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By Root 797 0

too fearful. Then the door was shut firmly and locked from the inside. My translator introduced me, explained that I would like to speak with the children about their lives and their perceptions of refugee life, and have them draw some pictures. The father and mother joined their palms in front of their lips, and I did the same in return. Then the children and I returned the gesture. The kids giggled hysterically, and the father and mother shot them a glance. It seems I had joined my hands together at the bridge of my nose, a sign of respect reserved for monks. The children thought it was one of the funniest things they had ever seen. When I smiled at the explanation from the translator, the parents relaxed. They would not want me to be offended.

The children were eager to draw and the parents were eager to talk. The family had not left the building and had hardly left the room in several months, not for school or work or play. I rapidly learned of the slow torture that this life entails. While these kids are not in the combat zones of Congolese child soldiers or even the children internally displaced in Burma, they have their own battle to fight, against depression, silence, and disappearance.

“A few days ago our neighbor threatened my oldest daughter,” the father said. “She was singing too loudly, and the neighbor threatened to call the police and send us back to Burma or to the border area. This cannot happen, of course.”

The children remained quiet while their father spoke, concentrating on their drawings, signaling each other with looks to exchange colors.

“We are at the mercy of our neighbors because we are not recognized by the government. We registered with UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), but they said that the government was not recognizing any more refugees at this time. I am not legally allowed to work, but that matters little….” He gestured at his leg, shaking his head. “None of us speak the Thai language. The children cannot learn it. They cannot go to school.” He rubbed his eyes with weariness. “They do not leave the house. It is too dangerous. If they play too loudly and annoy someone, we can be arrested.”

I felt lost here in a world without play. There was a chasm of experience between these children and me. I wanted to leap it with a game, if not soccer something quiet, something mindless and fun that we could do together, but no one felt much like playing.

My translator, who drives around the city for one of the aid organizations delivering monetary assistance to the illegal Burmese refugees, leaned over and told me that this family would have to be moved.

“People complain that they have too many children and they cannot pay their electricity bill. We give them some money, but it is not enough. We have to be careful, because our assistance program is also illegal. No one here wants these people to be helped. No one wants them to stay.”

“Do you know where you will go next?” I asked.

“We will go where we find a place. We do not know where,” the father said. He leaned back on his hands, stretching his fake leg and rubbing the area above it.

“Why did you leave the border area? Is it not safer there?”

“I fought the Burmese government with the KNU. I disagreed with my commander and he tried to kill me. I was shot in the leg. I cannot go back to Burma because I am their enemy. I fought for democracy. I cannot go to the border area because of the KNU. I must seek shelter in Bangkok, even though we must live like this.” He gestured at the room around him. In the half hour I had been with this family so far, I felt the light squeezing my eyeballs more and more. The walls inched in around me from minute to minute. They were bare and white. This was a prison cell.

“I want to study,” said Thinzanoo, the oldest daughter, the singer whose song had put the family in a precarious situation. “Now I help my mother all day and raise my little brothers. I don’t see any other people. I want to have a good education.”

Education, schooling, the bane of so many children in the “developed