Mae Sot We Like You A Lot

Before we left for our travels, we spent a lot of time researching various volunteer opportunities, but had a hard time finding a program that felt like a good fit for our interests, our budget, and the amount of time we would be able to donate. Thus, we were very excited when we spoke with Morgan’s dad, who was already in northern Thailand, and he had a solution.

We traveled to Mae Sot, a town on the Thai-Burmese border with a large number of Burmese refugees. One way to distinguish the Burmese from the Thai is by the way they paint their faces with Thanakha, which is done to help prevent sunburn, amongst other maladies. They commonly spread large circles on their cheeks and put lines down their noses and on their foreheads, like so:

The reason we specifically went to Mae Sot was to join Morgan’s dad in helping out with an organization called FTUK. They are a trade union that supports workers in the Karen region of Burma. They needed help updating their computer systems and software (cue: MWS) and translating letters from broken English into better English (cue: GNK), to be part of a larger report being sent to the International Labor Organization.

A typical afternoon looked something like this:

Arriving at the office, with Morgan’s dad.

Researching and editing for the proposal.

Lunch from a roadside chicken rotisserie (side note: the baby pink bike in the foreground, was our chariot for our stay)

Pumping iron in the backyard… just kidding.

But in all seriousness, we’re very thankful we had this opportunity to help FTUK and wish them good luck in all of their future endeavors.