Broken Dreams and Agatha Christie - First and latest encounters with the Karen

April 1996
A dozen tattooed men carrying knives would, in most towns in Britain, pose something of a threat. In the jungles of the Dawna Range of the Thai Burma border they made up what  was, in fact, a working  party of  wood cutters. Wearing only red and black tekus [sarongs] and wielding heavy knives they lined the sides of  the dried up river bed which formed the road through a tunnel of  tall stands of bamboo. The cutters were surprised at the sight of  us and  we waited a little apprehensively for their reaction. Eventually,they ceased hacking at the bamboo, smiled and shouted from one to another along  the valley.  The pick up truck  lurched past them, turned a bend in the river bed and  entered another world. This was Mae Khong Kha refugee camp and  my first encounter with the Karen.

Later that day I met the head of one of the camp schools, Saw Eh Geh , his wife Naw Paw and their son and two daughters. The Karen had fought for the British during World War 11 and it became obvious that the links were still intact.  Naw Paw wanted to know about the latest Charles and Di scandal and had run out of Agatha Christie novels. Saw Eh Geh wanted English teachers for his school. Education seemed to be a priority especially in these difficult circumstances. They talked about the Karen struggle and their support for the British and how someday the Karen would return from the camps to build their own country. It felt like the Raj had just ended.

And so links began to be built. Naw Paw got her Agatha Christies [righting wrongs in small villages  resonates with the Karen in the Dawna Hills as well as the English in the Cotswolds] . Eventually the teachers also came. That was 1996 although it seemed like 1949.

November 2009
Last week, thirteen years later, our truck came to a dusty halt outside the gates of Mae La camp. We were expected and the Thai guard let us through the gate with few formalities and retired quickly out of the baking heat. This bamboo town  stretches for about two miles along the border and  is home to forty thousand people, mainly Karen. We were there to take a look at some schools where our BEP teachers would be working with Karen teachers on the development and delivery of a new English curriculum.

Earlier that day we had met Saw Kli Shi, head of  a newly formed Karen education body. He is a young man who talks enthusiastically about developments in Karen education, the design of a new curriculum and its careful piloting in schools. Small centres for a level of tertiary education are being set up. Mae La has a teacher training centre and a variety of courses. However, this hides a sad reality. The problem is that thousands of Karen are leaving to be resettled in  third countries by the UN. The impact on Karen education[and the wider society] is dramatic as teachers form a significant percentage of those being resettled. This needs desperate  measures and the Karen are providing  emergency training for teachers. Sometimes this is only a four week course.

So thirteen years later the Karen are still sitting on the border, still trying to hold together some vision of the future. Education  is central  to  constructing this future and  the preservation, continuation  and advancement of Karen society. BEP is very happy  to provide  teachers to write materials for the curriculum . It’s a wonderful undertaking but it will take a real commitment from everyone to make it work in the classroom .  

In 1996 Naw Paw contemplated the future and said to me ' We shall sit here and wait patiently'. She and her family along with thousands of other Karen are now in Canada and thousands of others form a Karen Diaspora from Sydney to Sheffield. Patience ran out. Even Hercule Poirot couldn't solve this one.

Bob Anderson November 21st 2009

The Karen names in this article have been changed to respect privacy .

This year TEFL.com is sponsoring The Burma Education Partnership's Mobile Teaching Programme on the Thai/Burma border.  You can learn more about BEP here.