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.

Indonesia-We had to get the hell out of there

We really liked the Indonesian people who we met who were not associated with tourism.  Universally friendly, most liked to laugh a lot, and very kind.  The problem we ran into is we just hated the lying thieves who were associated with the tourist activities.  We have traveled a bit and we are used to people trying to cheat us, but it was the worst in Indonesia that we have seen.  We ended up with a choice, take a trip that was supposed to cost $8 each but they were demanding $60 each, or leave early.  We left Indonesia two days early and headed to Thailand. 

On the way out of town I ended up chatting with a remarkably nice old man.  I met him on the street.  He had a bakery and he showed me around for 20 minutes just to be kind.  I really think this is the Indonesian culture.  I told him of my problems and said all the tourist say the same thing.  He said it was killing tourism and made him sad.

Flabby, Middle Aged and Exotic

A couple of strange things that surprised us;

The kids were so excited to see foreigners.  I guess they do not get tons in some areas and more than once a group of kids stopped us and wanted to have their picture taken with us because we were so exotic.

Another surprise to me was the concern about bombs, especially around Jakarta.  I was really surprised that cars were inspected and you had to walk through a metal detector (which was turned off) to go into the mall.

The final surprise was what was on TV...Christian broadcasting.  Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country. With all of the religious turmoil in Indonesia, I really did not think they would tolerate this.  I wonder if we would tolerate a station whose sole purpose was to convert people to Islam in the US.

Treking for Orangutans

We traveled to Bukit Lawang which is famous for having a large population of wild and semi wild Orangutans (semi-wild because many had been reintroduced from captivity). We did a two day trek into the jungle trying to spot the Orangutans. We saw about 7 or 8, a few with babies. Pretty cool experiences.

The hiking was a bit more than Sandy counted on, but I have to admit she held up really well except for the posibility of this rock face which does not look nearly as steep and slippery as it actually was.

Climbing up this ridiculously steep side of a mountain using the vines was a first for us.

Indonesia- Temples

We like temples and visited Borobudor, a 9th century Buddhist temple.  

Also visited Prambanan an old Hindu temple.  As impressive as this was, it would have been amazing to see when there were literally hundreds of these temples in the same complex. Unfortunately, earthquakes and villagers taking stones to be used on their foundations left only a handful for renovation.

Bali Highlights

The highlights for us in Bali were some of the temples and a botanical garden. The beaches are supposed to be great, but there was lots of rain and we are not beach people anyway.

My favorite was Tanah Lot, a temple in the sea.  It was really beautiful

I also liked one of the Royal Temples...beautiful, no hawkers and no tourists.

The incredible tiered rice paddies seemed to go on forever.

We love botanical gardens, especially in tropical areas. I think one tree had the biggest leaves I have seen anywhere.

An Interesting Hotel/Project in Bali

We stayed in a hotel which was part of a foundation to provide an education for poor kids.  The kids would not be able to study anymore, so a family set up a foundation that provides food, housing, an education, and work experience to about 100 kids.  When they finish, they have a high school certificate, very good language ability, and actual job experience.  The hotel had one person who was both the headmaster and the manager and the kids did the rest of the work.  They were ridiculously enthusiastic and really happy to have the opportunity.  A great project I think.