since i was a kiddie i had always imagined traveling the world to help other kiddies who, for some reason or another had no home and no mummy or daddy.
i assumed that in the world there were about 300 children in need of this sort of help and they all lived together in one little village that had no toilet. i imagined that i would buy them a field and teach to read and then they would all live happily ever after.
To this day I am not quite sure if it was love or my personal need to be significant that inspired this fantasy. Probably both. And it’s probably both that brought us to Mae Sot, Thailand.
So far we haven’t taught any kids. Which has been both positive an negative.
Why Positive?
I’ve been reading a few books on community development and NGO’s. One of the big problems is the amount of ‘3 month fly ins’. Volunteers who come in, give their heart and soul for a few months then bail, leaving behind a bunch of heart broken kids. The volunteers get to go home and show all their friends the cute pictures. The kids are left thinking that white people are heros. This thought kind of makes me squirm in my seat.
Why negative?
Adults simply do no laugh enough… and I am going mad! I never realized how much I needed my school kiddies to keep me sane. Spending day after day with solely adult company is squishing the life out of me. It’s like some sort of weird solitary confinement.
The Good News!
On Friday we wondered into a Christian book shop in the hope we might find anything (and I mean anything) written in English. Turned out the shop was closing down and it was their last day. I figured the girl working there was likely a Christian (she was) and asked her if she new of any English speaking churches (we tried thai, and sadly, for us it was a failure). She drew us a map and this morning we were there!
Great message on serving the poor (was in thai but quietly interpreted for us by the bloke sitting next to us). Turns out they have a school for migrant children (illegal refugees from Burma) attached to the church.
One woman literally jumped out of her seat when I told her casey was a sports teacher. “We have pray for a man to coach football team!” she yelled in her broken English at Casey. “Hallelujah!”
So tomorrow we go there. My kiddie fix. Can’t wait.
4 comments:
So did teaching English to factory kids fall through? If you find that village let us know and I will buy some toilet paper for them all! Keep going guys, you are inspirational even if you don't fell that way!
yeah, haven't been teaching factory kids as it's turned out. although who knows what the kids who we are teaching would be doing if they weren't at school.
and yes... we laughed all day!!
So how is your language, picking up some new words, will you be able to remember anything to be able to stun us all with your multi-lingual tallents upon your return?
Love reading your life.
S
'what the' is pork or pig
'ga done' is baldie
not a bad start hey! learning the language is a bit harder than we had thought because there's 3 to learn - thai, burmese and karin. but we're having a crack.
'what the' and 'ga done' are both burmese.
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