When visiting shopping centers in Thailand, it’s hard not to notice the plastic-like sheen and pastel colors that make everything seem a bit artificial, like it was all popped out of a mold that morning. Standing in the food court of the Thai equivalent of Walmart, it’s hard not to be slightly put off by that notion.
We were heading to a village 100 km from camp, and we needed to pick up supplies. For us that meant sandals and snacks.
The upcoming village was again part of the Akha tribe. However, the auspices of our visit were a bit extraordinary.
Dr. Mar Naw was on a mission. He had been contacted months previously by an American businessman. This fellow had visited this village previously, and met a 7 year old girl from the Long Neck Karen tribe. She, like many Long Neck Karen, had been, effectively, shipped from Burma to Northern Thailand to participate in what was essentially a human zoo, one catering to tourists interested in seeing the signature enlongated necks of the Karen people. Her group had been settled in a camp next to the Akha village. Unfortunately, her mother died of illness while in Thailand, and her father was killed when he attempted to return to Burma.
As an orphan, it appeared as though she was being drawn further into that human trafficking ring. Realizing this, the businessman wanted to help her; he decided that he would support her financially and put her through school. So he contacted Dr. Mar Naw, pledging to donate to WTIND, so long as Dr. MN found and took care of the girl. Dr. MN agreed. Since then he had visited this tribe twice, but had failed to find the girl. It appeared as though the traffickers were one step ahead of him.
This put Dr. MN in an awkward situation: he had promised the villagers that he would build them toilets and run clinics in their village. He couldn’t renege on his promise, but, having failed to find the girl, he was faced with losing the businessman’s funding. Luckily, after a short back and forth, the businessman agreed to pledge a fraction of his original offer, and Dr. MN pledged he would continue to search for the missing girl. The business man promised: if he found the girl, Dr. MN would receive the rest of his original offer.
When we got into town, MN set off right away, flashing a color photograph of the girl to the villagers, trying to find if she’d been there.
We waited in the car.
After a fruitless few hours¸ it appeared that the trail might have run cold once again.
But then he got a tip.
A village about 30 minutes away was home to another Long Neck Karen camp. She might be there.
Unfortunately for Dr. Mar Naw, night was falling, and we had to get settled in.
A long tribe meeting was called wherein they decided where we would sleep, who would cook for us, and which 2 families would make the best use of the toilets we would be building. We were overjoyed when the meeting ended because we were getting eaten alive by mosquitos at this point.
I’d also like to mention that it was a little bit before the tribe meeting that we a villager that we would be interacting with heavily during our time up in that hill village. His name was Kite, and when we met him, he was smoking a cigarette out of a bong constructed from a piece of PVC pipe with a piece of bamboo crudely epoxide into the side.
We didn’t know it then, but he would be watching us, every day, as we worked on constructing two toilets in that village.
I digress. We ate dinner, and hit our beds. Unfortunately, the guest house we were sleeping in did not lend itself to mosquito nets well, and the first night looked like we were sleeping in a mosquito net shanty town. Zhou was not happy.
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