Se Teu

Saturday morning we met with Se Teu, the boy who needed throat surgery because he drank acid, and his parents.  He had the first of the last three surgeries he needs about 2 months ago.  His condition has improved a lot.  He can now eat some semi-solid foods.  His parents think that he is well enough to start going to school in April.  The parents were really thankful to my students for helping them.

The meeting happened in the last moments before we left Sangklaburi and I can not think of a better way to end our trip.

Great Billboard

There is a huge problem with human trafficking from Burma to Thailand.  20 yards from the border is this billboard telling girls to be careful of strangers, you could be trafficked and forced into prostitution.  

I really love this billboard because it has a great message, it is in the best place that the Thai government could put it, it has such a powerful image...scares me just looking at it.  A powerful picture is especially important since the ads will target uneducated people who may not be able to read anything.

Another thing I like is there is no English.  I have seen similar posters before, but they always had a fair amount of English on them.  Since the largely uneducated people will not be able read English, I think those posters/billboards are for show.

 

Old Project Update

I went to the project I worked on a couple of years ago and it was a bit discouraging at first.  The bathrooms had not been cleaned in a while and the monk decided to add a second floor onto the kitchen and dining room I built, so it was a mess too.  The clothes washing area and water tank were in surprisingly good shape.

At first I was a bit upset because things were not maintained.  Then, I looked at the kids and they looked great.  Their skin in the past was full of sores and they were filthy because they did not have a place to wash.  Their clothes were dirty to the point of being disgusting. Now there are no sores and the kids were in surprisingly clean clothes.

The reason I took on the project was to improving the health and living conditions of the kids.  They are markedly better than before I started the project, so on one level it is a success.  On the other hand, the place is really dirty and it was very discouraging to see it.

I talked to the monk about it, and he assured me he was fencing the area and then he would commence with a proper maintenance program. I will be shocked it that happens, but we will see.

My friend in the cage

Most people do not know any refugees.  Because we have spent so much time in the border town in Thailand, we know many. I want to tell you about a woman that Sandy and I love and what it is like to be a refugee.

I can not say her name because she still has relatives in Burma and fears that somehow she could jeopardize their safety by even mentioning her name.  This may seem paranoid to you and I, but as children we did not witness the heads of local factory workers the government cut off and put on fence posts to intimidate local people.  We did not have our family torn apart because our brother wanted democracy and participated in protests.  We did not have a sister interrogated for hours and threatened because she may have inadvertently talked with reporters in a store.  We are lucky.

My friend lives in the border area of Thailand and has very limited rights there.  Because she cannot legally own property, she has had "friends" put vehicles and property in their name so she could run a small business.  Ultimately, they took the vehicles and the property and there is no recourse.  She knows if she is physically attacked, the police will turn a blind eye to many things because she is from Burma.

I think the worst thing is that she is in a virtual cage.  She is limited to living in a small extremely rural part of Thailand.  To the Thai governments credit, they do provide a semi-safe haven for refugees there. Nonetheless, she can not leave.  There are many police checkpoints to be sure she does not.  

I wish everyone knew my friend. I wish they could know a person who finds people with no hope due to health problems and gives them hope and helps them be cured.  I wish they could know someone who has so little, but is eager to give what she has to others. I wish they could watch her drive a motorbike like a trolley car...stopping to pick up and drop off her friends she sees walking on the streets. I wish they could meet someone who sacrifices so much to care for her mother.  

When we say goodbye to her we always end up saying we love each other and crying.  I think it must be terrible looking out from the cage as we go free, but it is not a lot of fun look in the cage and seeing someone you love trapped.

Water Project

I have been working with a good friend of mine for the last few months on a water project inside  Burma.  This is a bit illegal (strange that helping others is illegal, but it is), so it has been a bit of a challenge.

Yesterday we had a meeting at the site.  Burma has many states and some, like the Mon state, have some autonomy from the central government.  We had gotten permission from the Mon state to enter Burma, but the central government will not give permission, so we had to hid a bit while being transported. I was not really nervous, but I knew that there could be a bit of a problem if one of the many Burmese soldiers stopped the car. 

We got to the temple where we will drill a well.  The driller has a good reputation, the other man neither my friend or I knew.  I was (am) a bit nervous about him since he was wearing a real gold Rolex on his wrist.  The meeting went ok.  

We decided to go with my friend to the well that serves the rest of the area.  It is already over capacity, no way to add to the capacity.  The man who manager is trustworthy, and he gave us a lot of good advice.  Our initial idea was to run a few taps with meters and have the local people put there money together to pay the monthly cost.  Turns out that the Burmese government will apply a tax which would essentially double the rate. Nobody wants to enrich the government, so we settled on a flat monthly charge much like the other service has.

I think that it is probably best to have the community gather money and if they raise a sufficient amount, we will contribute the remainder.  This is not just to keep the cost down, but more importantly to have a sense of ownership in the community.  People usually do not destroy things that they paid for (at least in theory).  

