Pai and then some

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This is a long one, so be prepared! A lot happened during our week off for fall break...

The week of Oct 8-12 we closed Taw Saeng for our fall break, as all the kids’ school close as well. The beginning of the week, we were in Mae Fah Luang, Tuesday we cleaned the house from top to bottom and then vegged out. While we were watching TV, I found out my college roommate’s husband had just passed away from cancer. I knew he was sick and didn’t have long, but it was still a shock because I had recently spent time with their family while I was in the US. It was really hard thinking of how their kids will grow up without a daddy, and even though they are Christians, it’s still a hard situation. Just after that, I got a call that the dad of three brothers (Nat, Buddy and Aaron) in our program had also passed away from cancer. He had throat cancer and had been in the hospital since mid-August, so we also knew that was coming. Their family is very poor, and their mom is worried about raising three boys (2 of them teengares) on her own, with only her mother-in-law to help her.

So, Thursday, we all went to the funeral of this dad, and it turns out he was going to be buried in the same cemetery in Mae Taeng that Sophie’s parents are. We stopped at the market on the way to the church service to get some flowers for the family and for Sophie’s parents’ graves. The service was nice, but kept getting interrupted by people coming in and out and talking loudly and cell phones, which I thought was really disrespectful. After the church service, we all ate together, and a lot of the Taw Saeng kids had come too, to support their friends, which I thought was very sweet of them. Gabby, Yvonne and Willow came with us to the burial site as well. 

When we got up there, about an hour outside the city, we realized we had only ever been there during hot season, because suddenly the big open field was covered in corn! The entire cemetery area was covered in corn, so that we couldn’t even see the graves. We were in our nice clothes from church, so we took off our shoes and waded through the stalks in the general direction of the graves, praying the entire time that the myriad snake holes in the ground would not yield venomous snakes bent on making us their next meal. We made it to the graves, which were surrounded by knee high grass, and put some flowers on each of Sophie’s parents’ graves. The other kids hadn’t come to her mom’s funeral, so they came with us and we said a quick prayer. While we were waiting there, wondering where the boys’ dad would be buried we saw a procession of cars on a hill across the valley from where we were. Apparently there are multiple cemetery sections on this area of land. We all got back in the truck and went down to where the road split and tried to go up the other road to the hill we had seen the burial cars going, but they had parked all the way down to where the road splits, so we hiked up in our nice clothes. Upside: we got out first.

The ceremony was brief but it is such a beautiful resting place for their dad to be buried. If they come visit, it should bring them a modicum of comfort to know their dad has such a beautiful view. 

This is a field on the way to the burial site. We all took some pics here.

View from the burial site of the valley below.

After the funeral, we rushed back to town, and raced over to Ahna and Jasmine’s house. Jas had wanted to take some pictures of Sophie at this abandoned building near her house, so we came up with some clothes for both of us to wear to do some together too. That week, my friend Bethsaida’s cousin was visiting and he is a professional photographer in NYC and brought a light kit with him, so he took some amazing shots of us and of Sophie by herself, as you can see below. It’s crazy, when I met her two years ago, she still was such a little kid, and in these pictures she looks like she is 25. Kinda freaks me out a little, even though they are awesome. 

Inside the building, there was a bunch of standing water all over the floor, and I thought it would be such a cool shot of the two of us jumping in the water. Jay thought the same thing, so he took a bunch of pictures of us in the water, but Sophie is not the best at tandem jumping. Still turned out cool, though. 

After we were completely drenched, we headed to the market to get some food for dinner and Sophie wanted to find some shoes for the weekend. She finally did and it’s a good thing they only cost $3.50 because they completely fell apart by the end of the day Sunday. We went to pick up Winnie, who was coming with us to Pai, and I was totally surprised because P’Beauw had gotten me a birthday present and Winnie made me one at school! P’Beauw got me this little adjustable nightlight that you put aromatherapy oil in to make your room smell nice. Winnie made me a scarf on a loom. Who even knows how to do that anymore? How cool is that? And it’s SOOO soft and is blue and white, so cute! Great kickoff to the weekend.

