Homeless child:
life struggle on the border.
By Busarin
The noise starts as usual late in the morning at the Mae Sai district
checkpoint on the Thai-Burmese border. Souvenir shops, restaurants
and vendors’ stalls along the road are getting ready for another
busy Sunday in anticipation of hundreds of Thai and foreign tourists
coming by on their way to the town of Tachilek, just across the
frontier in Burma.
Under a concrete bridge spanning the river that forms the natural
borderline between the two nations there is the sound of splashing
water. Dozens of adolescent boys are swimming in the muddy river.
But others stand by the bridge sniffing a white substance from plastic
bags, uncaring of anyone who might pass. Next to them a young man
sniffs at a liquid in a green can labelled “glue”.
At the Doiwaw souvenir shop a trendy teenage boy wearing a baseball
cap and a bag over his shoulder follows tourists around, trying
to sell them music and movie CDs. A girl about six years old, in
hilltribe costume, strolls around with a baby sleeping on her back.
These are the sights and sounds of the Mae Sai border market.
The youngsters are the homeless children who use the border bridge,
with its flapping Thai and Burmese flags, as their workplace and
their home. Some of them beg for money from the tourists. Others
discreetly sell them pirate CDs.
LIFE ON THE STREETS
 At
8 or 9 every morning, when most children her age are in class, 13-year-old
Meurlae, an Akha girl, is walking down a road beside the border,
“working” for her family. It’s not hard work – she’s a lookout for
tourists from Thailand crossing the bridge. When she spots her “targets”
she runs up to them and pleads for some money. She keeps this up
until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, then takes what she’s earned to her
mother. She’s very proud of being able to support her mother and
her sister.
“I’ve been doing this for four years,” she says in a voice whose
hoarseness contrasts with her cheery personality. “My mother knows
what I do, but she doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t have
much money. Selling vegetables doesn’t earn good money.”
Meurlae is quite self-confident and can speak Thai fluently, even
though she only has a primary-school education.
Her mother sells vegetables, earning at most 140 baht a day – barely
sufficient for the family since she has to pay 30 to 50 baht every
time she walks across the border. So Meurlae and her sister left
Yhabor Ayaya, their village in Tachilek’s Pungtoon district, to
find work like the other children.
“I saw my friends from the village become beggars and I wanted to
try it too, so I followed them," says Ahmeetulu. “I can make
50 to 100 baht a day, mostly from the Thai tourists. I give all
of it to my mum to buy food.”
She’s “lucky” in that her parents aren’t drug addicts, which is
the reason some of the other kids are beggars. These youngsters
can expect punishment if they don’t bring home enough money.
Nasae Mahyer, a 13-year-old Lahu girl, has lived
on the bridge since her parents died several years ago. Her life
is different – purely because she doesn’t have a home to return
to.
Her Thai isn’t so good because she’s never been part of the Thai
education system. Nasae speaks Akha with her friends, and they help
her communicate in Thai.
The most she’s ever earned was 60 baht a day. That’s only enough
to buy food.
Ahtee Sae-mah, 15, a Muslim-Ya Khai boy, is the fourth son in his
family. After his three brothers moved out to start their own families,
he decided to quit school at age 11 and sell CDs at Mae Sai. His
parents earned very little selling vegetables and farming, and he’s
got a younger sister as well. He also realised he was getting nowhere
at school.
Ahtee buys his CDs in Burma for 10 baht and sells them for 20. Sometimes
business is good, sometimes not. A lot of children sell CDs, but
they don’t compete, they help each other – any time a customer asks
for a CD they don’t have, they get it from one of the other kids.
Ahtee can make up to 170 baht a day, all of which goes to his mother,
but the fact that the CDs are pirate copies means that life isn’t
smooth for him. He’s been arrested by the Thai police several times
and had his money and CDs taken away. He was confined for three
days at the police station, but felt bad only about losing the income
for his mother.
The most the police ever seized was 500 baht – and that’s as much
as he’s ever made in a day of CD hawking.
There are other jobs for children who struggle for their survival.
They can work at the garbage dump if they can stand the smell and
the vermin.
 Lu-se
is 13-year-old Lahu girl, very shy and quiet and with little of
the experience of the homeless children at the bridge. She sifts
through garbage for a living. Unable to speak Thai well, she has
a friend translate her story.
Lu-se lost her parents when she was very young
– her mother was shot dead and her father also died some time ago
– so her memory of the family is fading. But she remembers that
she was born in the Puka area, where the Lahu live. She has no birth
certificate and doesn’t know her birth date. She’s among the thousands
of stateless children who don’t even know their origins.
Lu-se lives with her brother and his wife, who also scavenge for
saleable items at the garbage dump. She doesn’t know how much they
make, just that it’s enough to buy their food – though not enough
to get her into school. Some days if she collects a little extra
money she’ll keep 20 baht and buy snacks. There was one day she
made 100 baht and bought herself a pair of shoes.
Sifting through debris isn’t a job anyone would like, but Lu-se
particularly hates the maggots that crawl over the decaying waste,
and sometimes there are groups of “scary men” wandering around the
area.
There are different reasons why kids live on this
treacherous road. Some are orphans and some have drug-addict parents.
