The people are friendly, amiable and honest. And they are happy and cheerful. Also the refugees have kept these qualities. They make it easy to help and not surrender.

I have never experienced a Christmas celebration like here with these people. If they didn't have their ability to celebrate as a community they would hardly be able to endure the suffering, the violence and brute force they experience. Maun Maung Thin comments:

They sing Jingle Bells!!!

"My heart warms up, my mind clears, I feel happy. This contrast. Misery, suffering, illness, dying are here as well as happiness, fun and high spirits. It's hard to attribute these contrasts to the same person. But that's the way it is. They laugh, they celebrate to forget, to keep their hope. I only saw happy faces tonight. Nobody was sitting alone, there was community everywhere, community in our suffering, community in our happiness."

On January, 3rd the Karen celebrate Karen New Year with traditional dances and their colourful traditional costumes. They are having year 2742 now.

Young and old are enjoying

."So I went out, saw their exuberance, their cheerfulness, bathed in all their radiant colours and their beaming faces. How they great each other, how they give each other presents, how they joke and laugh. I cannot get enough of seeing that. I'm avidly looking forward to these moments because they strengthen me, they give me courage, and they make me forget for a while, too.

Without an aim I'm walking around on the clinic premises, I'm just looking, greeting, smiling. I'm letting the atmosphere sink in. Little scenes of affection and tenderness are grasping my attention, giving me moments of bliss and tranquillity. The father cradling his infant daughter, the young girl furtively glancing at her secret sweetheart, the teenager trying to catch his girl's handkerchief during the Don Dance.

Life can be so normal, if you let it be.