That night, at midnight, I was awakened by a frantic banging on my door. At least it seemed frantic when I was startled awake. Nobody responded when I said to come in, so I raced to open the door and found Sophie and Winnie standing in the dark with a tiny cake and 3 candles, singing Happy Birthday! It was kind of adorable. I wasn’t in the mood to eat cake at midnight, though, so we ended up bringing it to Pai with us.

At 6am, we were up and loading onto the motorbike to head over to the bus station to meet everyone else and get tickets to Pai! We got there with enough time to grab breakfast and take some Dramamine before we loaded up. There are over 700 hairpin curves on the road from Chiang Mai to Pai, so the motion sickness meds were a necessity for all involved. We got to Pai around noon, wandered down the street and found a cute little hotel with bungalows for rent. Because we had 7 people (me, Sophie, Winnie, Jasmine, Ahna, Ning and Jasmine’s friend Nudee) we got three bungalows right on the river and they gave us a deal, so it ended up being just over $20 for lodgings for two nights (that is for 2 people, keep in mind!)

Our heavy bags dropped off, we then rented motobikes so we could explore the valley and village of Pai. We stopped at a place famous for their cooking school and got a delicious Thai lunch before heading out to a waterfall that Ning, Ahna and I had visited last year. This year it was packed with people, so it wasn’t quite as secluded as we thought it might be. This waterfall has several levels, so at the middle section, there was a deep pool of water that a bunch of people were sliding or jumping into. Of course, we had to as well, and let me tell you, that water was COLD! Hypothermia cold. But, we braved it and took a bunch of pictures in it.

Ahna, Jasmine and I sat at the base of where the waterfall came down from the level above and Sophie was going to take a picture.  She had her back to the two boulders that were creating this pool, but also letting the water through to create the waterfall below. She kept scooting closer and closer to where the boulders met, and we jokingly said, “be careful you don’t slip through and fall over the waterfall!” Right after that, POP! She went through the rocks and was hanging on by one hand, with the other hand holding the camera. She didn’t look too scared, so it took us a second to react, but I knew something was wrong, so I took off swimming to her, and got to her just as she yelled my name and started to lose her grip on the rock. I grabbed her hand, but the pressure of the water from behind was so strong, I couldn’t pull her over the rocks and she couldn’t get a grip on the rocks under her feet because they were so slippery. Out of nowhere, this German guy was next to me grabbing her other hand, and together we pulled her over from certain doom, or intense pain anyway. It was pretty scary actually, but she was fine, no bruises or anything, just really cold. We were all effusive in our thanks to the tourist for helping literally save Sophie’s life, but she seemed relatively oblivious to the danger she had just been in. She did say thank you, but it was more because I told her to than because she really thought she should. Are all teenagers this convinced of their immortality? 

After we had our fill of waterfalls, we jumped back on the bikes and drove all over the valley, looking at the beautiful scenery and stopping occasionally to take pictures. We also stopped at a famous coffee shop called Coffee in Love that was featured in a Thai movie called “Pai in Love.” We decided to use this as our location for “fancy” family portraits the next day.

By the time we got back to the bungalows it was after dark and I was freezing! I tried to take a hot shower, but it was lukewarm at best, so after I got out, I put on all my clothes and socks and a jacket and crawled under the covers to warm up. Ahna was like “you need to wear a dress! I brought a sundress so you should dress up too.” I was telling her all the reasons I didn’t really want to, but would anyway, once I warmed up. I wandered over to Sophie’s room and she was like “why are you not dressed up? We are all dressing up!” I explained to her again that I was going to change when I warmed up. Then Ning was like “oh, I thought we were all dressing up.” You think I would have been suspicious by this point, seeing as it was my birthday, but I clearly am not as observant of my own life as I am on a movie set.

