Border Politics

A few weeks ago, a woman came to our house to live. She is not Burmese and is not from the area and she never met the women of my organization until the day she arrived. She came for one purpose and one purpose only: to learn English from me.

"Why is there?" you may be asking. We've been asking ourselves that very question. Here is the story, as I understand it.

Casey's organization in on very good terms with the Thai headman of the village. This is a VERY good thing, since it enables them to live and work here illegally, with the fewest amount of troubles. He visits their house often and drinks with the head of the NGO. So, of course he heard about the free English lessons that were going on in our respective organizations.

Could he just let it be? Of course not! What are the perks of being the headman if it's not to take advantange of other people's situations!! This started by sending a few villagers to Casey's classroom.

Then, one day, this woman showed up at our doorstep. If you ask the headman who she is, he will tell you she's his neice. But, if she was, in fact, his neice, why is she staying here instead of his house, which is only a few minutes down the road? If she was his neice, why isn't he taking classes with Casey's organization, which has better relations with him than my organization does? These are all questions that were asked during her first few days here.

To answer these questions, the women at my organization decided that she must be the Headman's mistress. Actually, they have informed me numerous times that he as many "wives." The other day, his wife #1 found out and began asking questions such as "what does she have that i don't have."

So, to sum up: So these organizations can continue to function as smoothly as possible, they made a deal with the Headman to allow his mistress to stay here for free and learn English from me. Don't I feel special!

On top of that, the Headman also suggested that Casey should teach the students from the village during their summer vacation. After all, he is doing the for free, so why should they pay someone in town. So far, this has not panned out yet, but summer's only just begun :)