Hot Peppers and Politics on the Thai Border

It happened early in my career and set the stage for my interest in context analysis also known as political economy analysis.

I was working in a refugee camp on the border between Thailand and Cambodia that housed the families of Khmer Rouge supporters. In hindsight, I was not well informed, a bit naïve really, about people’s motivations and the powerful, global dynamics behind the refugee crisis in southeast Asia. I grew up in a medium-sized town in the middle of the U.S. where we were taught that everyone’s motivations were easy to understand, positive, and well-meaning.

The organization I worked for managed a supplementary feeding program for women with children. It was well organized with large burlap bags of food stacked on one end of an open-air hall made of bamboo. Hundreds of women lined up each day, many holding onto crying babies and wandering toddlers, to collect their weekly food allocation while humidity floated in the air like smoke from a dying campfire. Each woman clung to a plastic envelope that included precious documents proving her eligibility for the supplies.

I oversaw the hospital feeding program in another bamboo structure situated next to the camp hospital. I spoke Thai all day with the Khmer staff who were refugees that lived in the camp. The team cooked big pots of food for the hospital patients. We didn’t serve it, just prepared it, and handed it over to the staff of the non-profit organization that managed the hospital and provided basic health care services.

Often, an officer from the Thai military who managed the camp visited us in the kitchen. We would chat a bit about the day, about the weather, about other innocuous topics. These visits were uncomfortable as he was a bit too friendly so I would usually find an excuse to break up our conversation like the team needed more rice, or it was time to deliver the food to the hospital.

One day in the middle of cooking, the Vietnamese, who controlled much of Cambodia at that time, started lobbing bombs into the camp from just across the border. Most likely, they were pursuing some Khmer Rouge soldiers who snuck into the camp to visit family. Although we sometimes heard the sounds of bombs and gun fire in the distance, this was different. It was close, way too close. The bombs were dropping on the edges of the camp, but it felt like they were landing ten feet away. The Khmer staff quickly closed the cooking pots, doused the fires, and ran to check on their families. My Thai colleagues rushed into the hospital kitchen. We were an all-female team with a quick, tricky choice to make. Our team leader, a Thai woman, who asked, “Into the bunkers with the guys in uniform, or drive away?” A quick exchange of glances among us and the preferred path was clear. Get in the SUVs.

I drove one of the cars and remember the squeal of our departure, my racing heart, and my shaking hands. We could hear more bombs landing in the camp, and I took one twist in the road too fast. The wheels screeched and my colleagues screamed, but, thankfully, we did not veer off the road. We all took a deep breath and soon stopped at a small restaurant a few miles away that fed many of the humanitarian and UN workers on their way into and out of the camp. The food was quick, delicious, and spicy hot.

In hindsight, it seems callous that we stopped for lunch while the inhabitants of the refugee camp cowered with their families and prayed the incoming was not coming for them. We ordered food, talking loud and fast, trying to process the impossible. The food arrived and my dish was a sea of colors: red, yellow, green and everything in between floating in a fragrant broth. I took a spoonful and started chewing. It was delicious, salty, and full of contrasting flavors. On the second bite, my mouth exploded with the taste of a red-hot pepper, which I quickly spit up into my hand. A cultural faux pas, but my mouth, throat, and even my ears were on fire. I took a drink of water, but it did little to ease the burning pain. My eyes started to water and then I started to cry as the intensity of the hot pepper ignited the stress, fear, and complexity of the morning. My colleagues patted my back and murmured soothing words as the tears pooled in a small puddle on the dirt floor.

The soup mirrored my experience in the camp and honestly my entire time working in refugee camps along the Thai border: beautiful scenery, full of vibrant colors, flavors, and kind people. Yet the cultures and geopolitical situations were complex and constantly shifting. If you didn’t understand them well, the dynamics and motivations under the surface could burn you. That day, my overly optimistic view of the world was replaced by a more analytical approach to unpacking what was happening around me, in the region, and the world.

This experience, and many subsequent others, is why I love to facilitate and train others on applied political economy analysis. Also known as context analysis, this approach enables individuals and teams to understand the big picture and the details of what is happening under the surface. Equally important, it results in realistic, context-smart solutions to avoid getting burned. Or worse.