Sangkhlaburi

I arrived in S'buri last night after a 7 hour bus ride from Bangkok. I was instructed to get a motor bike taxi to the Baan Unrak bakery, which I did, and they were supposed to call the Didi and tell her I was there. But they couldn't get ahold of Didi so they put me up in a little tiny room with concrete walls, duct tape over the cracks, plastic on the floor, and a twin bed with a mat about an inch thick, two blankets and nothing else. I nearly ran back to Colorado at that point. There was no internet and my phone still won't work. On top of it all I have a total of 20 mosquito bites that are driving me insane and I am praying I don't have malaria or dengue fever (I don't, I'm just over dramatizing). So I took a benedryl and resolved to call it a night at 8:30. Just then I hear a knocking at my door and there is Didi with 5 children, all there to collect me. She said they had a room all set up at the orphanage for me, and so I hopped in the truck and we drove up to the childrens home were I was presented with a much bigger, and slightly nicer room, with a private bathroom and balcony. The kids helped me set up my mosquito net and fan, and I felt much better.

Now it is 24 hours later and I think I am feeling numb. I am in shock that I am here and that I am living in these conditions, although, to be honest, I expected worse. They feed me well, the kids are slowly getting used to my presence, and they even gave me today off to assimilate even though there are several sick children and only one doctor that could use my help. I walked 30 minutes to the town and bought a blanket, a pillow, 2 towels, 2 washcloths, a rice mat for my concrete floor, some writing paper, incense, a plate, bowl and cup, and toilet paper all for 600 baht, or $9. Now my little room feels more like home, although at some point I will have to do something about the bathroom. It smells of raw sewage and is stained with god knows what on the walls. This room used to be one of the kids' rooms, so there are kids dirty hand prints everywhere. The bathroom door is half eaten away by termites and the empty bunkbed next to my bed is crawling with them as well. There is no shower, I get to take sponge baths for the next six months, which kind of blows because I feel so dirty... all.the.time. Dirty from sweat, dirty from bug spray, dirty from dirt. The door to my balcony doesn't close so there are bugs as well as geckos in here. I feel surprisingly safe in my mosquito net though.

But, all in all, it could be worse and I am actually pretty OK with it all right now. It's like camping, only a bit better. And I get to fall asleep to the sounds of crickets and laughing children.

I met another volunteer today who is 23 and from Nepal. He is very smart and I am very impressed with him doing this at such a young age. He committed to one full year at Baan Unrak. He is in charge of the boys, well some of them. He watches them and plays with them from dawn till dusk, 7 days a week. We ate breakfast and dinner together and talked about American politics, different languages, currency rates, and what the kids do on a daily basis. So far he is my lifeline for information as both of the Didi's are swamped with sick kids, not sick kids, sponsors, trying to get sponsors, house mothers, trying to get house mothers and always worrying about the budget. I'm pretty good at holding my own, so hopefully I can continue to do so. I have a feeling that the reason they put me up at the orphanage instead of the volunteer house is because this is going to be a 24/7 job. If emergencies arise at night I might be the one that gets called. As it is already the children burst into my room every five minutes. There is one in particular who won't leave me alone. The problem is, is that I am not entrirely sure if she is a he or a she. He/she has a shaved head from the lice, is about 9 years old, and doesn't speak but two words of English: "Picture?" and "Eat". I am pretty sure she is a girl, so we'll go with that for now. I am also pretty sure she lived a very tough life before this one. Not only does she not speak English, but she doesn't speak any other language either. She has this little whine that comes out when she wants you to do something and uses hand gestures often. When we were taking pictures using photobooth she didn't smile in any of them. I wonder if she was taught to look sad in photos so people would take pity on her? I want to know her story, but I don't even know her name, or her real gender for that matter. This is going to be hard, this language thing.

The kids all range from tiny babies to about 16 or 17 years old. Most of them are elementary school age. It is really interesting how they are taking me being here. One of the first questions out of their mouths, if they speak English, is: "how long will you be here?' So many volunteers come and go; there is a group called ISV that ships new volunteers out every two weeks. This place definitely needs the help, but I can tell it has an effect on the children.

