Bad Parents, Bad Eye, Bad Luck, Bad Future???

Hnini Woot Hlwa is a 5 year old and when her parents divorced, they sent her sister to live with relatives and abandoned her at a neighbors house.  Luckily the neighbor has cared for her.


She was playing with a neighbor and her eye got bashed.  The father of the neighbor got permission from the Thai government to go to a semi-big hospital in Thailand. The doctor looked at her and said they may be able to help, but it would cost about $200...an enormous amount of money when you earn a couple of dollars a day like most people in Burma. The man decided to return to Burma with a few eye drops.

I met up with her a few weeks later. She could not see from her eye.  Nobody was sure what could be done, but I wanted to try to help.  My friend Pone Pone, who is probably the most decent person I have ever met, and I started to make arrangements but we do not know what will happen.

Terrible to think, but a 5 year old one eyed abandoned girl....what kind of future will she have?

On a side note, the lady who takes care of her wanted her to look cute, so put her in this dress and some cute shoes.  We wondered why she was in pain and realized that it was the damn cute shoes.  We bought her some new ones, along with a purse and some sunglasses.  I told her I wanted to take a picture and she did this pose on her own.  Too freakin' cute.

Jungle School

I hopped to stop by the school in the jungle that we were sponsoring, but it just was not possible. The best I could do was get a few pictures that I thought were interesting.

Looking at the pictures, I wonder how the mothers keep their kids shirts so white in the jungle, and how the teacher is not distracted by his kid on his chest.

Meeting Boi Pop Chan

As mentioned before, my Volunteer Club had a fund raiser and one of the people they decided to help was Boi Pop Chan, a little Burmese girl who is paralyzed due to TB Meningitis. 

I visited her and her family unannounced with a good friend of mine.  We arrived at the simple concrete block house and the girl was lying motionless under a net much like you would find over a bassinet.   

We all sat down and had some tea and chatted.  The father, who speaks English quite well, told of the many hardships they face.  There were a few laughs, a lot of love and a fair amount of concern that only parents can give, but there was also unmistakable despair written all over the mother's face.

I wish there could be a warm ending to the story, but there won't be.  The best that can be hoped for is she is loved, kept comfortable, and gets medicine to have fewer seizures.  I am glad we could do a bit (medicine for seizures for a year) but it is too bad that these stories have such tough endings for poor kids.

Thailand Helping The Animals

There are over 100,000 stray dogs in Bangkok and they usually deal with the problem by poisoning them.  Some of my students decided they wanted to help these dogs, so they raised some money for an organization that works for them.

While in Bangkok we stopped in SCAD, which is a project to spay and neuter dogs and cats in Bangkok.  They have a spay and release program.  They try to work in areas where people treat the animals relatively well ( no need to spay a dog who will be poisoned in a week or two).  In addition, they have an education program.

They have their programs suspended right now because the local community does not like all the noise (who can blame them).  They are planning to open one of two new facilities to get things going next month. I think the education part of the program is most important since a thousand or so spays and neuters will have a limited impact on a 100k animal population that is growing due to discarded animals.

Nice people, good cause, good visit.

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.

Second Home

We lived in Sangklaburi, Thailand for a year and have visited it on many other occasions.  We love the slow pace, the friendliness of the people, our friends, and the children of Baan Unrak.

I really did not know how much I missed it until we were preparing to come.  Would people remember me?  Would the kids remember me?  Would things be the same?

We called Baan Unrak to let them know we were on our way and I ended up talking to some of the kids.  A couple said, "Do you remember me?"  Little do they know that we have shown their pictures to everyone and told everyone about them.  Either way, it was a relief to know that we were still remembered.

We got here, and there are some changes.  More foreigners working with NGO's, a couple of new markets and a 7/11 (is that progress?).  It has been great strolling the streets and chatting with friends.  It is strange, but we really do feel like it is a second home.  I guess as long as we live in Asia, we will keep coming here.

Pig heads, Manga Buses and bathroom signs

A couple of random pics from our trip.

Funny bus stop

We were heading to a city and needed to change buses. Given that we can not speak the language and we are not that smart, this is a challenge. We told the driver where we wanted to go and a couple of hours later, he stops the bus on the side of the highway and says we are in the city to change buses. We got off (trusting fools) and started asking some people where we should go and they told us to stand next to another ramp. 5 minutes later our bus came. I would have bet a million bucks that was not going to work out.

Ayuthya

Another day another incredible city. Today we spent the day in Ayuthya. The temples are from the 1400's and beautiful. Outside of a 15 minute time period which inluded a lot of searching for a missing key for our bikes (which Sandy insisted that I mention on the blog so you can guess whose fault it was) it was a good day.

Spanking a monkey

You know it is going to be an intersting visit to ruins when they issue you a stick to whack the monkeys but that is exactly what they did at this temple in Lopburi today.

