Monday morning, I went to Pediatrics in the Hospital. The waiting room in the hospital is overflowing with patients and the families of patients, so we are helping the Hospital draw the families of patients to a new room. We brainstormed ideas of how to encourage its use and helped design and decorate it. That evening, Maple—who does Public Relations for the hospital—invited Blake, Nate, Pim and I to play badminton. Because everyone kept score in Thai, my counting knowledge was tested.
Tuesday, we went to teach the students how to brush their teeth. We started by handing out string to pairs of students so that they could “floss” between each other’s fingers. We fashioned a toothbrush out of a broken badminton racquet and rolled up paper and had one student brush another in circles. The student being brushed started out as a dirty tooth (with a browning t-shirt on) and ended as a clean tooth (with a white t-shirt on). We showed the students the seven regions of the mouth that needed brushing and told them to brush for three minutes. We asked them if they knew what was bad for your teeth. The first and most enthusiastic response was “Farang!” Emily, Nate and I exchanged confused glances. White people are bad for your teeth? Apparently, the kids were saying “Mah Farang,” which means gum. When we taught the sixth graders, one of the girls looked strikingly familiar to me. I tried to brush it off, but after class she came up to me and said “Amy, you remember me?” As it turns out, Lebin was a girl who recently had surgery that I did arts and crafts with in the hospital. What a small world we live in!
Wednesday, after Pediatrics, Pi Buwa saw the gauze pad on my leg from the exhaust burn and went into action mode. Before I knew it, I was laying on a table with six nurses around cleaning up my leg and wrapping it up. Nate, Blake, and I met with Maple about doing health videos for the overflow room. After our meeting, several of the volunteers came with me to start the square foot gardens with the kids from the Ayui Foundation. Sue separated the kids into five groups of four, so that they have ownership over their plots. One of the little girls had this crazy straw hat that she put on my head and I wore while we were gardening. When it was time for a water break, we realized that we didn’t have any cups. To jump over that hurdle, some of the kids folded leaves into little triangle cups and others used their machetes to make bamboo cups. Their ingenuity amazed me.
Thursday, I learned an important lesson—herbal remedies can be painful. Tiger balm is used to soothe muscles and I was sore from a recent run, so I decided to give it a shot. Evidently, with tiger balm less is more. It felt like thousands of needles were poking into my leg through the thick layer of orange balm. It was also our second day at Nam Lad and we were teaching hand washing. We did two separate exercises. For the first we had powder that we put on one student and we showed how the transfer of germs worked. For the second demonstration, each of the kids went to wash their hands and we put a drop of oil so they could see the importance of soap. We had two bars of soap; we handed one to the girls and the other to the boys. The girls stood in a line and passed it back. The boy who was handed the soap screamed “mine!” and proceeded to run around outside with a dozen boys running after him. I also learned today that little boys in Thailand are the same as little boys in the United States. Later in the afternoon, we all went to soccer school for the soccer tournament. It was the Farangs vs. the Thai kids. They were incredible! I don’t have very good brakes, unfortunately, and I crashed into some of the kids. They recovered more quickly than I did, though.
Friday, we headed to the Samah Mit community to start work on the watchtower. We made it early enough to watch the local shaman perform the groundbreaking ceremony. After the groundbreaking, we struck down trees with machetes and dug holes for cement. I worked with Dinai, a local with a slingshot in his back pocket. I thought that was funny and cute until Dave informed me that it was used to kill birds. Oh my! On our way to lunch, we stopped by the rice fields and helped pull out the rice grain to be replanted. It was strenuous and detailed work. I most certainly felt guilty the next time I paid 5 baht for a bag of sticky rice. Lunch was… a new experience.
There was raw ground beef, chicken’s feet and full fried fish. The most notable aspect, however, was our inability to wash our hands in between pulling out the rice and eating our meal. After lunch, we cemented poles into our dug pits. That night, Pim, Nate and I went to karaoke. Most of the songs were in Thai, but sometimes you have to just go for it. There were a few songs in English, though, set at an unnaturally quickened pace.
Saturday, we started a hand washing video that I sincerely hope will finish one day. It goes to the tune of these ridiculous songs that outline the seven steps of washing hands. Saturday afternoon, we went to the Ayui Foundation home to teach computer classes and finance classes. We also did arts and crafts with the students. The kids were excited, but I was often shocked at how little the kids knew. We definitely have a long way to go from here. Saturday night, when we were playing basketball we heard loud music. Pim remembered a concert that was going on that night, so she and I headed in that direction. The concert was absolutely incredible. Bodyslam was the headliner, but performances by Micro, Sek Loso, and Big Ass—yes I know—were wonderful as well. It was such a fun adventure… and it was free! Sunday, we went to Chiang Mai to sell the art therapy from the kids of AIDS Access. Unfortunately, we didn’t sell that much of the art, but we did pretty well in donations. Monday, we went to the hospital and Nate showed Maple the hand washing video. From the looks of things, we still had much to do.
Sometimes when serious and somber things are happening around me, I feel the urge to go and climb trees. J.M. Barrie once said “if growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!” I wholeheartedly concur. I believe that being silly and adventuring in little ways keep me grounded and let me fly.
Tuesday, we went to the Akha village to check on the adobe stove. Unfortunately, it was drying even slower than we had imagined it would in the humidity. This is going to be a longer process than we had originally thought. That afternoon, we re-filmed much of the hand washing video and Nate edited it. Wednesday, we went to the hospital with high hopes for the video. It still wasn’t quite on par with where it should be, and we had to add a new part. That afternoon, we went to the Ayui Foundation. After playing a few games with the kids, I did a presentation about compost for their square foot gardens. We went to maintain the square foot gardens and put the black tarps down. Wednesday night, Maple took Pim, Nate, Andrea—who had just arrived that day—and I to her favorite karaoke place. They were private rooms with a monitor and two microphones. While it was exciting at the last karaoke club, this one was definitely more fun. Thursday, we filmed and worked on the video.
Friday, Garrett, Nate, Pim and I went to Burma to renew our visas. It was definitely an adventure. When we crossed over, it was clear we were in a different place. The Burmese people were much more impoverished than any Thai people I had ever seen. The women put yellow powder on their faces to enhance their beauty. New information like that reminds me of the subjectivity of beauty. The people were crying for my attention and my money. It was truly sad. We wandered around for a while, ate lunch, and headed back home to Thailand.
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