The sun in my life

Walking with Thailand’s migrants and refugees who seek a better life

By Susan Keays
March/April 2010

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Sai Awn gives Susan Keays, his English teacher, a gift for helping him “walk into the future.” Susan went to Thailand as a new Scarboro lay missioner in October 2003.

An article I read in a Thai newspaper more than five years ago has remained lodged in my heart. It described how Thailand’s migrant and refugee parents are so desperate for their children to learn English that when they get their hands on the smallest bit of printed English, an adult in the community will contrive to understand what was written, and then gather the entire body of children to teach them the English lessons they were able to deduce from the writing.

I have been teaching English in Thailand since 2003, first at a center for hill tribe children and then at a shelter for mothers in crisis and their children, but after reading that article I was always on the lookout for an opportunity to assist those migrant and refugee parents. About a year ago, my search was rewarded when I found The Migrant Learning Center in Chiang Mai. The Center was established in 2005 after the devastating tsunami. Burmese migrants were among those whose lives were lost or destroyed by the water, and a non-profit organization was founded to assist them. The Migrant Learning Center is only one arm of the organization’s work on their behalf.

The migrants in Chiang Mai are often exploited, and if they manage to find a job it is usually what is known as 3D work: Dirty, Dangerous, or Difficult. Most of my students work 10 or more hours a day, seven days a week, and so it amazes me that they find the time and energy to come every day of the week to the Migrant Learning Center for the two-hour classes we offer free of charge in Thai, English, and com-puter training.

Even more amazing is that the students frequently bring work for me to correct that they have done independently in the little free time they have. One such student is named Sai Awn, a sweet-natured 19-year-old man who works as an assistant bus mechanic. Like several of the other students, Sai Awn’s ambition in life is to learn English well enough to go back to Shan State in Burma and teach it to the rural children who have little access to education.

A poetic bent

Unlike the other students, I could detect a poetic bent to Sai Awn’s writing. My suspicion was absolutely confirmed last week when I arrived at the centre for our closing day ceremony. Sai Awn was already there, waiting at the entrance to give me a basket of fruit for which I thanked him sincerely. But then I turned the basket around and saw a note taped to it that he had written. Titled “Sun in Life”, the note read:

In the past, my life was the same as a person who walked in the dark.
When I met the teachers, the teachers are the same as the sun in my life.
They illuminate me, to see the way to walk into the future.
Thanks for every day.
          From student Sai Awn

Yes, his gift of fruit refreshed my body, but that slip of writing has energized my spirit beyond measure, not just to teach English but to continue to seek out and walk alongside those who, like Sai Awn, feel they are walking in the dark.

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