There are dozens of monkeys at the temple in addition to dozens roaming the streets. The monkeys like to get into everything, especially backpacks. When a monkey came over a little too directly I decided to nudge it too keep it clear. The damn thing tried to take my stick, so I ended up in a wrestling match with a monkey. Turns out you need to spank the monkey pretty hard to give him the point. Quite funny especially watching Sandy quiver.

Sukhothai

I have wanted to show Sandy Sukhothai since I visited it alone two years ago. It is a small town that was the capital of Thailand for 200 years about 800 years ago. The ruins are a series of Wats contained within a park and right up there with Ankor Wat in my opinion. Truly incredible.

A Couple of Amazing Projects

Sandy and I spent two days on buses traveling to Mae Sot, a town on the Burmese Thai border, to visit a pair of projects that may be able to use the donated medical supplies.

The Mae Tao Clinic is a remarkable clinic that has grown from a 3 month project to a massive organization with 240 staff members. Some amazing things they do for Burmese people are:

• provide health care services to 800,000 people a year.

• charge just short of $1 for the first visit and all others are free


• have a school that teaches 500 children


• serve 1,100 meals a day


• provide limbs for land mine victims (like this girl who lost 2 legs)


• treat malaria patients (which comprise the largest group of fatalities)


• provide health education programs




• provide ob-gyn services




• provide glasses and do eye surgery




• lots more!

You may wonder why this is necessary. The border region in this area has long been a hotspot and the Burmese government would like to eliminate all the people in the area (thus eliminating the unrest). They also spend a huge portion of their income on its armed forces (this in a country that has no external enemies) so there is little left for anything else. Thus, people get sick, there is nowhere to go so they wait until they realize the patient may not survive and then they make the often long journey through the jungle (thus getting weaker). This is why so many of the malaria patients die.

When they talked to us about trying to handicap the likelihood of survival of their patients so they could decide who they should use their limited supplies. It was easy to understand and hard to believe at the same time.

The second organization is the Back Pack Health Worker Team. They have about 250 people that live in villages in Burma and provide health care to people who have no other choices. They do everything from simple treatments to amputations all in the jungle! In addition, the teams provide all types of health education to the villages in their region. The BPHWT provides the supplies and training every six months.

You may wonder about hospitals, but the government does not provide them, but in some areas there are clinics run by various ethnic groups that are trying to provide support that the government will not.

A couple of sad statistics regarding children in this part of Burma...15% die before they reach their 1st birthday and a third will die by their 5th. Hard to believe. The average family must flee the Burmese army 3 times a year, so it is impossible to build any real infrastructure.

The most frustrating part to me is that the organizations say that they can get donated medical supplies, but the Thai government does not want outside aid for these groups...they want them to buy the supplies in Thailand so their economy can grow. I can understand the sentiment except for the fact that people are dying because there are not enough medical supplies.

ani

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.

Can't Give It Away

As mentioned before, I have $400,000 worth of medical supplies to give away. It is somewhat amazing to me how hard it is. I want to give the supplies to organizations in the area where we have lived, but they are so apathetic. I am really shocked. One hospital in another area is very interested and they have a great mission helping Burmese people so we will probably make a trip there (4 buses over two days!) to investigate the organization.

Triples aren't so bad

Today I went to the project I worked on at Three Pagodas Pass. When I got there I saw the bathrooms and dining room floor were quite dirty. The bathing area was reasonably clean as was the clothes washing area.

I was disappointed at first and then noticed the boys...they were clean, their clothes were clean, and the kitchen was clean. The kids report that they now go to school for 5 hours a day versus 45 minutes that they used to go to school. There is supposed to be another cleaning person starting soon to help take care of cleaning the dirty areas on a daily basis.


I guess it is like hitting a triple in baseball...you got to be happy with it even if you really wanted a home run.

Just say "no" or else

A boy I have met a few times decided to buy a 3 pills as did his two other friends. The police stopped them at the checkpoint and caught them with the narcotics. The rules are pretty straightforward....1 year for each pill. He is not sure if each boy has to go to jail for 3 years or if they will need to go to jail for 9 years since they were carrying a total of 9 pills. Pretty tough stuff.

Attitiya!

Attitiya is one of my favorite little girls because she is kind of the underdog. She has a sweet but sad disposition. When she laughs and giggles it is impossible not to join in.

Attitya's father, knowing that he was going to die of cancer and that Attitya's mother did not love her decided to bring her to Baan Unrak children's home. The father died 3 months later and the mother never came to visit.

6 months ago a volunteer doctor was doing exams on the children and found she had a whole in her heart which could be fatal.

Attitiya is not a Thai citizen so she can not get medical care unless Baan Unrak finds donors to help. Thus far they have raised about $1500 of the $5500 they need. If you know who can help her or would like to help yourself, please let me know at ssnidero@hotmail.com

Back in Bangkok

We arrived safe and sound last night in Bangkok. All was the same except for a marked increase in aggressive Ladyboy hookers in the tourist areas. We will be here a few days before we move on.