Adventures Part 2

So, continuing on from my last entry...

I left Bangkok after breakfast the morning after the tour finished, taking a taxi to the Mochit bus terminal. It was a multi-storied mass of people and ticket booths and I had no clue where to start looking for the one little booth selling tickets to Lom Sak. So, eenie meenie miny moe seemed the most logical approach and one that worked extremely well as, by a small miracle, I ended up at the booth right beside the Lom Sak ticket seller. Triumphant and relieved I took myself, luggage and ticket to the seating area and waited patiently for my bus departure time in just over an hour. I didn't think to ask any questions regarding the trip, so by the time I had been on the bus for over an hour I had no idea if there was even a toilet on the bus. Two hours in to the 6 hour+ trip and this very question began to plague me. It was time for charades. The lady next to me shook her head in a very discouraging manner and as my bladder continued to call for attention I began to feel increasingly alert (but not alarmed). Would we be stopping then, perchance? More shakes of the head. As alarm began to take hold, I suddenly had all manner of things to say about the Thai transport system as more and more people piled onto the bus, squeezing down the aisles and making the way to the non-existent toilet impassable even if there was one. At this point, I began to make an inventory of my options which ranged from bringing out my inner-crazy-foreigner who would make a scene and stop the bus, to silently wetting my pants. The situation was so unthinkable actually, that I decided to seek answers further afield and swung around to ask the man behind me the same two questions. Toilet? No. We stop soon? Yes, 15 minutes. Yes? 15 minutes??? Halleluiah, praise the Lord! I was so thrilled I thought I would burst with joy. There was a touch and go moment when 15 minutes became 20 became 30, but we did finally stop and it was then that I was overcome with a deep and abiding happiness. Even after we got back on the bus with another 3 hours to go (which turned out to be 4), I was just joyful. I didn't drink anything for the rest of the trip but everything in the world was just fine.

We arrived in Lom Sak as the sun was preparing to set and still feeling very pleased with the state of affairs, I found myself a tuk tuk to take me to the Grand Natirat Hotel. After the lovely places we stayed at during the tour, the 'Grand' part of the hotel's name seems a little unwarranted but it was a place to lay the head for the night and I had the best massage ever in their dingy little massage room.

The next morning I made my way to the town centre in search of chemist for electrolytes and internet cafe to check my emails and found both thanks to a kind English man who happened to be walking down the street and had been living in the town for 5 years with his Thai wife... I suspect Lom Sak doesn't see many foreigners so he was an unexpected but welcome sight.



Back at the hotel I was ready with my luggage at 1pm to be picked up by a lady from Mercy International - an organisation that Crossroads sent a container to in 2004. Pawinee, (the director and founder of Ban Meata in Lom Sak), chatted to me about the work of Mercy as we drove out to Ban Meata (House of Mercy) about 30 minutes away. When they started in Lom Sak 19 years ago, there was nothing but a patch of dry and unusable land where now there an oasis of beautifully kept gardens, several dams, a small farm, children's village and a school. They now have paved roads and electricity and Ban Meata is even marked on the map as a village. The whole locality has benefited from the infrastructure that Mercy has put into place at Ban Meata.

Pawinee showed me around the school first, pointing out items that had come from Crossroads including furniture and computers. They have just added a high school to their infants and primary and now have 1000 students and growing each year. Every day they provide a free lunch for all the students as well as a free bus to pick up children for school each day. They are currently extending the high school to accommodate the new grades as they start each successive year, and have a vision to open a university in about 5 years. Next Pawinee took me to see their cows and goats. There are about 60 cows, with 12 calves born this year already. They teach the children how to care for them, particularly those that don't excel academically and who will probably become farmers when they leave school. The cows are adorable with big floppy ears and docile personalities. They're not uptight like our cows!



Next we drove down the road a bit to the farmland where they have two fish farms and food crops of about 20 different kinds, including bananas, papaya, lime, tamarind and mango. With these crops they can feed the children and sell any excess for income (especially the fish). They are also growing teak for future income.

Lastly, we went to the children's village and I was able to play with the kids for a little while before dinner. There are currently about 90 children living there (I think), from babies to teenagers. Most of them are orphans, and all come from difficult or tragic situations where parents have died from AIDS or are in jail or have been left by their spouse and have become just too poor to take care of their children. They really thrive at Ban Meata though, in the loving care they receive from their 'house mums' and other adults who work there.



By the time dinner was ready, another girl, Sherie, from Australia arrived also who comes to volunteer at Ban Meata every year and hopes to return long term with her husband in the future. We had dinner with the children and then played with them until it started to get dark. They were incredibly affectionate with both of us - it was a very special experience for me!

I stayed overnight in the volunteer's dorm and after a leisurely breakfast with Sherie the next morning, Pawinee drove me back into Lom Sak. I took the bus to Khon Kaen which is where I would be meeting my sponsor child the next day. Knowledge is power and now that I knew to expect a toilet-less bus I had the power within me to not drink during the 4 hour trip. It was hardly surprising that I didn't really even need to go when we stopped half way, but I went anyway! I arrived in Khon Kaen in plenty of time to off-load the luggage and have a look around the town for the afternoon, feeling very excited about meeting my sponsor child Tor the next day.

