A strange interview

We have a position open for a guard and there were two people who were interested. One man came for an interview the other did not. The man who came seemed nice and his previous employer said he did a great job. His wife, who works as a cook at our home, says he is a good worker but he gets drunk 2 or 3 times a month and will miss work. You got to give her credit for honesty!

Later that night, I was visiting my friend Joyti. Joyti has a great spirit. She has next to nothing yet is always giving what she has to help others. I really enjoy chatting with her in her bamboo hut which invariably has about 5 guests. I was chatting with her and the other applicant was there to get some food since he no money to buy any. He seemed nice enough, but a little pitiful. He was a young man with a bad back, no papers to work legally, and was just getting over malaria (remarkably, they are out of malaria medicine at all of the public hospitals in this region during this the peak of the Malaria season!). He was too weak to walk to work. Either way pitiful, but nice guy.

I need the first man because he can do many things for us. The second man needs us because he is down on his luck. I hired them both.

I need Windows licenses or I will kill this guy (I may anyway)

Our home has an internet shop which in principle will allow us to generate a small income (this principle is constantly violated). The shop had some illegal software on the computers and was caught by the police. This sounds reasonable until you realize that in every shop around they sell any program you want for $2.50 all illegal of course. Either way, we were caught prior to my arrival and ordered to pay a fine and buy legal versions of Windows. This bastard who worked for the home got $750 to buy legal versions of Windows and bought illegal copies (for a total of $10). Now we have illegal software and risk being fined again. There is nothing we can do to him because he is Thai...we are stuck.

If anyone has a copy of windows XP, or Windows 2000 or knows where we can get legal copies of them I would greatly appreciate it.

Kung Fu and other monks

I always thought that monks were kind and thoughtful men who tried to enlighten others with the wisdom they got through deep meditation and long hours of study...kind of like the monks on the 70's TV show "Kung Fu". Many monks here in Thailand are like this and I have immense respect for these men. There are other monks...novice monks who go to train at a temple for a relatively short period of time. This helps give them perspective on life and also lets the person and their family get more respect from their community. A fine idea in my mind.

Just like many organizations (including religious ones) there are bad apples. I am told that some monks are in temples to hide from the law or have been "encouraged" by law enforcement to go there to help get their lives in order. I have no way to know if this is true, but several people have told me this and the recent beating in a temple suggests that it is true. Either way...most are good men who are doing great things with their lives.

One interesting custom is the monks will walk through the community early in the morning to get cooked rice. Every morning around 6:30 the owners of our house or one of their servants is out at the street to give the rice. The monks take it, do a short chant and go on their way. This is a picture I took this morning.

Stop Smoking (I think)

A strange but entertaining sign.

I am feeling such angst!

I feel awful. There are a couple of kids, one I am somewhat close to, that will get devastating news soon. I will write more details once they know. I hug and try to laugh with the kids but I can not help feeling awful every time I see their beautiful faces. Soon they will know, soon they will cry all the time... it just sucks.

They are bad....really really bad!

We are located close to the Thai Burma border here in Thailand. There are thousands and thousands of refugees here and the stories they tell are simply incredible. You may know that the Burmese military junta has a long running campaign to rid the border region of two ethnic groups, Mon and Karen, that are troublesome to them. The stories the refugees tell of widespread killings and rapes are horrific.

I was chatting with a child who is Karen and he told me of his early years...always feeling hunted...always feeling like he would be killed soon....seeing a man shot through the eye and watching him die. Another child saw his parents killed. Not surprisingly, these children have problems. I guess I would too if I had been through what they have been through. I guess some people care about what happens in Myanmar, I wish more did.

They are going to far this time.

The goverenment tries to block all web sites that it deems undesirable here in Thailand. Apparently, my hotmail account is undesirable because it is blocked. I am guessing that this is a temporary thing (it does not affect other hotmail users), but who knows?

Medical care...it ain't here

A woman from our home had surgery a few weeks ago. She is having trouble and we took her to the hospital tonight. They referred her to another more capable hospital...three or four hours away. She went in a van with another woman and a baby who was just born an hour before. It is hard to imagine a sick baby making it through a three or four hour drive. I wonder how the other patients will feel if the baby dies along the way.

How was your lunch?

