The Continuing

Tuesday, May 29, 2007
10:51:39 PM

Tuesday was another CI day, again at the same facility “Pansawan” as yesterday. In the morning, I had a new task to do, that was to help an italian volunteer create an information brochure about the school. We ate lunch again with the children and the other staff that work there. In due conversation, we learned a little bit about some of the children and how they came to be there. There are 3 different types of students; there are those who live full time at the school, those who live in the hill tribes and go home on weekends, and those who live in the slum area close by. All 3 have heatbreaking and eye opening stories. Many of the children that live there full time are single or double orphans; that being one or both of their parents have died or left them for some reason. Sometimes their parents have been murdered brutally because of drug use and trafficking activities, sometimes their parents simply cannot take care of them so leave them there.
Another growing problem here is with AIDS, some of the children are orphans because their parents have died as a consequence of this. This also ties in with drug use as well as unsafe sex practices. Some of the children will turn out to be negative; some positive. If that is the case, it becomes even more difficult to find adequate care and education for these children because often times places will turn them away.
The children that live there during the week and go home on the weekends are mostly from the hill tribes. Yes, there are still very distinct tribes in Thailand. Its really interesting that people from the tribes don’t consider themselves Thai, but instead still identify themselves with their traditional tribes and unique language and culture. There are actually many languages, that don’t cross here in Thailand.
The third group are those who live in the nearby slums; very very poor living conditions, but you’d never be able to tell by seeing them smiling in the classrooms. On Friday we are planning to visit the slum areas where the kids live in the afternoon.
Another problem that also affects many of the children and their families is documentation and the legal system here. For various reasons, some of the children do not exist on paper, that is they have no birth certificate, no other documentation of any kind; to the rest of the world, they don’t exist. This is for a few different reasons; some of the hill tribes were never officially recognized as Thai citizens (or were recognized as citizens after their children were born), and therefore their children were considered illegal aliens on the very soil they were born on. Because of this non official existence, the government felt no need to provide assistance or education to these peoples. The United nations wasn’t to happy with them because of this as every child has the right to education. While the situation has changed for the better (as schools like the one I’m at have arisen), there is still lots of work to be done.

In the afternoon, we continued our physically intense CI helping to construct the terraced garden. It can be said we “moved a mountain” today; albeit a rather small one, but a mountain to some none the less. It was basically landscaping work. A rolling thunderstorm passed us by in the distance.
After our CI work, we all went “down town” to the Riverside restaurant. Waiting for us were two boats lined with tables and place settings. This was the first time the cast had been together for a few days. Since there was far more room on the boat with people who were vegetarians and such, Kenzo and myself joined that boat, sitting with Lauran and Gabby the technical manager. We got our supper, mainly rice and spicy soup, and went on a cruise down the canal for about an hour and a half. As it turns out, quite a few people had decided to have some alcohol as well. It served well as my entertainment though I decided not to have any. Just as our boat was pulling into the dock, there was a downpour of rain an everyone ran inside. The bar/restaurant was already packed with “farange” or tourists. The music was live and mellow, which went well with the rainstorm. Unfortunately, 2 boat loads of Up with people people had to ruin the atmosphere; it just wasn’t that kind of bar to be going to and being rowdy; I wanted to leave as soon as I could. Since it was raining, Greg’s host family couldnt come and pick him up on their motorcycle so we dropped him off; along the way he stopped for some Thai Patai, a noodle dish with egg and shrimp. Like every night this week, I fell asleep at my keyboard trying to write my journal, but in the heat with no a/c I sleep very easily.

Buddhism - Everything is up to destiny, thus there are few social services aka welfare

My Host Family's Dining room