There really is so much more to say, like how the town looks, and how beautiful the lake is. Or about the long, hand built wooden bridge to the Mon side of the town. But I am tired, and I have to be up at 6am to meditate and then be at work by 7am. So off to bed I go.

There are so many things I want to tell you all about!

Today is day two of work at the clinic. I get woken up at 5:45 in the morning by one of the house mothers to go meditate, but have skipped out on the meditation for the last two days and have been using her as my alarm clock instead. It takes me that long to get ready in the mornings. First I have to crawl out of my mosquito net, shake out the blankets from the bugs that managed to get through the net, and then put everything back. Then I have to try to bathe. I haven't really figured out the most efficient way of doing this just yet. There isn't a shower. I have a bucket and a bowl. To wash my damn thick hair I have to bend over and stick my head in the bucket. It is pretty comical, really.

After the bathing ritual I do laundry so that the clothes can air dry during the day. Again, I use my bucket with the water that I used to rinse off with. At least I am resourceful. Then at 7am I head to the clinic and get bombarded with all the "sick" kids. Most of them aren't sick, they just want the honey water that Didi gives them for sore throats. But a couple I am kind of worried about. One has heart problems and has been running a fever and coughing for a couple days. He is pretty susceptible to infections because of his heart. He had some sort of open heart surgery, but I don't know which kind. So far we are just watching him and giving him honey water and grapefruit seed oil. A lot of the kids have cuts and wounds that I have to bandage. Wound care here at BU is something very different. They don't use gloves for one thing, and they spend what seems like hours just cleaning the cut. I insist on wearing gloves, most of the time. Luckily none of the children are HIV+ at this time, and most have been cleared of other infections as well. I don't think it is that we don't have access to gloves, I just think that it isn't the way they are used to doing things. Anyway... many people, old and young come in with big crappy wounds. Things that back in the US I would want to treat with IV antibiotics if I were a doctor. But here the Didi uses green clay. And guess what? It works! Better than anything I've seen back home, and much quicker.

Today and yesterday were mostly spent re-organizing the clinic. There are so many files that need to either be filed or put away, and so, so, so many medications that aren't used. People donate meds to us but don't know that we are all homeopathic, the Didi doesn't even know how to use any of them. But that might be changing. With my western medicine background and her eastern medicine background we are already compromising on things and learning a ton from eachother. I give Paracetamol (Tylenol) to the kids with fevers and headaches. I want to start using antibiotic cream on some of the wounds I see, just because what happens is the kids get mosquito bites, they scratch them, they open, and then they go out into the jungle and the open areas become ridden with whatever bacteria lives out there. Probably parasites too. There are bottles and bottles of antibiotics that we don't use either (but could be used for one of the house mothers who has real bad tonsilitis).

So, at about 9ish, after the kids go to school, I head down to breakfast which consists of rice, potatoes, and veggies of all sorts. If I had any illusion that I was going to get skinny while here, that has for sure vanished. The same type of meal is served for lunch, except for a few fried things thrown in for fun, and the same for dinner. I absolutely LOVE the food. It is a combination of Thai, Burmese and Karen. The spices they use are incredible and nothing is too spicy.

After breakfast I go back to the clinic and make "rounds", check on the kids who are sick and who stayed home from school. The house mothers determine who is too sick to go to school. I will forever be grateful for these women. These are usually single mothers who have no where else to go so they live here with the kids. They have a set group, usually about 5 kids to each room. Some of the house mothers are very young, like 15. Others are older and sort of lead the younger ones around. It is a matriarchal culture.

Today I had some time while the kids were at school so I made the trek to town through the mud, it has been raining all day. I can't wait to take more pictures of the amazing landscape. We are surrounded by green hills shrouded in clouds after the rain lets up. There is a lake in front and in back, and I will have to look at the map, but I am pretty sure it is the same lake. Everything is green. Except for the mud. The mud is red, a lot like Kauai. It stains everything it comes into contact with also. Hence the laundry every morning.