I had Ahna braid my hair and changed into my sundress and we headed out to eat. I thought we were going to a Thai place where Ahna, Ning and I had gone last year, but we turned the wrong direction out of the hotel, and Jasmine stopped at a pizza/Italian place and was like “how about here?” I was so confused, I was like “What? I thought we were going to that Thai place? Didn’t we talk about this already?” Then Jas got this panicked look on her face and was like, “oh, uh, yeah, we can go there.” At the look on her face, I responded, “OK, CLEARLY we need to eat here.” So, we went in and they had a whole table reserved for us with candles and flowers all ready for my birthday dinner! I was really surprised, and even more so when Ning gave me a present and Jas and Ahna got me this book I have been coveting for a year, but unable to afford (ok, it’s Inheritance  for those of you who care or who also read books about dragons, or want to make fun of me for doing so.) 

Dinner was great and delicious, and it was so nice of Jasmine to treat us, but the mood was dampened a bit by the fact that Sophie was in a full blown teenage sulk and refused to talk to anyone or even say why she was in a bad mood when I tried to figure out what was going on with her. Then, she just took off with Winnie and didn’t even tell me where she was going. I was less than happy with her behavior, especially since she was being so rude to everyone else. The crazy thing is, usually in these situations, I try to remember when I was a teenager and how I would have let my mom or dad get me out of a bad mood, but I honestly came up blank. I definitely remember having those moods, but have no memory of what my mother did to force me to act civilly. I should probably have written these things down in preparation for the day when I had a teenager. Teenage self fail.

Eventually Sophie and Winnie came back when their food had arrived and was nearly cold, but they ate it all, at least without complaining. After dinner, I had a little talk with Sophie and the next day, Jasmine gave her a full blown lecture on the inappropriateness of her behavior and told her she owed everyone an apology, which she actually listened to. I think maybe it’s one of those things where if your parents tell you your behavior sucks, you can rationalize it, but when another adult whose opinion you care about also yells at you for the same thing, it hits that maybe your parents are right after all. Anyway, we had talked all day about going to float down the river on inner tubes the next day, but I told Sophie that if she didn’t snap out of her bad mood and behave for the rest of the trip that she could stay alone at the bungalows while the rest of us went. She gave me her word, so I went ahead and booked our trip for all 7 of us.

Saturday morning, we went to breakfast at a place called the Witching Well, which is famous for their pancakes. I had apple pancakes and Jaz had banana chocolate, which looked and tasted delicious as well. Full of syrup and sweetness, we wandered over to find the guys to take us to the river with innertubes. It turned out the river was really shallow, so shallow, in fact, that in several places, we had to pick up our tubes and walk for a ways til it was deep enough to float again. The rocks in those places were very sharp on the bare feet. That part was not fun. Most of the time, we stayed attached to each other, but then we would all freak out and split up into groups when we encountered an obstacle in the river, like an island or boulder. 

I was with Sophie and Winnie for a while, and we came to such an obstacle. I could see Ahna and Nudee to the right of the fork, so I was trying to propel us that direction, but the girls were doing nothing to help, so we ended up just running into the island. However, Sophie kept floating to the left, toward the rapids and around a bend. I kept yelling at her to stand up because the water was so shallow she could have just come back up the river and floated down the other side with us, but she wouldn’t listen. So, Winnie and I headed to the right with Ahna, figuring we would meet her on the other side. However, after a bit, it looked like the river curved, but the land kept going, like it wasn’t an island at all. Then I freaked out a bit, thinking that Sophie had gone down a totally different branch of the river, so I started swimming back upstream to go after her. Ahna reassured me that if there were somewhere we needed to keep to one side of a fork, they would have warned us, so I floated back downstream, and sure enough, it was an island. However, I waited and waited for Sophie to come, but all I saw were Jasmine and Ning who had been behind us when we split up. Now I was really worried, because if Sophie wasn’t on our side or the other side, where had she gone? After another few minutes, she finally appeared on the side I had just floated down. Apparently, she thought I was waiting for her at the top of the island, so she had finally stood up and walked back upstream to meet me only to find I wasn’t there, so she floated leisurely down the river to catch back up to us. Poor girl, I should have just sent Winnie with Ahna and chased her down myself in the first place. Anyway, we found her and all was well. Until she ran into a tree.