Hopefully, they will raise the money they need to and work can begin in April.  Kind of exciting.

The best of humanity

For those who are looking for the best in humanity, let me introduce "Ying". She is a 12 year old girl who lives at Baan Unrak Children's home.  The other night we took her with a bunch of kids to a festival in town.  All the kids got a bit of money to buy something for themselves.

Ying was very judicious in her spending, I did not know why until she found a little necklace that you could have inscribed.  She is a young girl and young girls like jewellery...no problem.  I looked at the necklace after she was finished and it said, "Tatiana".  I said, "Your name is not Tatiana."  She said "My sponsor has sent me many gifts and I have never been able to give her one".

I guess I am sentimental, but when a kid who has next to nothing has an opportunity to buy something for herself and decides she should spend it on others, it really touched me.  I am sure her sponsor will appreciate the gift.  As for me, I told Ying, "You gave me the best gift of the night by doing that".  I thought it was a nice sentiment, but she thought I said, "You gave me the basket of the night by doing that".  After the confusion was resolved, she held my hand a bit tighter and we went on our way.

"Sit and Smile" Best Name Ever

I was in the market and saw some toilet paper with the best name ever, "Sit and Smile".

Petting Tigers

Some friends of ours joined us on the Thailand leg of our vacation.  We went to the "Tiger Temple". Some of the small cats were free to roam and be petted.

The big tigers are exercised like crazy and then fed, so they end of being like big hug toys.  You have an opportunity to have pictures taken while petting the tigers.  For those with a bit more courage and a few bucks, you can actually have a tiger rest his head on your lap while the picture is taken.

A few of the medium sized cats still had some energy left, so we were kept a short distance from them.

A Boy Needs Surgery Part 3

As I mentioned before, the students are trying to raise money to pay for operations for a boy, who is a Burmese refugee in Thailand, that drank acid.

The students are finished with mid term exams and are now going full steam on fundraising. We started making donation boxes yesterday and will raise money starting this week.

One girl, who secretly loves me but says she hates me, asked to not have her picture taken. Naturally, she will be in the first picture I post (she has the yellow blanket on).

I received an excellent ribbon tying lesson from one of the girls. Unfortunately, I was a much worse student than she was teacher and my ribbon had to be thrown away after everyone laughed at me.

The overview of the group. I can't believe we have 26 people now.

Surprisingly enough, the boys even had a good time.

I am doing a series of lessons about issues that children have including HIV, lack of education, access to health care...all exciting stuff (to me at least). The timing on the fundraising has been excellent since the kids are learning about issues and having an opportunity to do something about it.

I am really enjoying this and I think the kids are too.

My Rich Friend

Joyti has been a friend for the last 3 years. She lives in a very simple bamboo house with a metal roof on land she does not own with her mother, father, two year old daughter.Her husband earns a modest income and is able to be home a couple of days a month. The strange part is I think she is probably the richest person I know.

I go to visit her once a week or so. Sometimes to help her with a little project which helps old Burmse soldiers who fought alongside the British, sometimes just to hang out. Her little bamboo house can barely contain the visitors and the laughter. I have never been there when there have been fewer than 5 friends visiting her. About half the time she has those in greater need visiting for food. I think it is much more difficult to be generous when you have next to nothing. Truly an inspirational friend.

Black dog, no lights, motorbike, bad combination

I had a story that I wanted to write about the whole time I was in Thailand but I knew my mother would be a little stressed, so I have waited until now to write about it.

One evening Sandy and I were riding down the road at a reasonable speed on my motorbike. There was a section of the road with no street lights. Then, Sandy yells, "DOG!". A black dog ran in front of us. I swerved to miss the dog (breaking the cardinal rule, "don't swerve, hit the animals"). We took a spill onto the pavement. Luckily for Sandy, she had me to break her fall. I had the handle bars.

I was smarting a bit and decided to lay on the pavement. Soon, there was a big crowd around me. Because my ribs were hurting quite a bit, we made the second big mistake; we called an ambulance. We later found that the ambulance drivers are at home, so we had to wait for them to drive to the hospital and then the 1/2 mile to pick me up. This took about 20 minutes. To make up for the slow pick up, they sped around the corners on the way to the hospital which caused me to turn on the gurney (ouch!).

We made it to the hospital in the ambulance (which was a full size van with a little gear in it) they pull the gurney out and, in principal, the legs of the gurney were supposed to pop out. They violated this principal and I fell on the gurney about 3 feet to the ground. I am not much for cursing, but it seemed to appropriate at that point to growl, "you have f#!king got to be kidding me". I felt a hand on my shoulder and it was my friend Dr. Kitima, possible the sweetest, goofiest doctor in all the world. Dr Kitima said, "I am so sorry". I quickly gathered my composure and we went on our merry way.

It turned out to be bruised ribs...took 2 months to feel normal again. Every time I saw Dr. Kitima, she would just start laughing like a school girl.