The kids get home around 3 and again raid the clinic for more honey water or lemons or apples. And of course more of them have cuts and scrapes from school. Today I wanted to go to yoga at 5:30, but was too busy with the kids. The Didi teaches yoga and meditation every Tuesday and Saturday to all the long-term volunteers. I tried to go later but got lost and was covered head to toe in mud anyway.

Oh, the dogs. Let me tell you about the dogs. And the cats. There are like 20 of them living here that I've managed to count. They are actually pretty well taken care of from what I can tell. Some are pups, some are old, some kittens, and a big cat that lives in the basement called "Puss". I don't know any of their names, but, then again I don't know any of the children's names either.

The one child I was talking about last time is actually a boy. They say he is "slow". It is so hard to tell. I think actually he might have a hearing problem because of the way he talks and gestures. He is so incredibly sweet though. He seems to have latched on to me like glue. He recognizes me and remembers that I took pictures of him and so I don't think he can be that slow. There is also an 8 month old baby who has down syndrome that was dropped off on our porch when he was 2 days old. This happens many times with many children. They get sick or they are born sick and their parents are from Burma with no papers and no money, so they just leave them here. Which is better than the alternative... I am sure you know the alternative, but don't need me to write here.

We have 150 kids here. Another organization in town, Children of the Forest, has 150 kids. Another organization provides relief work for some of the migrant families and helps to pick kids up in the mornings and take them to school. That's about 600 kids total that are safe, in a town with a population of 10,000. You do the math. And if you want to know what they are safe from, just google Burmese refugees and living conditions in border towns.

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On that note... I best be off to bed. Or to eat, since I missed dinner. Not that I need food. Fatty.

Thank you ALL for your continued love and support. If you want to help me or the organization send me an email and I will tell ya how.

Love,
Ani

Started off really good. The sun decided to come out and grace us with his presence and I realized that all the rain is what has been causing me to be so down these last couple of days. I went to the clinic as usual at 7am, took care of the not so sick kids, and then saw some real sick kids. The flu is going around, fevers of 103, aches, coughing, feeling like crap. The kids and their mothers always want us to do something, and I finally talked Didi into letting me give Tylenol for the fever and aches, but there isn't anything else we can do, just sleep and drink lots of water.

Working with children is very different then sick and dying people, and I am finding myself having to stay more proactive and in tune with things that are going on. It's not about comfort measures here, so I have to change around my thinking completely. It has been a bit of a challenge learning both how to deal with sick kids, and then how to deal with them homeopathically.

Anyway, there was a fashion show today at the school that I had been looking forward to going to all week. The kids make their own designs and the sewing ladies make the clothes, and then the kids model them for the community to raise money for the home. There were going to be cakes there, which I have been craving insanely. So I got all dolled up for the first time since being here, put make up on, scrubbed the crap off my feet, donned my backpack and headed out for the 15 minute walk to school. As I was walking by the ice cream shop I saw two dogs lying in the middle of the road and thought, well, that's weird, but kept going. All of the sudden I felt a sharp pain and knew one of the dogs had bitten me in my left ankle. I didn't even have to look back to see the dog run away, but I looked down at my leg which was already covered in blood. I stood there kind of dumbfounded, trying to decide if I should go back to the home or to the school, or try to call someone for help. The only phone number I had was Didi's, but just as I was about to call her Diana walked up with some of the kids heading to the school for the show. I will have to tell you about Diana another time, but trust me when say she is the best person who could have come at that moment. And I really did try not to cry, I mean it has to look bad that the RN is crying from a dog bite, but all the blood, the frustration at being alone, and the week's work caught up to me at that moment and I just burst into tears. She did some reiki on me and gave me rescue remedy and I calmed down enough. She called her husband who sent the medic, Saw, to get me. I will have to tell you about Saw too, he is another incredibly beautiful spirit.

Then the owner of the shop walked up and saw us standing there, me covered in blood, and she knew she was in trouble. Her dog has bitten several people from BU already, but she won't do anything, and neither will the police. Luckily the hospital is keeping track of how many damn people come in there after being bitten by the same dog, hopefully this time they will at least put a muzzle on it.