There were a lot of downed trees in the river, and we ended up floating right into the branches of one, so I jumped into the middle of my tube to pull her and Winnie out. At that point in the river, the water was about waist deep and instead of sharp stones under my feet, there was soft sand, so I floated like that for a while. Then, I saw up ahead some rapids, which I knew meant the water would get shallow and rocky pretty quickly. Before I could climb up on top of my inner tube, the speed picked up and the water got super shallow. The force of the momentum smashed my foot into a boulder, breaking my toe (no, not the big one, the one next to my pinky toe.) The rest of the trip was a bit less fun, due to the extreme pain I was in. However, I have broken several toes before, so I wasn’t freaking out, just elevating it and trying to avoid having to use my foot.

We weren’t too far from the spot we were supposed to get out of the river, so I let Jasmine and Ahna know I would need to go to a drugstore because I just broke an extremity. They were more concerned than I was and tried to convince me to go to the hospital. We got out of the river at the bottom of a hill covered with shale gravel. I was sitting on a boulder at the bottom, trying to keep my foot elevated and figure out how on Earth I was going to make it up the hill with no shoes while balancing on one foot, when one of the guys from the tubing shop showed up with a bag of ice and half carried me up the hill, both of us nearly falling several times. I was extremely grateful to him, because I really don’t know how else I could have done it. Jasmine had run home to get one of the motorbikes so I could drive back and ice my toe. She had also gotten cotton balls, medical tape and painkillers, as per my request.  Sophie took me back to the bungalows while the rest of the crew loaded up the tubes and paid for their share of the trip.

When I got back to the room, I was icing my toe and took one of the pills Jasmine had bought. But, I had never heard of it, and it was only 50 mg of medication. I was thinking, “last week, when I got my toenail pulled out (ok, that’s kind of a gross story that I won’t torture you with), I was taking 400mg of ibuprofen. 50mg is not very much. I should take two. And also some Advil.” So I did. About 5 minutes later, Jasmine came up and said “Oh! I forgot to tell you, this is basically over the counter morphine, so you are only supposed to take one.” WHAT?! My jaw dropped open and she was like, “Oh no, did you already take two?” and I said “…and two Advil.” To which Jasmine responded with laughter, “dude, I think you’re gonna die!” Ten minutes after that, I was feeling no pain anywhere! That stuff is great, man. I was all set to traipse all over the country taking pictures in a dress.

Before we left, we all enjoyed a nice lunch of burgers and fries by the river running past our bungalows. Then Sophie and I changed and did our hair and we were off to Coffee in Love again. We really did go all over the place there; it’s kind of a big property.  I felt great though, until I didn’t. Suddenly I felt pretty sick. I think it’s the downside of getting high.

So, while I took a break to prop my foot up, Jasmine took a bunch of pictures with Sophie and Winnie. I am really glad they did that because there are not many pictures of them together and since we moved, and they don’t go to the same school and neither goes to Taw Saeng anymore, I worry their friendship will fade. Winnie is basically the only Akha friend Sophie has, so I feel like it’s really important to try to encourage and preserve their friendship, especially since Winnie was the one who was there when Sophie’s mom died. Right now, Sophie feels like it doesn’t matter that aren’t good friends anymore, but I think that if she lets this friendship dissolve, she will really regret it in the future, because that kind of friendship is hard to come back and worth making an effort to keep. I hope she realizes that before too long and does make an effort to stay connected to her heritage and her friend. 

