Journal 11
Why do they keep calling me Pee (grandmother)? I know it's meant with the utmost respect, but how do they know I'm not 25? That's how old I feel. Except in the morning when I'm trying to get up from a wooden bed and extricate myself from mosquito netting. I'll have to dye my hair again.
Every week, I find an excuse to take the hour trip into Mae Sot, which means spending the night since the line buses stop at noon. I don't do it for the accommodations. The beds are only marginally better than wood. I don't do it for a hot shower because they aren't. I don't do it for the night life. I think there is some but I haven't found it. I choose to stay in out of the rain and sleep for 10 hours. I might do it for the food, a taste of Western at Dave's café with bacon and eggs for breakfast. But I think I do it just for the hustle and bustle of "real" life. Mae Sot is a major metropolis. Two traffic lights. And a lot of motorbikes, some cars and trucks. It's a change from the surreal quiet of the camp and the feeling of confinement. I would make a terrible refugee. I catch the 7:45 bus out in the morning and just watch the traffic, the people going off to work, taking kids to school on the motorbike, opening shops, and starting life again, and I return to the sense of waiting.
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