Some families have too many children to support. And some of the
youngsters have decided, on their own, to live independently.
Then there are those who find love and forgiveness at a new home
called Ban Nana, which is run by the kindly Kanjorn Jiemrum, who’s
known as Kru Ngao.
BAN NANA : A SHELTER FOR LITTLE HEARTS
 The
Sleeping Beauty mountain range is darkening as the sun sets and
the chatter of 140 children quiets down after dinner. Some of the
kids gather in small groups to talk or read or play volleyball.
They don’t have to sleep early today since tomorrow is a school
holiday.
Surrounded by cornfields and with a vegetable patch of its own,
Ban Nana is both alternative learning centre and safe haven for
vulnerable youths. The head of this home on the border, Kru Ngao,
is a former graphic designer from Buri Ram in northeastern Thailand.
In 1999 he left behind city life to live among these children.
The house opens up opportunities for youngsters of every ethnicity.
Most are Akha, Lahu and Palaung who fled the fighting in Burma.
Their parents were farmers so severely taxed by the government that
they came to Mae Sai-Tachilek to work in the border market, usually
with their children’s help.
Many of the kids got involved with drugs, a rampant problem in the
tourist area where the Burmese government lacks the means of eradication.
Opium is widely used to soothe aches and pains, and addiction is
often the outcome.
Ban Nana’s objective is to provide youngsters a place to heal their
wounded hearts. They can be trained for better jobs and thus avoid
becoming the victims of human traffickers.
Kru Ngao started out doing social work and got to know the street
children, gradually earning their trust and learning their stories.
Having opened his sanctuary, he deals with a slew of problems, including
the fact that the kids are used to living freely on the street,
without principles or rules. A lot of them have come and gone many
times.
“It’s a challenge changing their behaviour,” he says. “Some of the
children, when they have money, buy glue to sniff. Some get bored
easily and they just leave and return to the same old lifestyle.”
 Even
if they learn nothing else at Ban Nana, though, they learn that
the door is always open for them to return, and that Kru Ngao will
always be there with love and an open mind.
“We offer the same opportunity to everyone,” he says. “Some people
think we spoil them with our kindness, but when we see them we can’t
help the way we feel. Whenever they’re ready to improve themselves,
they can come here.”
Ban Nana’s outlay is more than 100,000 baht per month, but it’s
a cynical measure of the depth of Kru Ngao’s concern for these youngsters.
Every child here sees him as a devoted father.
Ahtee told his parents he was moving here to study after meeting
Kru Ngao in front of a convenience store. He’s never left, even
though he misses his own home a lot. He gets over the loneliness
by talking to his mother on the phone and horsing around with his
friends at the shelter.
Lu-se became another member of the household when her brother and
his wife moved away after their baby was born and they could support
her no longer. She’s been at Ban Nana for three years and is happy
reading the many books here that point to a better life ahead.
BRIGHT DREAMS IN A DULL WORLD
Life on the street and on the bridge can be difficult.
It is always, at the very least, a mundane slog from day to day.
Yet many of the children have indeed found hope in a smattering
of education or the slightest opportunity.
Ahtee has lived at Ban Nana for more than a year, still wearing
the same outfit with the baseball cap he always wore when he was
selling CDs. He tries to convince his friends who are still hawking
CDs that they should give it up and move into Ban Nana, but some
have parents who need the money for drugs, and some just can’t resist
the “freedom” of the bridge.
Ahmeetulu is happy just knowing that her mother is fine. She prays
for her every day. She once saw a Thai Army helicopter fly past
and, worried that it meant there was the a battle going on, she
rushed to her hometown to see if her mum was all right. Her mother
was fine, though, and Ahmeetulu came right back.
These days her mother lives with her younger sister, who is begging
on the streets.
“I can’t force her to quit and come here with me because my mother
would have no company. When I’m alone I’m always sad because I miss
my mother.”
Nasae is in a similar situation now. She gave up the homeless life
after meeting Kru Ngao. But she misses her student days in Burma
and hasn’t yet started attending school in Thailand. On Sunday mornings
you can find her sitting in the canteen concentrating on writing
some words in Burmese. “I miss parents and friends,” she writes.
It’s been 10 years since Kru Ngao opened Ban Nana. The number of
children has neither risen nor fallen as long as the protracted
conflict in Burma rages on and the economy stumbles.
“The military government hasn’t been hurt by the international sanctions
imposed on Burma – they just tax the people more,” Kru Ngao says.
“So it’s the people of Burma who are suffering. This is also the
reason so many children are pouring into the border area. And the
junta never educates people about family planning. They don’t know
how to use condoms or birth-control pills, and the population keeps
growing. Many children are left susceptible to violations of their
rights, forced labour and being forced to become beggars. There’s
a massive number of vulnerable children in Burma.”
There are very few organisations in Burma to help, as well. Ban
Nana can only do so much.
If the troubles in Burma continue, there will be more little lives
on the border road, more youngsters struggling for their lives and
their families’ wellbeing. Their dreams of going to school and securing
a better life will remain in the sky, far beyond their reach.
Translated from the cover story in
Salween Post Magazine Vol. 39(May 16- June 31, 2007)
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