'Tis the Season

There are three seasons in this region on Thailand: cold season, hot season and rainy season.

"In other camps, this is the time of year when we put all of our things in a bag every night …"

It is in between cold season and hot season. In cold season, we have been waking up to ten degree mornings full of mist. The water in the buckets is too cold to wash with and we sleep with at least three blankets, the girls all huddled together in their room for warmth. In rainy season, all the roads turn into mudslides and no body leaves their house unless they have to. We live high on a hill, so it is almost guaranteed that you will slip and get covered in mud at some point. I am told that nothing every dries. Even clothes in a closet get covered in mold because of all the moisture in the air. In hot season, the road is a cloud of dust that sticks to your sweat. Even if you don't do anything but sit in your house, you will sweat. I think, ah, perhaps people in other camps put their things in a bag at night because it will get so dusty in hot season that everything will get dirty. Our camp, being high in the mountains, is cooler than all the other refugee camps, so perhaps this is why we do not need to make sure all of our things are in a bag.

"… We put all of our things in bags and we plan where we will run with them if the soldiers come to burn our camp."

There is hot season and cold season and rainy season and this is the season for soldiers to burn the camps down. This is the season that camps full of bamboo houses and thatch burn best.

Already there are reports of armed groups clashing with Burmese troops further North, but everything here is all rumor. Even those who have just returned from working in the North are unsure what is happening there.

Almost all of my students have survived one such camp burning and they remember it well. One night over dinner in casual voices, we discuss where we would run if the soldiers came to Umphiem. We are high on the hill with not many houses behind us. Then there is a field and the jungle. I say, "I would run uphill and hide in the jungle, that would be good, no?" My students laugh at me. "If the soldiers come, they will first surround the camp. You will run right into them." That evening, after dinner, I sit outside in front of the classroom and look down on the valley. Where would I run? Everywhere there are houses. If the houses burn, there is nowhere to run.

Umphiem Mai is high in the mountains, eight kilometers over extremely hilly terrain overland to the border with Burma. Along passable roads, which are windy, small and difficult, it is over two hours from the official border crossing and at least an hour from the nearest spot to cross by boat. We have very little to fear. I would not have Thai permission to live there if there were any danger. This season, we will probably not be burned, but we are the lucky ones.