So Saw and I went to the local hospital and waited for a good hour, then were told that the doctor was on break and wouldn't be back for another hour. The wound was bad enough that I knew it might need stitches, but I was more worried about getting the rabies vaccine. So we went to the other hospital, which is 30 minutes away via motorbike. I will have to do that again (sans blood dripping from my leg) so I can take pictures, it is so, so, so beautiful. We get there and the nurses say that they don't have the vaccine there, so they send us back to Sangkla hospital where we wait another 30 minutes and then I get my wounds cleaned again and got my rabies vaccine, my tetanus vaccine, and a week's supply of antibiotics and paracetamol (everyone here gets paracetamol, EVERYONE. Doesn't matter what you come in with, you will get the para). The cuts need stitches, but the nurses said they don't stitch dog bites because they are so dirty that it will just get infected.

So we headed back and the fashion show was over and more people were coming into the clinic with the flu and I was feeling sick from blood loss, antibiotics, and vaccines and wondering how long it takes for the rabies virus to kick in since I had to wait 2 hours to get the stupid shot. Not to mention the pain. So now I am in bed with the fan blowing on me and think I will just call it a day.

Bleh.

I took a couple pictures of the landscape before the incident. So I'll share those. Was hoping to get more of the kids and the other buildings, but maybe tomorrow.

The big Didi wants me to give the hospital bill to the lady who owns the dog, which back home I would have no problem doing, but here I know no one has any money so I feel really bad. The bill came to a total of 750 baht or $25. Yeah, for something that would cost hundreds and hundreds in the States. But, maybe if I make her pay me back she will do something about the dog and no one else will get bitten.

Hearts,
A

What a day. The clinic has been swarming with kids who are sick, fevers, one had convulsions from his fever it was so high, and he's had this fever on and off for 2 weeks now so we think he may have Malaria. The other kids are sick with the flu, one girl has about 15 severely infected wounds on her legs and her feet that I had to scrub today. That was fun, holding down a poor 8 year old child while I re-opened all her wounds to clean them properly. The kids here don't wear shoes a lot, or if they do they have open wounds from scratching mosquito bites, and they go and play in dirty ass water, and then they get infected and then they don't do anything because they are afraid that we will do just what I had to do today.

I dropped my iPhone in the bathroom and the screen shattered and is unusable. Well, this being Thailand, aka the place where NOTHING goes to die, I was told to go to the shop in town to see if it can be fixed. I already know that it can't be, but they are so insistent on saving money and recycling everything. I am going into town tomorrow for my 2nd rabies vaccine so maybe my lovely driver Saw will take me to the phone shop as well and I can just get a new phone.

My stupid foot looks worse today from all the trauma. Pics will be up, so be aware if you are squeamish to close your eyes. I really need to just stay off the damn thing, but here I am, being a nurse again. And if you know about being a nurse it means never stopping, not once, to take care of yourself, especially when kids are coming in so incredibly sick. I have to keep reminding myself that I am in fact choosing to do this, for free, out of the goodness of my heart, so I deserve to be taken care of too.

I need some advice, from anyone who has worked with kids to anyone who has kids: This sharing of the cup situation. There is a big water container outside with a faucet where everyone gets drinking water from. Well the kids don't have their own cups, so they've attached one cup to the water dispenser and all the kids, all the adults, pretty much anyone and anything that feels like drinking from this cup does. This is why so many kids are sick, and why they keep getting sick. Didi said that she tried giving them all water bottles but they disappeared in 2 days. We don't have enough money to buy them water bottles daily, nor do we need the waste. So what is the solution?? Help! These kids really do need to drink more water as well. They drink about 4 ounces with each meal, and that's about the extent of it.

It's been a rough couple of days. Today especially. The bugs are either getting worse or I am starting to notice them more. There was a huge roach in my room when I came back, who befriended the huge wasp that was also here. The power has gone out so there aren't lights, so I am stuck in my net in bed out of fear of stepping on either of my two new friends. The mosquito bites drive me insane and I think I have been scratching them at night because I wake up with huge open areas that will probably get infected. And it is a good think I just got a tetanus vaccine on Saturday because I just realized that I've been shaving with a rusted razor blade. The girls here don't shave, but I feel disgusting if I don't, especially when cute medics are changing the dressing on my leg.