In the morning director from Tor's project and the translator were waiting for me in the hotel lobby. They were clearly very excited about me being there and we chatted for a bit about the day ahead. I asked if they might be able to help me buy something for the family before we went. I had in mind something like a pig or a goat perhaps... but Sadjit, the project director, said that they really need clothes and that she would take me to 'Big C' to get some things. OK, great! It turns out my translator, Daeng, was an AFS exchange student in Tasmania some years ago. He was delighted to meet Another Fat Student, when I told him I went to Japan with AFS for a year (long time ago now). At Big C Sadjit helped me to buy clothes for Tor, his sister Peung, father and grandfather as well as some bulk milk, shampoo, ovaltine and some other essentials.



As we were driving east of Khon Kaen to Chiang Yun where Tor lives, they told me that I was the first sponsor visit they have had to their project and they even went out and bought a camera for the day. Sadjit took a phone call and then said that apparently there weren't that many people waiting to greet me because many were away for the New Year. I wasn't exactly sure what she was talking about because I had had visions of driving out to a little house in the middle of some rice fields and certainly wasn't expecting any welcoming committee. In actual fact, we went straight to the Chiang Yun church which partners with Compassion to implement the sponsorship progam in this area. What a surprise to find about 60 people there waiting to greet me, with "Sawasdeekaaaaa's" and necklaces of flowers. I felt like the queen coming to town, which was strange to say the least. Amidst all the excitement I was introduced to Tor and his grandfather and all manner of other people and then ushered upstairs to their main meeting room. Some of the children danced and then Sadjit introduced me to everyone and had me come up and say a few things which was also a little unexpected, but I bumbled my way through! They gave me some gifts including a very loud pink Hawaiian-style shirt they insisted I don immediately. Many people wear them during the New Year water festival celebrations and as half of them were wearing similar shirts and we were about to have a mini water festival of our own, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.



Outside we sat in a long row while the children came past us pouring water in our hands, rubbing powder on our cheeks and blessing us for the new year. A much more tame version of what would be happening all over Thailand in a few days, where the whole population would be drenched and powdered from top to bottom with new year joy. After drying off a little Daeng and Sadjit took me out with Tor and his grandfather to meet his father and sister at their house. It wasn't in the centre of a rice paddy at all but in a street just off the main road of the town. It was a 2 story wooden house, with the main living area downstairs (I think many Thais use the upstairs for storage because it's so hot up there, but I'm not completely sure)... downstairs they had a mattress-less double bed where all four of them sleep, a cupboard and a tv. I'm guessing the cooking area would have been out the back. Tor's mother left with a man to live in Germany and doesn't send the family any money. His grandmother died a couple of years ago. The father and grandfather drink a lot apparently. His father makes about AU$25 a week as a town garbage collector. Tor's grandfather is the primary care giver as the father is working and in Bangkok a bit with his new wife who lives there. His grandfather clearly loves the children dearly, but he is quite frail and I think life must be very hard for him.

We sat on a bench at the front of the house and I gave out the things I bought for them at Big C as well as some things I brought from Australia for the kids. Then the grandfather presented me with a beautiful piece of handmade silk cloth that his late wife had woven. I was extremely humbled as it was probably one of their prized possessions.



We took Tor, Peung and their grandfather out to lunch at a nearby restaurant. The food was so 'Thai Spicy' that I cried and sniffled my way through the meal much to their amusement. What got me was that no-one else got so much as a teary eye, including the children. Making conversation with the kids was difficult because they were so shy and I could only draw out muffled one-word answers. But I suspect that having lunch with a big snivelling foreigner would have been quite an event in their lives.

We stopped by the church to pick up a few more people who all piled in the back of the ute, and then drove for an hour to a village famous for its snakes. They run shows in which teenagers dance with snakes around their necks and even put them in their mouths. Then men come on and 'fight' with the snakes which was really the snake being provoked into striking when it clearly would rather have been heading for the hills. As the snake would attempt to 'exit stage left' it would be poked and prodded until it flared and attempted to strike the man who would then gallantly leap back to safety. All a bit galling really, but the main objective was to give Tor a nice day out, so as long as that was happening, it was all good. After we got the kids ice creams we headed back to Tor's house and said our farewells. His grandfather took both my hands in his and said that he couldn't express how much it meant to him that I came to visit them. He was so vulnerable and heartfelt I wanted to ball. I tried to let him know what it meant for me to come and meet them all. It was an amazing experience. I would have liked to hang out with them at home more and gotten to know them and play with them. Maybe next time!



I spent the later afternoon at the church with Sadjit and Daeng before we headed back to Khon Kaen for a hot pot dinner. There were 3 other project workers with us and when they took me back to my hotel, they all came into the lobby to farewell me. One by one they took my hands and expressed their gratitude that I came to visit Tor. I was so touched by their humility and by all the hard work they put into the children in the project. I left them feeling like I had made good friends who I can hopefully visit again in the future.

I was very grateful that Sadjit and Daeng were constantly reaching for my camera to capture every moment. You can see my photos here.

The next morning I had only a couple of hours spare before my flight to Cambodia, via Bangkok, but I managed to squeeze in a flying visit to Ban Meata's orphanage for HIV+ children. You can see all my Ban Meata photos here.

Will write about Cambodia in my next post...