Lauren Barr, Thai/Burma Border Winter '08
For all of American University’s Alternative Breaks, participants must attend at least eight pre-departure meetings. These meetings are a time for us to bond even while we delve into the place, people, and issues that our trip incorporates.
Our pre-departure meetings were full of laughs and learning – truly setting the tone for our trip. Every Wednesday at 9 pm, we gathered in a circle of chairs in the basement of the Kay Spiritual Life Center. After a long day of school and work, everyone still made it a priority to show up on time and engage in the discussions. As we arrived, we passed around all of the materials for the day: the half-sheet agenda, outlines and facts on the topics being covered, perhaps a list of essential words in Thai, and other odds and ends.
For the first several meetings, we began with a fun mixer to learn about each other and start to bond as a group. Classic games like “Two Truths and a Lie” and “I’m going on a social action trip” lightened the mood and gave us an extra burst of energy to begin the hour-long meeting. During the last few sessions, we also initiated a new tradition called “Highs and Lows,” which will become part of our routine in Thailand. In this activity, we take turns explaining the best and worst moments of our day. We hope that “Highs and Lows” will help us to process our experiences and check in with each other at the end of each jam-packed day.
Throughout our pre-departure meetings, we also read and discussed several excerpts. Our readings included a controversial speech by Ivan Illich called “To Hell with Good Intentions,” an article called “Thailand: Complications in the Resettlements of Burmese Refugees,” Aung San Suu Kyi’s “Freedom from Fear,” an interview of Aung San Suu Kyi, and part of The Iron Road by James Mawdsley. Each passage gave a different perspective on our trip and through them we probed deeper into the issues of democracy and human rights in Burma and raised questions about how to be effective activists how exactly to define the purpose of our trip. The conversations these readings prompted helped us to clarify what it means to go on an alternative break and how to make the most of it while we are there.
In one of our meetings, Jeremy Woodrum, the founder and director of the US Campaign for Burma, came to speak. He talked about his personal connection to Burma and why our activism is so vital. One of the things he said that really struck me was that we should focus on listening and making connections with individuals. The Burmese people, he commented, often do not openly talk to each other about the hardships they all face. Because they tend to hold their experiences and emotions inside, a foreigner can provide a much-needed outlet for their stories. We need to encourage them to stay strong and continue to fight for their rights.
Integral to each meeting were the presentations on various topics related to our trip. On the first meeting, everyone chose one or more topic, so that we covered the history of Burma, the military junta, Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy, political prisoners, the impact of foreign direct investment/trade/sanctions, humanitarian aid, refugees, the environment, ethnic groups, drugs, IDPs, child soldiers, forced labor, sex workers, migrant workers, and Burma’s relationship with ASEAN and other international organizations. Each session, I left feeling overwhelmed by what I learned and renewed in my commitment to helping the people of Burma. I think we all struggled to register that the astounding statistics represent people and the facts written on paper will soon be real to us. The over 500,000 internally displaced persons and hundreds of thousands of refugees in neighboring countries, the 1,300 political prisoners and 360,000 Burmese with HIV/AIDS, the sex workers, migrant workers, monks, and child soldiers will soon become faces to us.
We have prepared as best we can and now it is time for us to take the long plane ride to the Thai/Burma border where we will experience firsthand one of the most brutal and devastating crises in the world today.
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