Oh it is all just part of the experience. I am staying positive, and really not being too bothered by all that is going on. Just trying to go with the flow. But I can feel it getting to me a bit. The dirt, the bugs, the kids screaming and their lack of manners, the food, the language barrier.

Tomorrow will be better. I promise.

Ani

This is what I hear nearly 100 times a day, every day. The kids call me Teacher, as they do all white people, and since we have been handing out apples to give the kids more vitamin C, they see me and think I will always have an apple on me to give them. It's really cool that the kids beg for apples and other fruit, what kid in the States would do that? Fruit is like candy to these guys. I keep telling them, every time they call me Teachaa, "Mai Teachaa, chun Ani", which means not teacher, I'm Ani. Some of them are learning, most are not. Which is fair, seeing as I still only know a couple of their names.

Today is my day off and it is still early so I'm trying to rest as much as possible. But I really do need to go into town to buy the page long list of things for my room, as well as some food to keep in the clinic fridge so I don't go to bed hungry again. They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner here, but if you don't get to the dinner table by 17:30, they clean it up and you're pretty much SOL. I think they keep food in the big fridge in the kitchen, but there is no microwave or any way to heat it up and cold curry just doesn't sound appealing. I love the food here. It is mostly Burmese but with some Thai mixed in. Lots of cabbage, potatoes, tofu (cooked perfectly with the right texture, hard to do ya know), spices and of course, the staple of white rice. I have stopped eating the rice except when I mix it with the soup (which consists of more potatoes and water), because I already feel like a fatso with all the carbs. Everything else is SO salty, and this explains why my feet and hands are constantly swollen.

So anyway, I need more food, more variety. More appoos.

I also need to go stop by the Ice Cream shop where the woman and her stupid dog live to give her the hospital bill for my foot. I had to dish out another 450 baht yesterday for the second rabies vaccine, and with 3 more of those to go, I will be spending a whole lot more money than I anticipated.

The work is going good. The hours are long, which I am actually grateful for because that way I don't have to spend too much time in my mosquito net alone pondering the reasons of why I am doing this. Yesterday a girl came in with a big blister on the bottom of her foot that had been a cut. In my world I was taught that blisters are there for a reason and they should not be opened because the fluid in them is protecting the wound... right? Well, not in this world. I told the girl that no, I would not "cut" her blister off. I told her to just stay off her foot. Well at 9pm last night I get a call from Didi saying the girl is having lots of pain and I need to cut open the wound. So I do as I am told and take a needle and pop the blister. Then I get asked if I have scissors to cut the whole thing off. What?? Do you really want me to torture this poor child even more? I drew the line there and put some clay on the already open blister and am hoping that the clay did the rest of the work for me.

So many things are just so different here. I am learning so much, but also teaching other people a lot too. I think it will make this place stronger, the more everyone knows how to do things differently. Like a combination of allopathic and homeopathic. Or teaching the medic how I do wound care at home, and now he does it like me :) That makes me happy.

Alright, off I go, to hobble my way into town for some breakfast.

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This place is just... amazing. The kids are amazing, the people who work here are amazing, the way they live their lives is amazing. I love it very much.

I went to this place called the tea house tonight, it's a wonderful little restaurant/coffee shop/clothing shop that has a TV and about a million DVDs, all in English, that you can sit and watch for free. I noticed that in the background of the shop I could hear English people talking and were annoyed, but when the Thai people started talking I really liked it. I am getting so used to hearing Thai all the time that hearing English bothers me... it is strange, but just one of those things that happen when you live abroad I guess.