After we got back from picture taking, we changed and decided to wander up the walking street and end at the restaurant I thought we were going to the night before. I did a bunch of Christmas shopping, which was fun, despite the pain I was in at that point. I was hobbling pretty slowly, but still faster than the rest of the group! We met up with Jay and Bethsaida on the walking street and they came to dinner with us too. It was just as good as I remember and afterward, we headed back to the hotel so I could dive into my new book!

We had booked tickets for the noon bus back to Chiang Mai, so we got a bit of a sleep in, until the construction crew showed up, that is! Ning and Jasmine decided to go explore and find another of the waterfalls in the area, but the rest of us stayed at the hotel. I was in no shape to go traipsing about the country, my toe was black and purple by this point, and it was excruciating to put my crocs on, let alone hobble anywhere over rocks and through water to get to a waterfall! We had a leisurely morning reading and went out for breakfast at a cute little Thai restaurant not far from our hotel. We headed back to pack our stuff up and one of the motorbike keys was missing! We searched our hotel room, but the last person to drive it was Jasmine’s friend. It wasn’t in any of her stuff, and we kept telling Jas to check her pockets. When she finally did, there was the key! It was 11:30 by this point, and we still had to return 4 motorbikes, get our deposit back and walk to the bus station to catch the van! We made it at about 11:45am, and as soon as we were loaded up, we took off back to Chiang Mai.

Three hours later, we were home and unpacking. The next week, it was back to work as usual! Friday, the 19^th, Sophie got her second wisdom tooth out, and this one came out even quicker than the first. The dentist wants to wait a few months to get her last one, because he thinks it will probably continue to come in on its own and he can just do a basic extraction, rather than oral surgery to get it out, which will be a lot less painful, so I’m good with that.

Sophie is still in band, and in November, her marching band will be playing in the Loy Krathong parade! I’m so excited to see them play in public! So, even though she still had last week off from school, she was going to band for over 10 hours a day to practice. Seems a bit intense to me, but they really aren’t very good, so they can use the extra practice time. She won’t be able to play for a week due to the tooth extraction, so hopefully she will be ready for all 3 new songs they are learning by the time of the parade.

Mae Fah Luang: The Saga Continues

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OK, this post is for those of you who have been following the story of Sophie’s citizenship and my adoption of her. So, basically, we had to go back to the Province of Mae Fah Luang to get a few things that our lawyer said we needed to file the guardianship paperwork.

1)    there is a paper that gives her a resident alien number but the names of her parents listed are really her grandparents. So, we needed to change that to reflect her real parents.

2)    We needed to get her birth certificate, or whatever paper was filed with the government when she was born to show what her real birthday and year are.

3)    Change her place of residence to Chiang Mai so she could continue to study until college and so that if she is stopped by the police, she is not in Chiang Mai illegally, and will not be arrested. This needs to happen as soon as possible so she can study through high school.  

4)    A letter from the government showing that even though her mom had several names registered in different places, they are all the same person and she passed away, so we can get the money she left Ahngun out from the bank and use it for Ahngun’s future.

We needed to go during the week that Taw Saeng was closed so Ning and I could go take care of as much as possible. Our lawyer was supposed to go with us, but he ended up having to be in court that week, so we had to go on our own, unfortunately. I decided to rent a truck from a place recommended by several people. It was expensive, about $45 a day, but great on gas mileage and almost brand new. We needed a truck instead of a car because we had not been able to get ahold of the people from Sophie’s village by phone because all their phone numbers had been changed!

Just a recap: Sophie was really born in a small village about an hour down a dirt road from the main highway of Chiang Rai city. However, for some reason, her mother registered her birth with another tiny village in Mae Fah Luang province, so we trekked there last year to talk with those people. We needed people from both villages to go with us this time to explain her story and vouch for her as a person born in Thailand.  We couldn’t get ahold of anyone from either village for the longest time, but our lawyer was able to get the phone number of the village chief from Mae Fah Luang, so we finally talked to him before we left, but still had not spoken with people from Sophie’s actual village.

