy this river, especially in the summer and winter.

But in the rainy season the water is flows very fast and sometimes it floods the area near the river.

]]> http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/thailand/feed/ 2 aiklu http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/smiling-produces-happiness/ http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/smiling-produces-happiness/#comments Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:21:29 +0000 aiklu http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/?p=99 ]]>

Smiling can produce happiness, peace and health for a human being.

Like here, near Ban Rak Thai close to the Thai – Burma border.

There is a new village, named Ban Kong Mung Moung.

The people here can enjoy many of their rights in this new place.

But they don’t have good education and healthcare.

Because it is a new place for them.

These two kids are displaced along with their family to the border.

Because, they had been forced by the SPDC. But now they have a new place and

a new life in Ban Kong Mung Mong.

They look happy from their smiling. Because they feel safe and more secure than before.

Some people smile with their family,

and are happy to be together with their family and friends in their daily life.

There are many kinds of smiling.

Like the smiling of this boy, which tells us how happy he is,

because he has an opportunity to serve the people who are blind in the Handicap Care villa.

Some people are happy with entertainment.

You can be happy when you make other people happy too.

Like this student, who smiles while he’s playing his guitar.

Peace make people happy, and when people are happy they always smile.

.

The life of pigs is not easy in the sty because they have no chance to go outside the sty.

The other animals can come to the sty and say: “hello!”.

What the pigs can do is also say “hello” from the sty.

They do not have a chance to go around outside the sty with their friends.

If the pigs try to go outside the sty, the master will hit them or his dog will bite them.

The life of the refugees just looks like the life of pigs.

We, refugees, are not supposed to go outside the camp.

The camp is surrounded by concrete posts and barbed wire.

The camp has so many gates and many sections.

The children don’t have a chance to play their games like children living in freedom.

People are not allowed to go outside the camp and find work.

They just stay in the camp and do all kind of things like planting, weaving, building,

selling own products, learning, sporting, washing, playing guitar . . . . .

Saw Has Bwea Say

There are many kinds of houses. Some houses are very big and some are not.

My house in the Mae La camp is not so big. We have a small place.

It is a temporary house.

In Mae La camp we don”t have houses of concrete and stones.

And it is also made from wood and bamboo. The roof is made from leaves.

Every year some people are repairing their house in Mae La camp.

The wood or bamboo should be changed every year.

The house is where the humans live and do their daily life.

What we need in our house is happiness, peace, health and a good relationship.

We have kitchen, bedroom, toilet, living-room, all that is important for us.

Usually we spend our time in the house. So the house is really important.

We had a house in Burma. We have four members in our family,

and we had a beautiful house in our green place in my home village in Burma.

We were happy when we were there.

Saw Aiklu

Rice, fish-paste, pork, pumpkin, chili, long beans, eggs.

Chili make our food spicy.

We have a lot of fruits in the Mae La camp.

.

The old toilet in Mae La refugee camp.

First we dig out the soil round about five feet deep and three feet wide.

Then we fix the lavatory on top of the hole and cover back the soil.

Then we make the toilet room by some timber and bamboo.

The old toilet is already used in ten years. We can’t use any more. So we have to make a new one. But we don’t have any new place to make it in the refugee camp. So we decide make it below our house.

Saw Baw Sah Htoo

The new toilet of the the bible school, witch can be used by everybody.

.

My wounded chicken.

I have just a small place to put the pig and the chicken together. My chicken has been bitten by my friends pig. My chicken is two years old already. She has 160 grand children. Sometimes the pig bite the hen because they do not have a special place in Mae La camp.

Saw Gladdy

The Pig who bit my chicken.

Everybody needs water.

]]> http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/we-are-the-people-we-are-the-pigs/feed/ 4 hsabwea269 http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/our-food/ http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/our-food/#comments Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:43:20 +0000 hsabwea269 http://timelightmaela.wordpress.com/?p=72 ]]> Vegetables are healthy for people.

The children are catching small fishes.

The weather is very hot, almost forty degrees.

Some people in Mae La camp are growing lots of vegetable.

Like morning glory and long-beens.

They also use it for selling.

This man has to take care the vegetable in his farm.

Gourd is the food that we like to cook for curry and it is special for us.

The celebration took about five days.

We celebrated the 25^th anniversary of Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Bible School & College

between March 26 and March 30 2008.

And during that there was a football competition.There were different choirs.

We, the refugees in Mae La camp and the guests, were eating Karen meals together.

Also we showed the traditional clothes and there were many kinds of music to hear.

Graduates received their certificate, because, they finished their school.

Many people came from different countries.

Such as America, Australia, Holland, Korea, India, Scotland and Canada.

And there were also villagers from Thailand and all ethnic groups from Burma.

Before the celebration, we had a lot of work to do.

For example constructing new buildings and repairing the old ones.

We also prayed for all the people in Burma to become free.

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