The Girl's Got Rocks

The previously banished snarl face has returned to the main house after she was banished from her mother's house in Bangkok. Her venom is more robust than ever. A week ago she told me I had to park my motorbike about 40 yards away from my door for no good reason. Of course I said no. The next couple of days she was angry at me and would say something that sounded nasty in Thai. My reaction was to say, "good morning" knowing it would drive her crazy.

Two nights ago I got home and she put a pad lock on the front gate. Got to give the crazy chick credit for having some serious rocks. Unfortunately for her, she did not expect me to ride the motorbike over this other gate which has a small concrete barrier. I got in and called the landlord and got things resolved (I am hoping for a re-re banishment).

More dead

I was told, but can not confirm, that 2 more people died from the bus accident. The funeral service for the woman that died in the crash happened today.. The border was shut down, but I guess the military kind of turned their heads and allowed the temple to open its back gate which opens up into Burma so Burmese people could attend the funeral.

Apparently the border is shut down for a different reason than I had thought. A paramilitary group aligned with the Burmese army abducted 2 Thai border patrol soldiers. Things are quite tense because of this. I just read an article which said the Thai government is expecting the soldiers to be released in the next couple of hours. Hopefully this will cool things out a bit.

Details on the tragedy

You may want to read the previous post before this one.

A couple of details on yesterdays tragedy. The bus was an immigration bus returning people to Burma. They are caged in so nobody can escape. I did not understand why there were so many belongings on the bus and my Burmese friend said that although the people were arrested and sent out of the country it is all part of a game. People pay a fee to an agent who pays the police off to travel to Bangkok. Then, when people want to go back to Burma, they call the agent and the police arrest the people. Human trafficking with out so much nastiness.

The army and immigration are quite worried about an uprising because, from what I am told, this is not the first time something like this has happened. They closed the border crossing and local businesses that employee Burmese were shut. As I was leaving town there was a group of 10 soldiers with automatic weapons walking down the street. As I got closer to my town there were several pick up trucks full of more soldiers.

The woman I saw die yesterday was brought to the temple for a ceremony and cremation today. They did not have either so the box with the woman in it just sat there, in the heat. The ceremonies generally happen quite quickly here...usually a day or two after the death. Hopefully, tomorrow things will get back to normal.

No Shirt Guy

Being that I do not know most people's names and could not pronounce them in most cases if I did, I often give people nicknames. I eat breakfast at no shirt guys restaurant these days. I call him no shirt guy, well, because he almost never has a shirt on. I considered calling toothpick in the beard guy because he always keeps a toothpick in his beard, but I decided that it did not roll of the tongue as nicely.

His nambia, which is kind of like a soft four tortilla except extra delicious, is always fresh and he has this chick pea thing that accompanies it which is delicious. Even though he has his fair share of bodily hair, he seems to be able to keep it out of the food and the place seems clean in general.

I did not know what to make of no-shirt guy (should it be No Shirt Guy?) because of his basic appearance. It turns out that no shirt guy is kind of sweet guy... always playing with his daughter and actually tries to be friendly and speaks says "thank you" in English to me every morning.

Gotta be Thai

If you are not Thai you can not buy property legally. A friend of mine is Burmese and she bought a shop but could not get the sale registered. She was renting the shop to someone else for a couple of years and called her to find out if she wanted to continue to rent. The lady said, "Don't you know that your shop was sold?" Apparently the previous owner, whose name the shop was still in, sold it to another person. My friend has no recourse except to have respected people in the community talk to the woman. Given my friends current financial situation (quite bad) this is awful news.

Got to love him...really

Almost every home (including mine) and most businesses have a picture of the king. I think the affection is genuine. A 57 year old long time resident here from Switzerland found out how much trouble you can get into when you insult the king (he spray painted some pictures). As this article says...between 7 1/2 and 75 years in jail. Thankfully, Thai jails are known for their comfortable accomadations so he should enjoy his remaining days in comfort.

A plague of locust or somethng....

Last night I took a little nap when the sun was going down. I got up and turned on the lights and there were literally hundreds of insects flying around and hitting me in the head. I noticed that they were pouring out of one of the big support beams for the house. Must be termites. I also noticed they were attracted to light so I left the bathroom light on and the others off. I came back a few hours later and there must have been a couple of thousand dead termites on the ground in the bathroom. A couple of buckets of water and they were all washed down the drain.

Safe!

The girl in jeopardy that I have written about many times is finally safe. Her mother has died and after the ceremony that took place a couple of days ago she returned to my friend...nice to have a tough story that has a happy ending.

Dead!

The mother of the girl who has been jeopardy has died. The official cause is HIV, but it was suicide. She had many opportunities for care free of charge. She would start it, start getting better and then quit. Being a prostitute is not a career choice...it is something that she probably was forced into. I guess life wore her down and she decided to quit.

The girl will stay at the home for a week waiting for a final ceremony and then she will move in with my friend. I hope this story has a happy ending, but it will be a few more years before we know.