One day the Lord Buddha was flying through the air with twenty of his disciples. It was a Wednesday, and the moon was waxing when he came upon a small patch of land just emerging from the mouth of the Sittang River. There he saw two sheldrakes, one male and one female. All around the sand where they sat was water, and there was only enough room for the female bird to rest on the back of the male. When the Lord Buddha saw the sheldrakes, he smiled.

His disciple, Ananda, asked, “Master, why are you smiling?”

“Do you see...

An educated monk with good but nasal-sounding British English intercepts Matthew and me while we are in the refugee room. He introduces himself as Phra Banyaa. He calls Matthew “sir” and chides him over the rash on an old monk’s back. “He is relying on you, sir. When are you going to come with an injection? When are you going to cure him? He has been waiting for your injection for six days now.”

“Hmmph,” mutters Matthew, “when am I going to heal him, indeed? When am I going to inject him? We don’t even know what’s wrong with him....

One of the worst things about refugee work is seeing how lost the young are without their families and how the most innocent are often the most badly damaged in the course of armed conflict. Matthew and I begin with thirty-some temple boys at the wat, all orphans, or effectively orphaned. For many, the conflict within Burma means families are separated and no one knows if their parents are dead or alive.

More orphans come every month, and eventually, we have nearly seventy. The boys arrive wide-eyed, with a look that says never mind the monk at their side or...

In the jungles of Burma, a Mon soldier hears the click under his foot just before the sound of the explosion. There is not enough time to panic—just enough to know with absolute certainty that even if he lives, it will not be the life he has known, and he will not be the man he has been.

The soldier wakes up minutes later, with a confused memory of the sound of shredding, the smell of burning flesh. Maybe, he thinks, this has not really happened to him. Maybe it is something he heard about a long time ago....

Life in Thailand is not all hospital work. Tonight is the night of the full moon, the twelfth month of the year 2563. Never mind that my Western calendar disagrees. I am no longer in the West.

It is the festival of Loy Kratong. Phra Dhamma and Phra Dala Non are accompanying me and other community members to a nearby wat where we can participate in the festivities. I have dressed in a nice black skirt and blouse for the occasion and am giving myself a last appreciative look in the mirror when one of the community members shouts up...

In the end, it takes more than a year before a cornea for Nai Nya Naa arrives from Sri Lanka. The eye clinic calls, saying we should make final arrangements for the surgery.

Although I should have done it a year ago, I have not yet had the courage to discuss with Nai Nya Naa the risks of a cornea transplant. I have no excuse for not having done so. Instead, I have discussed the matter with Matthew, and I have thought about the possible implications of this surgery alone in my room at night. But I have not even...

One evening, during my first year in Thailand, long before Nai Nya Naa has his operation, Matthew calls to tell me we have a crisis on our hands. The police have raided the headquarters of the Mon student leadership in Bangkok. Sixteen Mon have been arrested and imprisoned. While this is regrettable, mass arrests are common. The circumstances surrounding the arrest, however, make the event significant.

A letter has arrived for Matthew from the Immigration Detention Center (IDC), where illegal immigrants, including refugees, are kept. The note, which has been smuggled out by a sympathetic visitor, begs for help. The...

On my next trip to the detention center I visit the women’s cells. One of the prisoners thrusts her naked infant son at the bars and shouts, “I laaaawv you.” She laughs and laughs.

I have come back for the list of names of those incarcerated beyond the terms of their sentences. My interpreter in this particular room, a prisoner herself, is showering when I come through the first time, and even when I come back ten minutes later they are disorganized. She keeps saying, “Five minutes, five minutes.” She has lost the paper I gave her. I am not...

One morning when I arrive at the wat, Phra Dhamma treats me to a Coke, then leans forward in his chair. There is something on his mind, something he has been thinking about for a while, I can tell.

He begins in the Asian way. “Wicki, do you have free time?”

This is the ritual Asian opening to an invitation. If I say yes, it will not necessarily commit me to anything specific. But if I say no, I will never hear what adventure I was about to be invited into.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I have free time.”

He...

I have not been successful at finding out whether it’s true that the refugees will be handed over to the SLORC. I try, I worry, I scheme, but I don’t accomplish much. To top it off, Matthew and I have been arguing. I have a vague sense it is my fault but can’t figure out what I should do about it. And I’m much too proud to apologize.

Matthew has suggested we publish the rumors the Mon have heard—that we get the question into the hands of other NGOS, the United States government, maybe the newspapers. I recognize we...

At last the day comes for the meeting with the PoliceHigh Command. My heart is pounding so hard I am afraid I’ll collapse. It turns out Theresa is gone that day, so I approach Gary, her assistant, and ask him to bring up the rumor we have heard that refugees will be handed over to the SLORC at Three Pagoda Pass. I tell him everything I know, including the conversation between me and Mary from the Australian embassy. In Asia, official authority counts for something, and I figure Gary’s role as the vice president of this group makes him the...

