Some Pics

As promised, a few pics of the archetecture here...really beautiful!

We Made It

We arrived in Nepal last night. The town we are staying in, Bhaktapur, is a UNESCO world heritage site for good reason... it is really beautiful. I will post pics later since I can not do it on this computer.

One funny thing was when a little playful girl joked with us in the street. Then, she put her hand out and asked for ten rupies. She was far too clean and well cared for to be in need, so I put my hand out and said, "no you give me ten rupies". Since she was not a pro, she did not know what to do so she offered to give me a pencil. I think she will need more practice.

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 Update

Someone has agreed to pay for Attitya's surgery. Most kids here would never have the opportunity to get better...I guess she is lucky.

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.

Gumpin again

Today I was following up on a lead to get donated medical supplies. It was something that a friend had tried to put together for some people in Thailand and it just did not work out. I made a call this morning to the organization and after a half hour talk the man I was speaking with said, "I know an organization with $400,000 in medical supplies and nobody to give it to in Thailand." After I wiped the poop from my shorts I told him I could find an organization.

The organization I was trying to help can not take a full container with 20 pallets of supplies so I will have to start searching for others. I have written one and will contact some others. Either way, a pretty cool morning.

PS. My sister officially hates me for the picture I posted below of her daughter who is really quite cute (but a bit of a goofball).

End of vacation

After completing our work here (which some may call terrorizing nieces and nephews including, Justine, my niece with the punk sign on her forehead) we are ready to get going again.

Tuesday we are heading to Bangkok for a couple of weeks. We are going to follow up on what is happening at the temple that I was volunteering at.

In a couple of weeks, we will head to Nepal where we will volunteer at a school for poor children.

Vacation

Sandy and I are going to take a couple of weeks to travel up the east coast of the US. We are going to be camping and visiting friends. Because of this trip, I do not expect to have any posts for a couple of weeks.

Off track

Even though I am here in America for awhile, I have been working on the project in Thailand. Unfortunately, the guy who had promised to do a lot of work for the children has turned out to be a total slacker. He promised to organize meetings and didn't. In addition, the head monk has not been assertive (which of course monks never are) and the teachers at the school are not performing their jobs properly. The new headmaster is going to start soon, but it may be too late. The donor for the school, who happens to be in a different part of the same organization as the slacker, is frustrated that the school has not gotten its' act together and may pull the funding.

Sandy and I are considering making another short trip back to Thailand to try to get things back on track before we go to another country. We will decide soon enough.

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.