How do I describe life here?? It's so difficult. Like the mosquito net around my bed, or the way I have to tape my plug into the socket so it works, or the way women carry buckets on their heads and wear yellow face-paint called Tanaka. The motorbikes that zoom around trying not to run over dogs that lay in the middle of the street while I ride side saddle like a proper lady should, the market where live eels are being chopped up, the way you take your shoes off before going into any building. Or how damn efficient and resourceful people are, to the point of annoyance, and don't throw anything away. Friendly isn't exactly the word I would use to describe the Thai people, they are actually kind of rude, but in their own cultural way, not like going out of their way to be mean. I guess customer service is very different here. The Karen and Burmese people are the ones who have stolen my heart. I love their red tooth smile and longis that they wear. I love the food they cook, I love watching them cook it.
Today was my day off and I found myself back at the clinic just to be around familiar faces. I love that I am learning Thai... slowly but surely. I am also learning Burmese, which can get confusing at times. The rain falls at least 3 times a day, in a downpour, and lasts for about 10 minutes each time, then the sun comes out and dries everything up. After the rain everything smells dank and rotten instead of clean and fresh, but even that i am getting used to. There are a lot more white people here than I expected. I mean in the whole town. I think most of them are volunteers from other oranizations, but some are tourists.

It is so crazy and so beautiful, and honestly, I think I am falling in love with this place.

With love!
Ani

Today was a great day. I feel like I don't work that much, and I really don't, but it's not like there is all that much to do while the kids are in school. So I spent most of it listening to Saw and Han play the guitar and chew beetle nuts, teaching Saw English, and him teaching me Burmese and Thai, and weighing and measuring all the kids under 5. I also made it to town to pick up my laundry from Grandma's, and yes, it is SO worth the $1 and the trek to have fresh clothing. Unfortunately I got in trouble for using the motorbike with 2 other people for personal use. I didn't even think that it would be an issue, but it totally makes sense. They barely have enough money as it is and here I am using it to go get my laundry because I don't want to walk. Guess my way of thinking still needs a bit of tuning.

Also felt a completely overwhelming moment of awareness today as I was trying to find Saw a book on Nursing assessments in Burmese. Impossible. We have the book in the clinic in English, and while he can read enough English, he still has to use his dictionary to translate most things while reading. This poor kid just wants to learn, learn, learn, and he is so limited in being able to do so. For me, it is usually just a matter of reaching over, grabbing my laptop, going to Amazon and ordering whatever it is I need and then have it arrive at my door 7-10 business days later. Here it is very different, and very difficult. They don't even make a freaking nursing assessment book in Burmese, or if they do the government regulates it so much that I can't find it or any useful website anywhere online. And then if I do find something useful, like a plain old English to Burmese dictionary, no one will ship it way the heck out here to my little village.

But, after an hour of searching I found a medical dictionary with both Burmese and Karen translations, and I bought it for him. He says he wants to go back to Burma and go to nursing school, but it costs over 100,000 kyat, which is $1,200. What I spend each month back home on rent and utilities this kid could go to nursing school for a year and have a lifetime of income and work possibilities in a country where that is very near impossible.

It is so tempting to just give the money to him my damn self.

But... boundaries. I am trying to tell him to find a sponsor. There's got to be someone in the US or elsewhere who would give him the money, or some sort of scholarship.

I am really proud of myself and how quickly I am picking up Thai. I hope that by the end of my six months here I will be able to have a decent conversation. Of course, what use is Thai back in Colorado?

That's another thing. Already this experience has changed how I view things and my outlook on life in a permanent way, or at least I want it to be permanent. I am slightly freaking out a little about going back home, knowing how my life was there and then comparing it to here. I guess we'll just have to see what the next 22 weeks look like.

Hope you all are well, thanks for reading!
Ani

Well, a lot has happened since I've last written, mostly that which has to do with me getting into a routine here. I've managed to stay very busy, with running the clinic while the Didi was sick, learning Thai and Burmese, organizing all the children's medical records and vaccination records, and just the daily in and out of the children with cuts and fevers. I am also going to start taking time to read my new, big, fat book on tropical diseases as I am tired of looking like an idiot when someone asks me what the incubation time for malaria is.