It started out as quite a fun weekend for us, actually. We picked up the truck on Saturday, October 6, and Sophie and I spent the night at Ning’s house with her older sister and her cousins. Sunday was election day for most villages in Northern Thailand, so Ning and her cousins were going up to their village to vote. We piled in the car, Ning, Sophie, Ning’s cousin, her husband and their 2 year old. I was a bit nervous driving a car with a baby not in any sort of car seat and much of the time riding in the front seat, but since car seats don’t exactly exist in Thailand, there wasn’t much I could do, other than pray for safe travels and drive as safely as possible.

The truck drove like a dream! It handled nicely and because it used E20 ethanol gas, we only used half a tank for the entire weekend! I normally do not gush about cars, but I’ve been driving old beater cars of my friends my whole time in Thailand, so this was a nice change.

Sophie at her family's rice fields

We got to Ning’s village about 10am and she voted, then we went to her family’s house for brunch. YUM AKHA FOOD!! I love Akha food, though it is quite spicy. We ate our fill and then headed out to find people at Sophie’s village, not knowing how long it would take to talk to them and convince them to come with us. God was with us that day though, and we found all the people we needed to talk to, and got everyone’s new phone numbers stored in my phone this time and written down on paper so they would not get lost if Sophie lost her phone again. The family who “bought (stole)” her land (see post from Feb 2012) agreed to come with us and finally told us all the people who were listed on her mom’s family tree with the government.

Here is where the story gets even more complicated. I know, you thought that wasn’t possible, yet here we are. OK, so really, all her mom’s brothers and sisters died before she was born, however, when her mom tried to get citizenship for herself and Sophie, she basically added herself to someone else’s family book. So, as far as the government is concerned, there is this whole other family who is related to her and all of them are alive! Crazy times.

After we spoke with this family, it was only 1pm, and we didn’t know what to do with ourselves! We decided to stop at a Buddhist retreat not far from Sophie’s village and walk around a bit. It was sweltering, so we didn’t stay long, but we took in the scenery and attempted to take some jumping pictures. You can see how that turned out. Then, we went to the Chiang Rai mall and ate KFC and Swenson’s ice cream because we were so happy that things had worked out so far and so confident that they would continue to work out. I was not prepared for the crushing disappointment that would come the next day, but I should have been, with the way everything else has gone so far. 

After lunch at the mall, we drove up to Doi Tung, on the way to the government office in Mae Fah Luang. We found a cute little place with a free room for only 400 baht (about $13.50) It had three comfy beds (well, Sophie slept on the floor) and a great view with air conditioning and hot water and a TV! Of course, Sophie was in heaven. After getting settled, we went out to find a restaurant that the hotel owner suggested and spent some time praying together about the following day. Then we ate some really good food and just chatted for a while about stuff that happened last year before Ning left Taw Saeng and about Sophie’s future and just life in general. It was really nice and relaxing. 

The next day, we got up early and drove up to the government office and got there about 8am. The family from Sophie’s village got there the same time we did, but we waited for a while for the village chief from Mae Fah Luang. Finally, we called him and it turned out he had forgotten the papers, so he had to turn around and go back to get them. By the time he finally arrived, it was 10am, so we were at the back of the line. We sat there for a while, they finally called Sophie’s name and the three of us went to talk to the official. We sat down. They called us again. We sat back down. This went on for a while, so most of the time I stayed seated, since I had nothing to contribute anyway. Just before lunch, they called again and Ning asked about the second thing on the list, Ahngun’s birth certificate. She spoke with the head official and he said he would check into it. Sadly, they are not quite in the digital age yet up in the mountains, so they can’t just pull it up on a computer. Everything there is paper files. They still use typewriters. TYPEwriters! We went to lunch while the official worked on the paperwork. At this point, we were starting to get worried that we would get only one thing accomplished and not get back in time to return the truck that night.

