Would you say yes or no?

I met with a man yesterday who wanted to leave his kids. Here is his story:

The man is HIV+ as is his third wife. A year ago he almost died from it. He is doing better, but he is still sick. He works, but his third wife refuses to. They barely have enough to live on now and his free medication will end and a third of his income will go to buying medications soon. When his wife gets worse, two thirds will go to medications.

The man has two children from his first wife living with a family friend in Burma. They were not studying. The children were able to get Thai citizenship (which is a great thing). The man wants them to live and study in Thailand, but he has no money to care for his children. He said he was a guerilla in Burma for 20 years and has made many mistakes and he does not want his children to have a terrible life like he has. He loves his kids and he believes that leaving them with us is the best thing for them. He is willing to volunteer at our house and give some money to support them.

So...do we use some of the last beds we have on these children? These are not easy decisions.

Surprisingly good news

A while back the people at plant-a-tree-today approached us with an offer to supply and help plant 500 plus trees. Thanks to the sponsors at XL Results Foundation, PATT and the XL Foundation the trees arrived yesterday and we put them in the ground this morning with the help of volunteers from the organizations, their children and a whole lot of our kids.

50 kids, hot sun, and hard work...a sure recipe for disaster. I thought at the start of this it would be really tough, but in a couple of years it would be worth it to have hundreds of beautiful trees. Shockingly, our kids were great as were the volunteers. In a little over 2 hours we were basically finished. It was a great experience and relatively painless... a really nice surprise.

Help

If anyone has a friend (or even an enemy) who is pretty skilled at web site design that would be willing to help us design and build a new website we would really appreciate it.

This is just incredible

We typically send the older boys to another home in the area because there is so many more problems when you have both teenage boys and girls living together. The home we had been using could not take one boy so we sent him to live at temple in a neighboring city (this is a common practice here) that two knowlegeable people recommended.

The boy was at the home for a week before 4 monks came into his room and began beating him. He was saved by another monk but not before he was badly beaten. Four hours ago they completed the surgery to remove his spleen and stop the internal bleeding. We have gotten the police and the head of monks in Thailand involved. Either way, pretty tough stuff.

Damn we are lucky

Someone I love had minor surgery in the US the other day and he will fine. I told a friend here and they said that the same disease is a death sentence here. Not a day goes by that I do not think that I am incredibly lucky to be born in a rich country.

Something so small changes a life

A few months ago an anonymous person dropped a pair of glasses into a collection bin somewhere. Maybe they do not know how they helped change someone's life. This week some volunteers from Canada came with that pair of glasses, along with 3000 other pairs. Yesterday, I saw our guard wearing those glasses. He was doing something he could not do for years...reading a book. His life, along with hundreds of other lives in our area, was changed by such a small act.

I had to fire someone

In addition to the home, we have a weaving and sewing center. The most experienced sewer was yelling at everyone and employees were quiting because of her. We had installed a new manager and the women would scold her too!

The new manager needed help, so we had a meeting. In the meeting she threatened me too (if you give me any trouble, I will cut up all of my work). She also spoke rudely to her new manager. I suspended her and gave her a chance to think about what she was saying. Two days later, she still was unrepentent. Apparently she thought it was impossible for us to run the sewing center with out her. I fired her in that meeting. It was strange to fire someone through an interpreter because I would say one sentence and the interpreter would take several miutes to translate. I think they were trying to make everything sound nice.

"A boy was beaten with a knife!"

I was at our bakery yesterday and a man approaches me and says, "we have a boy who was beaten by his father with a knife and we need help!". I along with Fa, the nicest lady who speaks Burmese and English, went back to where the boy was. He was with Jim, a friend of mine who was visiting town from his children's home in the jungle. The 14 year old boy and his mother (who had tracked him down after he ran away) were sitting with Jim. She said, " My husband gets drunk every night and beats all of the kids even our 2 year old". The woman went on to say she has been married for 23 years, had 7 children, 3 of which had died. She did not want to leave him.

The boy just wants to study. He went to the head of the community for help, but according to his mother and Fa, everyone in the community beats their wives and this 14 year old boy is the only one at this age who goes to school. It turns out he is the lucky one!

I contacted an NGO to try to get some support for the community and it may help but it seems there is little likelihood that this boys life will improve any time soon. It is a strange world sometimes.

RIP Supaporn

Supaporn's TB was so resistent to medications that the course of treatment lasted 1 year instead of 6 months. This destroyed her liver. HIV+, TB, a bad liver and other medical problems...she had no chance. Last night, at 9 pm, her short and painful life ended. RIP Supaporn.

