Tomorrow I have the honor of sharing a bit of a special new year’s lunch being prepared by some of the Hill Tribe boys. I think these are ‘Thai Yai’ or ‘big Thai’ but I’m not altogether certain. I am friendly with a couple of them whose lockers are near mine and one of them invited me to come and give their food a try (they speak Thai, Chinese and their own tribal dialect). On the menu tomorrow is Squirrel, something I’ll admit I’ve never tried before.

I’m told these are special ‘jungle’ squirrels that area delicacy where these guys come from, way up in the mountainous areas of the ‘Golden Triangle’. I was told that after being caught in traps, the squirrels are then skinned, gutted and hung out in the sun to season and cure. According to my friend, one of his relatives had made a 2 ½ day trek down out of the hills to the nearest post office in order to parcel him a big box of dried squirrel meat! Boy it must be good, to have to walk that far to get it to him. I hope it doesn’t taste horrible, as I’ll feel too embarrassed to say so and they’ll force more on me being guest and all. Thankfully though I’m easy to please and it will probably be ok. How do you say “I’m partial to a nice bit of tail” in Hill Tribe lingo?

I’ve just looked at the clock on the cell wall. It’s 12.45! Happy New Year! There is nobody to say it to, they are all asleep! They usually let very loud fireworks off at midnight from Nonthaburi town pier? Strange, why not this year?

I don’t think there’s one amongst us who is not happy to see the back of another year in Bangkwang, but at the same time there is feeling of deep regret that we are here at all, and so pleasing relations that we have made it unscathed through another long year of utter madness and are one step nearer the door are tempered with more than a little sadness over the time we have lost getting there. But that is the nature of prison life and only certain way to move forward is to look ahead and get on with it.

I am looking forward to bringing you more interesting updates about our lives here over the coming year. Hope you can join us.

See you here in January

                                        Bert Bratoo

Post Script: January 1st 2007. 0530 hours

We have just woken to the news that eight terrorist bombs were detonated in and around Bangkwang last night while people were out celebrating the New Year. So far there are two dead. That would explain the missing fireworks, no doubt cancelled under the circumstances. My God! Has the world gone completely nuts? And I thought that we were supposed to be the biggest threat to the public? Pull the other one. If I may I’d like to offer the world a sound piece of advice given to me by my Mother when I was a kid, and about which it turns out she was absolutely spot on. She used to say “if you pull a face like that long enough sunshine, you’ll stay like it”. How right she was…..