We all ate lunch together, and Ning spoke at length with the village chief from Mae Fah Luang, who is very “tjai dee” or kind and understanding. The other family of course, kept talking about money, money, money. The village chief was not happy with them when he found out they basically sold Sophie’s land out from under her. He thought the same way we did, that it should be kept until she was older because she may want to live there some day or sell it herself. Anyway, we came back from lunch and got the paper that changed her parents’ names to be correct. Yes, one thing down! Only 3 to go, and it was 2:30pm. We needed to leave by 3pm.

Ning tried to get the address thing changed, but they just changed the laws for what you need to do it, and of course, we only had 3 of the 4 things with us. We didn’t have the paperwork of our landlord. Argh! So frustrating!

Ning also found out that there is no record of her birth in Mae Fah Luang. Something that I don’t quite understand about going to Bangkok to formally request it from the head office for Thailand or something. Ning tried to explain, but I don’t know the words in Thai and she doesn’t know the words in English, so we were stuck. We could not get the form about her mom’s names either, not without the lawyer present. Not only that, but because of the number they assigned her, it labels Sophie as a resident alien, and she will never be able to get citizenship unless they change the laws. This is all the more reason I am trying so hard to get her US citizenship, but I can’t even start that process til I have legal guardianship.

We rushed back, picking up Ning’s cousins on the way, and made it back to the rental place at 7:30pm, a half hour late, but the lady was so gracious. “It’s already forgotten,” she said when I apologized and explained about our long day at the government offices. I had told her when I rented the car what we needed it for, so she understood, and said to call if we needed to go again in the future.

The next day we just stayed home and rested (well, cleaned the house) and I met with the lawyer on Wednesday. He said he thinks he has enough to file our case now, finally, and was planning to do it today (the 15^th) but had to push it back a week for reasons I don’t understand. We also got more info about what we needed to change her address, so then we went to meet our landlord. She was very accommodating and gave us copies of all the stuff we needed. So, now all we need to do is go back again soon, with our lawyer, and try again to get all this stuff done. Continued prayers would be greatly appreciated. I feel like for every incremental step forward we take, we are knocked back 5, which is very disheartening. My friend Sacha said something very wise, that because it’s such a long and difficult process, I should look at every tiny accomplishment as a victory or else it will overwhelm me, and I think she is right. On my better days I am very optimistic and trust that everything will work out in God’s time. On my worst days (which are not many, thankfully) I am not quite so glass-half-full.

Next time: Pai! And other stories.

Dolphins Make a Splash

Those little Dolphins of mine are the cutest things ever! It is so hard to scold them for not listening or talking during class when they look at me with those big eyes and sweet smiles.  So, every day we start class by praying, and I let the kids take turns praying. Now, you would think that this would be like pulling teeth, but literally every day there is a fight over who will pray and who prayed last time. I need to create a schedule. One of the girls, Naya, is a chubby little 1^st grader and she is one of the ones who loves to pray. Her prayers go something like this “Dear God, thank you for today and for P’Heather who teaches us English. Please help us listen well and behave and not disobey so that P’Heather won’t be sad and take away points for not listening. Please help us study hard and remember everything that we learn so P’Heather will be happy and we can get lots of points and prizes. Please help us listen well and not talk too much and ……” on and on like this for 5 minutes! It’s so sweet and she is so earnest that it is so hard not to laugh with the hilarity of it.   

Then there is Matty, who every day says: “I never get to pray,” to which I respond, “OK, you can pray today.” His response? “That’s ok, I don’t know how.”

Some of the kids are so smart at learning the vocab and understanding it. I am always shocked by Matty, who never pays attention and is always playing around, yet knows every one of the vocab words, even the really hard ones. One of their favorite games is the question and answer game. One kid pulls a flash card from all our vocab words and then the kids take turns asking “Do you have a pencil (or whatever)?” and then the kid with the card says “Yes, I have a pencil, or no, I don’t have a pencil.” The problem is that last week we learned about hobbies, so it was “Do you like” and now it’s school supplies, so they need to say “do you have” but they keep forgetting and asking each other if they like paper or like pencil sharpeners. They don’t quite grasp the concept that the questions are not quite the same.