Psst....you know where I can score some bamboo

As I mentioned before, we are building a house for a pair of old ladies and an old man. The government is cracking down on logging so it is difficult to get any building material except concrete. Usually, you can cut bamboo down, but during the rainy season it is illegal. We have been reduced to searching for bamboo from alternative sources. I feel like a drug addict.

Four New Kids

Another orphanage was closed by the government for neglect. We got 4 kids, 3 of which are siblings, two days ago. The oldest one, Noy, can speak some English and reminds me of my Japanese students in here appearance and manners. This, of course, makes her a special kid already.

One nice surprise is we found the mother of the three kids and she will work for us. She is far to poor to care for the kids herself, so this will be a good opportunity to have some family life together.

The ladies house is finished

OK...I am looking at the picture of the old ladies new house and it looks about the same as the last one. The improvements include safe drinking water, a toilet (they used a hole in the ground out in the open before) bedrooms (the floors of the old bedrooms had collapsed) a place for their dog to poop (he was pooping on their floor).

It may not be beautiful by western standards but it is nice for here. And you know what the ladies said when I asked them if they liked their house? Nothing you fools, they do not speak English (but I think they smiled).

A little good news

Supaporn went to a hospital 2 hours away who said they could do nothing. We sent her to another hospital (that was another hour away). They are treating her. They said her liver has been severly damaged by all the medicine. She is doing a little better. Maybe she will be ok...for now.

The dichotomy

Supaporn has HIV, TB, a mystery stomach illness, is recovering from scabies, and is perpetually sick. At 2 years old, she will die soon. A cold fact for me is I try to not get too involved with children who are so sick because it is too painful when the child dies.

This morning Supaporn was lying nearly lifeless on the stairs of the house waiting to be sent to a childrens hospital 2 hours away. The local hospitals could not help her. We thought it was likely that she would die on the way, and many were very sad.

A foot away from the dying child is Any poon, the child I wrote about before, laughing and gigling like a little girl should be. The dichotomy of the child who was in the last stages of life and the child who is quite sick but pretty happy still was striking...and kind of sad.

Sandy has started teaching

Sandy has started teaching her three classes. She has a class with some people who work here that want to improve a little. The other are kids, like Apple here, can understand a little. What they lack in ability, they make up for in enthusiasm (and cuteness!).

A University Students Story

One of the housemothers is a student in a Burmese University. She takes her courses by correspondence. She is wonderful lady (as are all the house mothers). As you may know, Burma is run by a military junta. They do what they like and what they liked at her university is to decide that they needed to take their final exam in a few days. It is not that far from here, but the roads are very bad now and a week they will be impassable. That would mean she would have to travel by boat back from Rangoon. She realized that her life would be in jeopardy if, as a single female, she traveled alone. Consequently, she will not take the test and have to take the class over again. We agreed to pay her university fees for the year. Before you think we are rich, a year at a university in Burma costs costs about $35.

I can not wait to finish the next two weeks

We are in the midst of enormous change at the home. We will move into our new home next Saturday which means we move an office, a shop, furniture and clothes for 100 people. If that were not enough, we are redoing all of the rules for the children and the housemothers. We have some generous donors who are giving us 500 trees that must be put in the same day as we are moving (our move date got moved back and the trees must go in before the rainy season). We have started a new program to help some elderly people in the community. Not to mention that we are redoing how our businesses are operating.

In two weeks, most of the change will be behind us but it will be a hectic two weeks!

A tough life....but a happy ending?

There is this man in our village who spent the last 2 decades drunk, that is until he had his fourth stroke. He could still walk after the first three, now he can't so he is finally sober since he can not walk to the liquor store. Now he is living in a lean-to next to a pig pen. He is incontinent and there are no diapers, so he needs to be hosed off a couple of times a day and it smells like it. Pretty tough situation.

Our home, with the help of a sponsor, is building him a new bamboo and concrete home which will allow him to have a little mobility and a small concrete area for him to get some therapy. An incredibly generous young man has been helping him for months and is going to live in the new house. We got another NGO to give the young man some training so he could provide the man with some basic therapy and with some luck will get some mobility back (but hopefully not enough to go to the liquor store!).

Not exactly a fairy tale ending, but after sleeping on the streets for a couple of decades not bad.

Even when you have nothing, you can have something special

The kids are always excited to go anywhere, so I try to take one with me when I go to the market. Chumu is just a wonderful little 8 year old girl who I took to the market the other day. I offered to buy her something and she got some potato chips. What did she do when we got back to the home? Lined up her friends and gave them all away. Even when you have nothing, you can have something really special.

I forgot the most important part

I forgot to mention in the previous post that we will be providing a person who will stay with the ladies everyday. In addition, our children will go and visit the old children. Our hope is the children will learn about caring for others and a sense of responsibility. We will see.

