Thursday, January 12, 2006

Didn't wake up in my own bed this morning

Ok I was just saying that so I could get your attention. Actually, It's true that I didn't wake up in my own bed this morning. My hotel room has two beds in it and I fell asleep in the one I normally sleep in, but I woke up in the other one somehow.
Last night I decided to to hang out in this bar nect to my hotel and try to strike up a conversation with the bartender. In my own clandestine sortof way, I was actually trying to figure out if she was a prostitute. I don't think she is. She's a refugee from Myanmar and doesn't have a passport...works two jobs. One starts at 8 am and ends at 5pm. The bartending gig starts almost immediately after that and doesn't end until past midnight. She wants to leave Thailand, saying there's just not a lot of mobility around here, but she probably never will because she can't get a passport. She straightened her posture, clasped her hands together on top of the counter , opened her mouth to reveal two two straight strings of pearly whites. Then she asserted, "Life is shit." Later, I asked her to play pool with me and she kicked my ass three times in a row.
In the same bar, I struck up a conversation with an American who actually knows of the program I'll be working with in Mae Sai. He's lived in Thailand for the last three years and has been researching narcotics, specifically heroin, in some of the more ghetto areas of the country. Initially though, he was researching child trafficking, which is how he knew of my program.
He told me this awful story about how he and some other people from his organization once went to Techula (can't spell it), the neighboring town of Mae Sai in Myanmar a few years ago. Inside a brothel, they had found a five year old girl who had been beaten and was crying. Not only did she have some scrapes and bruises, but she appeared to have some lesions on her body that seemed unrelated to the physical abuse she had just recieved. They took her away (I don't remember how), and brought her over to hospitals in major cities in northern Thailand, including ones in Chiang Mai. One hospital was able to diagnose her with AIDS and Syphilis. They also found a viral infection in her vagina that the doctors couldn't even fully identify. The messed up thing is, none of these places would treat her because she didn't have papers. They wouldn't treat a 5 year old girl with Syphilis and AIDS because she didn't have a legal form of identification, which was probably never given to her in Myanmar to begin with.
I don't remember the end of the story. In fact, this story was much longer than I've explained it to be. I know because as he was telling me this he kept pouring himself and me shot after shot of tequila without my asking for them and the story just became less and less lucid. I will have to ask him to refill me in on those details at another time...the story itself could very well have been fiction for all I know, but it was depressing to think about either way. He told me about a few places to hang out at night in Mae Sai, which was nice. And he said he'd email me his research, which would also be really helpful.
I was starting to feel drunk...and my most recent experience with tequila was on my friend Jackie's birthday back in August when I ended the night feeling really nauseous and hovering my head over a toilet bowl. It was time for me to go home. I remember quite well bidding my farewells to the bartender and the American, walking back to the hotel (the whole 200 ft), changing out of my clothes and getting into bed. I must have gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night and then just went to the wrong bed afterwards. It was pretty uncomfortable because that bed had all of my luggage piled ontop of it.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

That is such a sad and depressing story. I have no idea how a person works in a place where they run across stories like that each day, let alone how the people who LIVE the stories... um, lives.

6:06 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jamie, I'm knocked out by your entry. I wish here was something I could do to help. It's a little bit like reading Charles Dickens. I love hearing all this. Keep it coming. love, mom.

4:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Jamie,

What a heart-wrenching story... I don't know what to say except that you're giving me some much-needed perspective through your experiences and you're inspiring me to think more seriously about what kinds of classes I might want to take next year.

As for your furniture, most likely it rearranged itself... just like how my dolls and toys used to have tea parties while I was asleep, which explains why my room was always such a mess.

Love and love,
Emily.

12:03 PM  
Blogger flash103 said...

Hi Jamie,
Just found your blog and so I've only scratched the surface.
I love it.
Your location sounds like a real eye opener.
Later then.

Flash

2:15 PM  

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