September was the end of the quarter, so all the kids got to show off their English skills by doing skits for the rest of the group. Our little skit had all the kids being different animals and going to a party at the cat’s house. They were so cute and over enunciated everything, so I could understand them, but the Thai staff couldn’t! It cracked me up. Orawun (her daugher Kayla is in my class) would laugh and laugh because she would hear us practicing and I would tell Kayla, “Great job! That was perfect!” and Orawun would be like “I have NO idea what she is saying.” Even so, I think they did a great job. They were great at being loud enough so everyone heard what they said though, and they got to finish it all off with party poppers, which were a big hit. They were most excited about the duck call necklaces I brought from America though. I had been saving them for a special occasion to give to the kids, so I thought it would be funny to have half the kids with poppers and half the kids blow their duck whistles. They thought it was hysterical and of course, everyone else wanted one too. Too bad I only had enough for 20 kids, but they will survive.

The Penguins class all said their names and what hobbies they like, while the Tigers did a skit where they were all family members named after emotions and they did a family talent show. It was pretty cute. The oldest class, Eagles, was the funniest of all. They did a song about the sounds animals make and Billy, who is a total ham, was over exaggerating all the sounds, so he was super expressive. My favorite was “snakes say hiss, hiss.” He would push his lower jaw forward as he said the ‘h’ in a way that I cannot emulate. Then they did a song about emotions, like “I’m hiding cause I’m scared,” and his actions were hilarious! All the kids were rolling on the floor with laughter. They finished off with a great skit about two kids camping, one inside the tent, one outside. The wild animals come and attack the kid outside, so the kids switch places and then the animals come back and decide it’s not fair to torture the outside kid again, so they attack the kid inside the tent. I’m not describing it very well, but it was funny in the execution.

Next up for class is more study about school and we are starting to prep for our Christmas party! Each class will do a skit and then we will have our music classes do some songs to break up the show. We are pretty excited about it. Our plan is to get round ice chests for each family and stuff them with household supplies. For the kids, we want to buy backpacks and fill them with school supplies like pencils, erasers, markers and rulers. Most of the kids just have little nubs for erasers and use one pencil for months until it is about as big as my thumbnail, so that stuff is so necessary for their educational future.

Willow's New House

Willow's House Building Project

I have mentioned Willow in several earlier posts, as she is one of the sweetest kids at Taw Saeng and one of the best in my Penguins class last year. Her family is extremely poor and she lives in a tiny little shack about 2 blocks from Taw Saeng. She lives with her grandpa and younger brother because her mom works in Bangkok and sends money home. Last year, I saw Willow be disappointed over and over when her mom would promise to come see her and then just not show up. However, her mom has started to be more involved in Willow’s life. Willow was able to spend about a week in Bangkok over the summer holidays and just went to see her mom again during the October break, so I think her mom is starting to realize she needs to make more of an effort to be a part of her kids’ lives.

Anyway, that’s not the point of the story. The point is that Willow, her brother and grandpa all live in a tiny room not much bigger than most people’s kitchens in the US. It had a solid cement block front wall, but the side walls and back wall were abysmal. They were basically scrap metal nailed and duct taped together over the years. The bathroom didn’t even have a door, and the “room” that the family slept in was made of mosquito nets draped on nails in the wall. The staff had been wanting to fix this house up for a long time, but didn’t have the funds to do so. A team came from Minnesota and one of their desires was to do a building project in the week they were here. The team only had 3 people, and the two women headed up to our safe house on the border, while the man stayed to help with this house. We enlisted the help of some local families who also have kids in Taw Saeng and they got all the supplies and things together to fix the house. They built a back wall, put up a door on the bathroom, and finally put up walls to create a real bedroom for Willow to sleep in. The grandpa is pretty handy himself, so he enjoyed helping to fix up the place as well.