Abstract:
The refugee camp appeared by no means as bad as I had expected. I had been bracing myself – the camps I had worked in before were bad. In Pakistan families froze in the rain and mud of the Himalayan winter, living for months beside open sewers and in ancient canvas tents. In Sudan vast temporary cities grew in the desert. They were violent microcosms of conflict, unemployment and persecution. Women risked attack in the daily search for water and firewood. But in the Mae Hong Son camp – on the Thai-Burma border – I found a pleasant village filled with ethnic Karennyi refugees. Children ran through the streets, men played volleyball on the central maidan, and from the schools the sounds of music, laughter and learning drifted across the humid afternoon air. The houses too were in good shape – the cool, deep-eaved buildings with thatched roofs were a far cry from the squalid settlements where I had worked with others fleeing war and natural disaster.
Details / PDF:
The full-text PDF of this article can be downloaded from Informit. You can purchase the article, or access Informit for free via a public library account, such as the State Library of Victoria.