Trouble come find you…
I’ve just checked into my Chiang Mai home of the next two weeks, and it’s going to be quite the trip with my host. She’s American, has daughters there, hasn’t been back in 10+ years. Seems a wonderful mission she’s on: art and scrapbooking, and a student from the university teaching robotics to kids. And she arranged day trips every day this coming week - her treat to herself and her friends - recovery from her harrowing last few weeks.
She has a rap about being able to get reliable help these days. She recruits from the university through FB, but they don’t want to work. They’re 21, and the boy asks for a chair so he can sit down to stir banana bread mix. And then he thinks he can freely eat it. The girl says she’s tired after a couple hours and needs to lie down. She may fire them both, but the one guy she liked didn’t come back after one day, so she’s out on a limb. I thought about offering to step in and help out. Then thought the better of it - ☺️.
Amy is just a bit harried, if not haggard - 😞.
It gets worse. She had Frank. He’s Burmese. “He was great!” He was going to start medical school, but his brother was a doctor and gets arrested, accused of tending to the injured rebels. I guess Myanmar is enmeshed in civil war and a coup. So Frank’s parents want to get him out of Myanmar, and he ends up working here at “Creativitea,” Amy’s cafe and community center. “He had ideas to help the business; he was really engaged.” Her godsend.
But the Thai police show up. They thought his papers were the real deal, and they just paid the same agent to renew his visa. The police assert they’re fake and arrest him and his even more innocent friend who came to visit 12 days prior. Amy closes up shop and takes them three meals a day, and in other ways advocates for them.
Immigration takes over, and they deport them to the border. Amy gives him $ in three different wallets. As he arrives, he receives word that his brother has been executed, and there’s a warrant for his arrest. (I know. May we bow our heads.) The Thai border guards tell them they will send them by river to an area where they’ll be conscripted into the military to serve as cannon fodder. Or they could give them all their money.
Freed to go to “safe” Mandalay, they are penniless. Amy has just sent them more money through the black market using her credit card, and they’re now home “safe” with his grieving parents in Rangoon.
There’s more to this story, but suffice to say it doesn’t get any better. And it’s held in limbo, tossed by the winds of fate.
And so the story goes, she can’t find good help to replace Frank. Three of them, and they can’t replace Frank. They like drinking coffee, and she gives a 50% discount for goods and beverages. It doesn’t go over well; they think it should be free.
She has another fellow coming, a science student, and she’s ever-hopeful. I am too.
And that’s my 15 minutes with Amy in a big nutshell. My room is nice, and it is quite quiet, though the low rumble of motorbikes penetrates in the distance. It’s a spacious wooden room on the 3rd floor with a balcony, a fridge and a microwave, and a cafe with lattes downstairs.
I ask about proximity to the old city. where it was recommended I stay, or at least explore. She points down the street, just one block. “It’s a dead-end for cars, but turn to the left and you’ll see three steps that will lead you up to the bridge over the moat, and into old town.”
And so I’m off, weighted-down by what I’ve heard, lightened by indomitable spirit. I’ll catch up with you later.
