A Clever Lady and a Burmese Baby

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Burma is a closed off country. Before spending time on it’s border I’d never heard much in the way of specific news or descriptions of problems in Burma, only that it was a rough place. Indeed it is a rough place, particularly for those who born into the Karen people group. From what I understand the Karen sided with the Allies in WWII, which was fine until the war was over and the allies forgot them in the treaty writing and left them at the mercy of their Japan sympathizing countrymen. Ethnic cleansing is the name of the game the controlling party in Burma now plays. One of the best health decisions a Karen person can make is to sneak across the border into Thailand and try to make a new life. Life in Thailand is relatively safe, but not easy: no I.D., illegal status, no access to health care or property rights. Being a refugee is a real drag, but when the alternative might involve literally being dragged down the street behind a truck, beaten, and killed, you go the refugee route if you can manage.

Bamboo School, where we spent the last ten days, exists to help Karen refugees, particularly orphans and other option-less children. Catherine Riley-Bryan Is affectionately known as “Momo Cat” by her “Bamboo Kids” and friends in Thailand. She told us that even though she’s old enough to be grandmother to her bamboo children, she prefers the Thai word for motherly endearment (Momo) since grandmothers are called “Pee Pee” (grandfathers, as it so happens are called “Poo Poo,” perfect right?).

Before Momo came to work in Thailand she did everything from earning the prestigious honor of Business Woman of the Year in New Zealand and Australia, to piloting rescue helicopters, to marrying a Manchester United footballer and traveling the Premiere League circuit on the arm of an Athlete. As Jeremy put it, “this woman has really lived.” Eventually she and her footballer settled down happily on a ranch in New Zealand, but when her husband died God began leading her through another astonishing series of events that has ultimately landed her on the Thai-Burma border having a rip-roaring good time running an orphanage, clinic, and ambulance service.

Momo is the kind of lady who gets things done and has a good time doing it. For example (and examples abound -I can’t listen quite as fast as she can tell stories), she was having a problem with some of the villagers releasing their goats on her property and eat her seedlings at night. She didn’t know who the culprits were so she corralled the goats and spray painted them hot pink. The next morning she hopped in her truck and drove down the hill till she spotted the hot pink goats, then had some words with their darker pink (blushing) owners.

It was inspiring to see how Momo serves God, and to hear her excitedly explain how thankful she is that God has given her a purpose. Even the lady who has “lived” finds she’s getting a lot more out of life now, as a servant to the poor, than she was back in her wheeling dealing days.

For my part, with only ten days at Bamboo School, I caught the vision but couldn’t quite figure out my place in the work. Hard work is a value that Momo is instilling in her kids, and they‘re catching on. There’s a schedule for chores; by the time I’d go hunt down a broom I’d come back to find the girls had finished sweeping already. The boys took Jeremy and me to cut Bamboo in the jungle for a new wall in the main building (the dorms and guest houses are straight out of Swiss Family Robison: floors, walls, and ceilings all from bamboo -these are two story structures, too). We got schooled in machete technique, and learned that, at home in Burma, these boys would likely have been cutting teak wood in addition to bamboo, and loading it on the family elephant (evidently it’s quite common for a successful family group to have an elephant, a strong one runs about $2000).

If I said, “I learned more from the bamboo kids than I possibly could have taught them,” I wouldn’t be being philosophical, I didn’t know how to split bamboo to make flooring, how to cut jack fruit, or how to feed a baby. I’m slightly ashamed but largely relieved to say that I still don’t know how to change a diaper -a skill that’s important for the older bamboo kids to know since they take care of their baby brothers and sisters.

One thing Jeremy and I know a little bit about is pouring concrete without much in the way of tools. We were able to put some of our energy, and your “Good Samaritan” money, to that end. We spent a day running plumbing and building forms in preparation for the pour, but the pouring day was the most fun: Bucket brigades with a median age of nine. I had a good laugh when I remembered and hummed the “Little Rascals” theme song. After we finished the floor for the “club house,” we “he-men” took the afternoon off and headed for the swimming hole. Everything was O’Tay.

-bjorn2bwild