Myanmar News Links: Training Burmese Refugees for Western Living

Thailand's largest refugee camp, Mae La, is a dense, overcrowded city of more than 44,000 people on the country's border with Burma. Bamboo huts sprawl over hills, their dirt-floor interiors containing few possessions beyond NGO-issued goods like bags of rice and toothbrushes.

On one hill sits a hut that doesn't quite fit in: Its roof, like the thousands around it, is made of thatched grasses and leaves, but its walls are gray-painted wood. Inside is what looks like a small but tidy bachelor pad: appliances, an oven, a window, a bathroom, a fridge full of fruits, vegetables, and eggs. But the food is all plastic, the toilet doesn't work, and no one is supposed to live here—it's a simulator apartment, designed to get Mae La refugees accustomed to the amenities of Western living before they finally immigrate to any of a dozen countries that take in people leaving Burma.

My guide to the apartment was Saw Norman, a Karen refugee who's a member of one of the many ethnic groups whose rebel fighters have spent decades at war with the Burmese government. Now 52, Norman (whose name has been changed at his request) has been fleeing the conflict since he was eight. In 2006, he and his family fled across the border into Thailand. He's lived in Mae La ever since.

"We call this a sink, to wash the plates, and then after we wash the plates, we dry the plates and arrange them on the plate shelf," he told me.

Despite his enthusiasm, Norman has never used many of the apartment's devices in real life, and he likely won't get a chance to. Despite his English skills and a strong desire to move his family to a country where his children can get a good education, Norman won't be eligible for resettlement in the foreseeable future. The year before he arrived in Mae La, the Thai government stopped registering any new arrivals from Burma, and registration is a prerequisite for resettlement.

"Any new arrival who came into the camps since 2005 is not even registered in a database with the Thai government," said Sally Thompson, the head of the Border Consortium, an NGO that provides aid to Burmese refugees in Thailand. People like Norman have no legal status and, as nonpersons, are much more likely to be deported back to Burma.

The only hope for Norman's family to get out of Mae La safely would be the end of Burma's civil war, which has been raging for more than 60 years. The government and the rebels are currently holding ceasefire talks, but there is still fighting in some parts of the country.

Even if Norman had the choice, he wouldn't return to Burma anyway. If he could, he'd move to the West so his three children could improve their lives. But for now, Mae La is home, and the simulated apartment is just a fantasy.