Some old ladies

In this area there is no help for the elderly except family. If you do not have a family, you have a problem. Our home is starting a little project to help these type of people.

There are a couple of women who are in their 60's (but look like they are in their 90's) who live nearby our home has helped for years. The women live in a small bamboo shack with no electricity and no water except for the rain water that rolls off their roof into a rusting drum. They can not use one of their two bedrooms because the bamboo floor has broken from age. Their dog is vicious, so they tie it up in the house. Consequently, the floor is stained and stinks with dog urine. They have no toilet, so they go to the bathroom in a hole about 10 yards from the home. To cap it off, one woman is suffering with TB and the other is very sick but will not go to the hospital because she is afraid to leave her home because of some unspeakable violence she suffered a year ago.

Today, I met with them along with a man and a woman from our home. We introduced ourselves and when the woman from our home said this man is Karen (an ethnic minority in the area) the old lady had a big smile. Traditions run deep and people trust people from their own groups. They woman gave me a seat of honor, an empty clean rice bag to sit on (there are no chairs of course). They wanted us to help them with their home. When the lady said, "It would be so nice if we had our own well. It does not need any electricity or anything special. It is hard to say no to such an old fragile woman, so we did not. With the assistance of a donor, we are going to build them a new bamboo house, a proper bathroom and a well. It costs less than $150.

Heartbreaking

Any Phoo was sitting on my lap in a cute little green dress with Burmese powder on her little face. When I took a picture of her and she looked at it she had the biggest smile. I said "cute" and she shook her head yes...very confident it appears. She was so proud when she leaned up against me and said, "My father visits me once a month". Of course it broke my heart...one of many things about this little girl that breaks your heart.

When her father brought her to the home (her mother was long gone), she was crying so hard. Her father told her, "I love you, but I can not take care of you in the jungle. They will take care of you. Now you should not cry anymore". And she hasn't.

Any Phoo has every right to cry because has a congental defect which makes her anemic all the time, zaps her energy, causes fevers on a regular basis, requires that she has transfussions once a week, and which, sadly, will kill her in a few years. Tough cards the kids was dealt... maybe she deserves to cry...she certainly made me.

The Palace

We have finally moved into our new home and it is great with one notable exception. First the pluses:

• Nice looking exterior and all wood interior
• Hot water in our huge bathroom
• A washing machine
• Safe drinking water
• Two big bedrooms with king size beds
• Fully furnished
• A very cute and sweet dog

So far so good. Then we slept there. You see that in every developing country there is a demon so awful that I can not put into words my hatred of this beast. Prior to moving in, we looked at our house. We looked at our neighbors house. We are safe...until 5:30 in the morning when the beast begins it's meniacal activities. Cock-a-doo-da-doo. Crap! We did not check the house behind our next door neighbors which lies exactly 5 yards from our bedroom window. I guess I will become a very early (and irratable) riser.

This is a little crazy

Ok...I am at our bakery and I greet a female employee and she says nothing back. I asked a woman who was with me to speak to her in Thai and the women does not reply to her either. I went back to the home and asked why the woman would not greet me or the other woman and they said, "She is a little crazy do not worry". They called the bakery and asked the woman why she did not greet us and she said, "I am sorry, I thought they were ghosts". Ahhhh, the old I am seeing ghosts execuse. I think I need to consult my "How to manage people" book on this one.

You never know the problems your generosity has caused

I was meeting with a woman from UNICEF the other day and she had an interesting comment about how destructive the tsunami relief was for orphans. She said that after the tsunami, there were virtually no orphans...family members absorbed them all. Of course many good hearted volunteers decided to raise money for the orphans and build homes for them. Once the homes were built, kids who had homes were left in the orphanges for a variety of reasons. It turns out the orphanges probably did more harm than good.

Not the best of days

Most days are pretty good here, but yesterday was not one of those days. The first crappy part was a lady trying to rob Sandy. She got a zipper undone on Sandy's backpack but Sandy caught on and told me. I walked over and got real close to the lady to make sure she understood that we were the wrong people to try to rob. It was the first time here so we can not complain.

Then, we spent 4 hours shopping for stuff for our new place and then our credit card was declined. There was nobody at the credit card place to call. Crap! We ended up calling a friend who loaned us the money. When I called my credit card company, they said, "Did you remember to call us?" They said that I so rarely used the card and especially do not use it overseas. This is true, but they expect me to call them when I travel?...give me a break.

The auction

We went to a car and motorbike auction yesterday. I was supposed to buy a truck for the home and a motorbike for my self (you do not need to tell my mother about this). Kind of funny bidding on things when you have no idea of what is going on. Either way, I bought the bike (although I bid more than I realized) and a one year old Nissan truck in excellent condition for US $7500 total. A pretty good deal I think.