The Binkle Blog

  A couple moms and their kids in Huay Sai Yong  Village in the mixed Pwo/Sgaw area One of the advantages of moving to Mae Sariang was that it allowed Marcia to get involved with the Pwo Karen Hostel and Scholarship Program. But before talking about those programs and Marcia’s role in them, it would be useful to provide some background. First of all, in reading about languages and accents in earlier posts, it might be recalled there are two main groups of the Karen people. The Sgaw Karen are the dominant group and we learned to speak (to some degree) the Sgaw Karen dialect. The Pwo Karen are the second largest group and like the Sgaw Karen are native to both Burma/Myanmar as well as Thailand. There are pockets of Pwo Karen found in the Chiang Rai area and in fact, the first Christians among the Karen in Thailand were Pwo Karen from a village outside Chiang Rai. Other pockets of Pwo Karen extend fairly far south in the western part of the country. The Baptist Union of Swede...