I had a great lunch today! It had nothing to do with the food... just making a little girl happy. They do not serve food in the hospital so I brought the girl along with lunch for her mother who is in the hospital. The girl was so happy to see her mom. We had some ice cream together afterward and she seemed like her usual perky self. It was a great lunch!

I am cornered!

Sandy thought it was quite entertaining to watch a bunch of kids play a game of catch Steve in our old shop. The goal was to grab me around my feet then jump on my back.

A woman with a knife...not a good combination

A while back a woman left us her baby that had been concieved through rape. The woman is 16 now and decided to visit our home with a knife. I do not think she meant harm, but she would not hand over the knife that was hidden in her waistband. None of the children were nearby and our security guard held her down and another person took the knife. The woman then got hysterical. It was not a bad as it sounds, but it was a little scary.

Same as every where else except...well it is totally different!

It was teacher appreciation day at Baan Unrak school and they had a nice ceremony where the kids gave the teachers flowers and bowed. I am guessing they skipped the holiday in most places. Here is a short video I made.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2417618666969593088&q=baan+unrak

A pretty crappy week

The last week has really been terrible. I have been in pain due to a minor fall and a terrible mattress. I have felt frustrated the entire time because getting anything done in a developing country, particularly when you do not speak any of the languages that are spoken, is very difficult.

I have gotten a mattress pad and I think the amount of work is going to go down now so the future will be better.

New kids... there is no justice here

Another organization that we have a relationship with in the southern part of Thailand had about 10 kids. One was attacked by a group of boys. The manager of the home went to the police. The families of the boys who attacked the girl were outraged, not at their children, but at the girl who wanted some justice. There were death threats against their children so they had to close the childrens home. We now have three new kids.

There may be justice in one case

We recieved word that there will be a court case next week about the boy that was beaten. Maybe there will be some justice here.

Neighborhood Kids

The kids in the area are just as cute as the ones at our home. The kids study English from grade one and they are eager to give it a try whenever possible. When I am walking down the street, kids are always yelling, "Hello!" and "How are you?". These two kids were talking with me earlier in the day and when I stopped to wash my motorbike they came running over. I took a couple of pictures while they tried to splash me. Very cute.

When a laugh isn't funny

A strange thing that we found in both Japan and Thailand is a laugh can have more than one meaning. At first I misunderstood when people would laugh at the most inappropriate times.

The most incredible instance happened yesterday when I was talking to my friend P (not her real name). She was telling me a story of what happened when the military took action in Burma about 15 years ago. There were sounds of machine guns reverberating through out her neighborhood and her parents would not let her and her sister go outside. Her brother came back and said the military was out and they were using firetrucks to wash the blood from the streets...there were bodies everywhere.

A couple of days later she ventured out with her sister down a street near some factories. At this point she described in detail the men's heads that were cut off and placed on the table in front of the factory to discourage any more trouble. .. " The man had long hair and a beard...ha, ha, ha. " She then pointed at her arm to show me the goosebumps. I got to say she was not alone. How strange it is to hear laughter in the middle of such a gruesome story.

An interesting sidebar to this story is that I asked my friend if I could write about this and she said I could if I changed her name and did not show a picture because she is still worried about the welfare of her family members. Maybe she is paranoid...maybe she should be.

Just checkin'

If you go in any direction 20 minutes from here you run into police checkpoints. They are looking for people with out papers and people with illegal lumber. On a big bus it is pretty common for one or two people to be removed from the bus for questioning. For some this is a pretty scary moment, for us just a bit of an inconvience.

And now some naked pictures

Just a couple of cute shots...one of the kids out swimming with a volunteer, Julian. The other picture is of Dok Mai giving her little brother a bath.

I want to be a vigilante

As I mentioned the other day, one of our boys was badly beaten by some monks at a temple in a nearby city. At first the head monk was apologetic and said he would help bring the criminal monks to justice. I guess he changed his mind because he went to the police and, being a man of substantial influence, put an end to the investigation. He has reneged on his pledge to pay the hospital bills. We are going to the press, but the press is not very active so this will likely be ineffective. When there is no other justice, I understand why vigilante justice is popular.

How do you define risky?

A little boy riding on a sack of rice on the seat of a motorcycle driven by his brother...I am guessing this could qualify as child endangerment in most parts of the world, but it is not a shock here. I thought it was a little crazy. Then, I realized I thought it was safe to drive my motorbike with one hand to get the picture. There must be someting in the water.