Although I have been successful at intervening for the student leaders, my attempts to help the prisoners who are kept beyond their sentences have been thoroughly useless. For someone deeply attached to the idea of being useful, I am getting awfully familiar with failure. Given the confusion about what really happens at the northern border, sometimes I think it does not matter one way or another whether they get there. They may never reach safety, no matter what we or they do. But then again, it is not my decision. We are not here to make decisions for the refugees....

Given the constant tensions of refugee work, I am delighted when, shortly after the prisoners are set free, I am offered a much-needed respite. I am invited to go to the United States for a week, during which time I will take some resettled Mon refugees to Washington, D.C., to talk to the State Department about the situation in Thailand. This is an opportunity to interrupt my daily cycle of anxiety, though before the trip is over, I will have a more complex understanding of what is at stake for the Mon.

Before I go, the monks bid me farewell...

For several months the refugees in camps along the border have been afraid they will eventually be forced back into Burma by the Thai government. The leaders of the Mon meet with prominent people. They write letters to international human rights groups. They write to the UN General Assembly that the Mon are “in an impossible and desperate situation. We have no choice but to ask the world community to intervene on our behalf.”

But the world community does not intervene, and no help comes.

Then all at once the reality is upon us. In January 1994, the Thai government...

It is Songkhran, the New Year and the celebration of water. Riding buses is hazardous and very damp. People stand by the side of the road and throw bucketfuls of water through the open windows, sometimes followed by flour. Passengers disembark dripping and looking like the Pillsbury doughboy with white drizzle oozing down their backs. The point of this silliness is to give the sky the right idea—that’s one of the main objectives of Songkhran. The people get tired of the dusty, dry weather, and they demonstrate to the sky what they expect of it.

They are successful this...

Matthew and I have been putting off a trip across the border to see the new refugee camp where the Mon were forced to relocate in January. It is now May. If we’re ever going, we have to go now or we’ll be cut off by the rains as the monsoon season progresses. We pack our bags and make arrangements to meet at the wat early in the morning.

Although it is a journey undertaken for sad reasons, it is an outing; it will take me into the countryside, into the sun, away from the dark cells of IDC or...

One day, after the crisis is over, Phra Dhamma looks up from a Coke he is nursing instead of eating lunch. “Wicki,” he asks, “what do you think of the Mon going to live in other countries? Do you think we should go? Do you think I should really go if I am accepted?”

“What will happen if you don’t?” I ask.

His face darkens. He says nothing.

“Will they arrest you if you go back to Burma?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you will be tortured? Killed?”

He doesn’t answer.

I think back to my encounter with Phra Banyaa. I...

We have been waiting for what seems like forever for some news about Phra Dhamma’s resettlement. We believe he needs only one more form from Australia and then we can go to the embassy to apply officially for his resettlement. That will not mean he is definitely going to be accepted, but it will be a step in that direction.

We wait and wait for the last form from Australia. Then one day the phone rings. “Uh, Wicki?” Phra Dhamma’s voice briefly interrupts the noise of traffic.

“Hi, how are you, Phra Dhamma?”

“Fine.” He says it distractedly, as if...

Things have been going well lately. Maybe too well. It makes me suspicious; things never go well for long.

Matthew is happier than I have seen him in a long time. He is spending more time with the children than usual and that always puts him in a good mood.

We have gotten the orphan boys into a Thai wat for school. They come home in the afternoon looking proud in their stiff uniforms. At school they are learning to be polite children, and someone must have taught them that politeness is expressed through waiing their parents and other adults...

I expect to hear whether Phra Dhamma has been accepted for resettlement before I leave for the States to participate in a community assembly. But the bureaucratic process is sluggish, and we still have heard nothing one way or the other as I board the plane, so I leave in a state of unrelieved anxiety.

When I arrive in the States my life is rearranged for me. The assembly elects the leadership of the community. I am nominated, I am honored. But there are thirty-five other nominees, so I do not take it particularly seriously. I do not expect to...

I am halfway packed and beginning to feel restless when Phra Dhamma calls. “Oh, hello, Phra Dhamma,” I say, pleased with the distraction. “How are you?”

“Fit as a fiddle.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Wicki,” he asks, “are you very busy now?”

“Actually, I’m not. What’s up?”

“Do you have time for one more sick refugee? We have one more patient.”

“Sure,” I say. “Who is it?”

“Is me.”

“You! But you said you’re fit as a fiddle!”

“Oh,” says Phra Dhamma. “Was lying.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Stomachache,” he says miserably.

For a moment I am alarmed. I think...

Now that I know I’m leaving, everything moves in triple speed. I have packed my clothes and trinkets while making last-minute trips to the wat to bark final instructions to refugees about their appointments with various doctors. News has traveled fast that I will soon be gone, and the refugees also want last moments with me. Whatever truth has not yet been spoken, whatever secrets not revealed, must now be unveiled or they will remain in silence forever. And so there are refugees who I considered to be healed and well but out of some longing I have no name...