Cast of Degenerates

The office seems deserted today. Perhaps everyone is so used to having Friday off as an official holiday (which has been the case every Friday for the last month, it seems) that they all stayed home today. At any rate, I have actually been quite productive for a change. I have finally caught up on my marking and got a lot accomplished in terms of lesson planning. Although I won't have to work tomorrow (I often do), I do have to write my final exams for this trimester sometime soon, probably over Christmas break. Meanwhile, since life seems to be in a bit of a lull, and I wouldn't want to get TOO much accomplished today (that wouldn't be very Thai of me, would it?), I will take up some of my office internet time to describe in a little more detail the wacky cast of characters that make up life in Mae Sot.

Patrick


Patrick 

I probably spend more time with Patrick than any other foreigner around. I teach up in Umphiem Monday through Thursday and he teaches with my Tuesday through Friday. As you can imagine, there isn't a lot to do in a refugee camp in terms of serious entertainment. Once a week, we hook a TV and DVD up to a car battery and show a movie, but the rest of the time, we're on our own. There is one other school in camp with foreign teachers run by an illegal NGO that does not have permission to be in Thailand. Consequentially, their teachers don't have permission to live in the camp, although they do. But basically, if I want to speak English, it's just the students, Patrick and I.

We spend a lot of time sitting outside the classroom, drinking coffee and talking. Patrick is 28 (I think) and from Ohio, U.S.A. He has lived a lot of places and done a lot of things, including studying acting, painting and holding art exhibitions in Portland, Oregon, and working in a framing shop. My favorite stories from Patrick so far include the time he skipped school and ended up winning a t-shirt by singing "Ice, Ice Baby" on the Jenny Jones show. The New Years party he spent in the company of a bunch of wild, bisexual clowns is another one, as is the mad brawl he got into while exiting a bar one night in Mongolia.

Patrick first started teaching in Korea, where he met Brooke and made a lot of money by working crazy overtime hours, mostly with bratty kindergarten kids. He and Brooke once ate octopus so recently killed that the suckers from the tentacles sucked onto their tongues until they were properly dead.

Patrick comes from a fairly conservative family. His brother, for example, is a tax lawyer. He once dated a girl for five years who went absolutely manic, has tried to kill herself many times and is on countless meds. She recently spent two weeks in jail, although won't say for what. His current girlfriend is a wonderful Thai cosmetic salesgirl named Nok. She started out being his language teacher and now they are going to get married. The family is not so keen on this, but I am looking forward to a happy Thai wedding. Patrick's future plans: when he is finished with EIP, he and Nok are moving back to Ohio and starting a self-framing / Pad Thai shop. Good luck Patrick.

Brooke
Brooke is the other person who works for EIP. The program was her idea and she enlisted Patrick, who she had met in Korea, to come help her with it. Brooke is from America, but studied International Development at McGill. Small world eh? Brooke spends most of her time in Mae Sot doing the office work, keeping the funders happy, getting the funders, writing reports and doing our administrative work. She teaches up in Umphiem Fridays, so unfortunately, I don't get to see much of her.

My first weekend in Mae Sot, I spent a lot of time with Brooke. She and Patrick and I and a few people went out for beers. We were sitting around when someone came up with the idea of going to the local disco, Club Y2K. Brooke was very enthusiastic.

"It's great fun!" she said. "They have these bands and these girls come on stage in these crazy little furry red bikinis!"

What can I say? I like the girl. Actually, Brooke would be a hard person not to like. She has a warm smile and a warm heart. She's one of those people you just can't help but feel good to be around. On the weekends, we often get together for tea in one of the little Burmese tea shops in Mae Sot and talk about our life plans, where we are going from here, development issues and politics. We also go visit the Thai massage parlor that is near my house once in awhile for a relaxing and only sometimes uncomfortable Thai massage.

Brooke's significant other also causes her friction with her parents. She is dating a really nice Burmese guy named Ong Ja (I have no idea how to spell it actually and it doesn't really matter because that's not his real name). Ong Ja is a Burmese political activist working for an association for political prisoners here in Mae Sot. Although he himself was once a political prisoner in Burma, he is now a refugee, registered with the United Nations. He is hoping to be resettled to the United States and is waiting for an interview with the US resettlement team in January. Meanwhile, he is one of the most active members of his organization, writing excellent reports about the situation in Burma and hiding from spies. His brother, an activist working inside Burma, recently came to visit him and Brooke had dinner with them tucked away in a dark corner of a shady guest house. It all sounds rather dark and suspicious, but really, it's just every day life here and he is a wonderful man, with a smile warm enough to match Brooke's.

Tim


Tim and neighbour boy 

When I moved into my new house, Brooke said to me, "Ah, you will be living next to Tim, the crazy Aussie." So already, I was looking forward to meeting him. Tim is a tall, gangly guy with a thin face and a wiry frame. I rarely ever see him out of his singlet. He recently turned 36, which was the occasion for much of the drinking that happened a few weeks ago. He is from Melbourne, Australia and his girlfriend works at the Australian Consulate in Vietnam.

Tim was accepted directly into Australia's best law school and dropped out after two years. He came to Bangkok rather randomly and got a job there working as an assistant editor. In Melbourne, he ended up directing two advertisements for one of the universities, both of which were huge successes. He claims he was well on his way to becoming a film director.

Instead, he flew to Thailand, and sat on an island for the next three or four months, drinking, writing, smoking and preying on the female tourist population. He ended up in Burma on whim completely uninformed about life there, but spent most of the time in a hotel room suffering from Typhoid until a random stranger shipped him back to Bangkok for treatment. When he went back to Burma, he was better informed and on a mission. From his time there, he wrote and published a book, which I have yet to read. He returned again some time later to film for a documentary, which he is now editing. And that's what he does with most of his time, and that's what makes him such a great neighbor: he sits in front of his computer all day, not bothering anyone, but occasionally comes out at night and gets wild. We have had many an interesting dinner and breakfast conversation, many a good coffee and far too many cold beers.

There are, unfortunately, about five dogs that frequent Tim's house for food on a regular basis. They are the typical mangy mutts of Thailand and most of them are friendly and getting friendlier towards me all the time. He also has a crazy little cat that he rescued from the monastery across the street. It had a broken tail, so it's tail is all screwy but it's brain is pretty screwy too. It's name is Little Foot and I will be looking after it while Tim jets back to Melbourne for Christmas vacation.


Well that's enough for today. Sometime in the future, I will get along to describing Mel, Miles and Jack and then you will know the most interesting people I spend my time with around here. For now, Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year!