A Beautiful Prison

Pushed up against limestone cliffs, the valley was covered in banana leaf huts strewn across every available inch of ground in the densely overgrown jungles of Thailand. Vast, breathtaking beauty was only spoiled by the barbed wire. Huts were built right up to it, pushing against the metal, making us all too aware that this place was a virtual prison for 50,000 Karen refugees who had been forced to flee Burma.

I spent a brief day in the camp with six other volunteers working with a Non-Government Organization (NGO) called Partners. In a small bamboo hut, we played games and sang songs with hundreds of Karen kids, sticky and sweltering in the heat. The goal was simply to show them the love of Christ through human touch, if ever so briefly. It was a small gesture of hope that the outside world had not forgotten them.

But to say the world has forgotten implies that we ever knew at all. Although it was my third trip to Thailand, this was my first time hearing about the neighboring conflict although it has been raging for over six decades. Stories inside Burma painted a grim picture of life for the Karen, an ethnic minority who is actively resisting the government; People being used as human land mine sweeps, violent rape and the systematic burning of villages. Hundreds of thousands of the Karen have been forced to trek through the jungle to find shelter in neighboring Thailand.

This particular camp was 21 years old and many of the Karen children had never been outside its fences. Completely isolated from the outside world, malaria, malnutrition and boredom plague the refugees, yet these were the lucky ones who had reached Thailand. They had little choice—either return to Burma and potentially be killed, or grow old in their beautiful prison.

Standing among the huts, looking upward toward the towering cliffs, I found myself overwhelmed by the size of the problem. This was only one of hundreds of camps, and I had so little to offer. No money, no influence, living out of a backpack, trying to make a difference, yet at every turn, feeling my impotence in the world.

Before we left, our hosts seated us in the front of the room, each on our own plastic chair. It was the only furniture we had seen that day and to the kids we must have looked like regal princes and princesses sitting on our thrones high above the scores of them clumped on the floor. They started singing as a line of elderly women, each with their hands on the shoulders of a child, marched slowly towards us from the back of the room. Each child held a necklace, displaying it for all to see; a simple string of thread tying together eight or so small mint candies. One of the few non-necessity items they sell at the only store in the camp. They sang a song as one by one we bowed our heads and they adorned us with our necklaces. And as they gave us this precious gift, they left us with this charge. “Please, take these home with you so you do not forget us.”

A year later, a lump rises in my throat as I ponder that moment, remembering the tears I chocked back. That day, a community gave me something of more value than any gift I have ever received because it was given out of abject poverty and I had brought nothing to give them that day.

Today all I can think to offer is my words. Words to convey their heartbreak through the passionate urgency of my memories. So I write to fight the apathy and to tell a story of a day, of a people and of a world that greatly needs us to hear their cries. And as I write, it stirs within me hope that my words will give eyes for others to see a world far beyond their own. I struggle to find the right ones, yet this gift - I hope - is worthy of the one I received.

To Learn More: Read more about the conflict at Human Rights Watch, and visit www.partnersworld.org to find out how you can get involved.