But first, to explain some things that I may not have explained before. I refer to Didi a lot. There are four Didi's. I think Didi means Sister in Sanskrit. So there is Big Didi who runs the place. She is the woman who started all of this 20 some odd years ago when she came to Thailand to do agriculture work and a woman handed her a baby and asked her to take care of it. Well, all these years later BU is now a home to 140 children, a bakery, a school, and a weaving center that provides income for single women who would otherwise not have a job. We also have a farm where we grow most of the food that we eat and Big Didi is hoping to open a guest house in the near future. Also, when talking to someone in person and referring to Big Didi, we always point up. Mainly because her office is upstairs, but I find it funny that the pointing up has this god-like significance in my culture.

Then there is Didi doctor, who is an Italian homeopathic MD. She oversees the clinic as well as the farmers. I am not quite sure how I feel about her just yet, as pleasant and inspiring as she can sometimes seem she still has that awful doctor mentality of "I am better than you", although I am sure it is an unconscious thing.

The other two Didi's I don't know anything about, except for one comes in once a day to have the dressing on her leg changed. I am very proud of myself in that I have seemingly cured her wounds after months of not healing by using antibiotic cream in combination with grapefruit seed extract. Other than that I don't even know what they do, I think one is a teacher at the school.

So my days continue in the fashion they had previously, except I have stopped doing laundry every morning because I discovered a woman in town who will do it for $1 a load. So much easier. I still wake up to the sounds of the woman banging on the door next to mine, but have managed to fall back to sleep on several occasions making me late for work. Last week I bought a small electric water boiler for 190 baht, or $6, and it has been the best investment so far as I can now take warm bucket baths instead of cold bucket baths. I eat at the home every day, and today big Didi decided to not add any more salt to our food, so I will be eating a lot better in the coming days. Not sure how much I like this as I was really enjoying all the curry and spices, but at least I will get fed (and lower my cholesterol while I am at it!). My evenings consist of sitting and chatting with my Karen friend, just about general things, current events, politics, diseases, what have you. But these conversations are the highlight of my day. They entail pulling out the English to Burmese dictionary several times to translate, as well as me learning more and more about his culture and him learning more about mine. I am always sad when 6 o'clock comes around and he has to leave for the day. Luckily that is followed by an hour of playing with the kids, chasing them around, flying them like Superman, getting hugs and kisses galore, learning their games, teaching them how to say "please" and "thank-you". This hour is precious to me. After that is 7pm meditation which I love going to just to hear the kids sing "Baba Nam Kevalam". I still get all teary when I hear it, these little people shouting about love being all there is. Even though the kids don't meditate, they are for the most part quiet for a good 15-20 minutes, which helps calm them for the night. Then they sing "Guru Bhrama, Guru Vishnu", a Sanskrit song, and then all run free. And then it is my bedtime or internet time or shower time.

Tomorrow is my day off again and I will go to the Mon side of town with a man who is visiting from the States. He sponsors one of the kids here and comes to visit once a year. I am also trying to talk Saw into taking his lunch break and using it to go with me to Three Pagodas Pass, which is the border between Burma and Thailand. I am not sure if I can get into Burma, but I think with enough US dollars and a copy of my passport, along with a Burmese person, I may be able to get by. We'll see, it seems a bit dodgy, but I really, really want to go to Burma, if only for a few hours.

On Thursday I have to go to Kanchanaburi (3-4 hours away by bus) to take one of the children to her follow-up appointment at the hospital there. No one here actually knows what she had except that something happened with her kidneys and she can't have salt. Well, it would really be nice to know if she is in kidney failure or if it was an isolated incident, so that is why I am going, to ask the right questions. I will have another girl with me to translate. I am actually pretty excited to see the "big" town, and to see how that hospital differs from this one in Sangkla.

Speaking of Sangkla hospitals.... wow. I guess I've seen pictures of rural hospitals, but it is quite different seeing it in person. There are 15 beds in a big room, no curtain to separate the beds, no mosquito nets, and IVs that are still hung in glass bottles. No privacy. No TV. You have to pee? Well you better have a family member at your bedside to go outside to get one of the already used urinals or bedpans that are hanging to dry for you. Everyone there has family sleeping with them, in the same bed. I went to the hospital this week five times. Once for my rabies vaccine, twice to visit the child who has malaria, and twice to get another child vaccinated. I find it very exciting and exotic, and still love to jump on the back of the motorbike to go there. I hope to get to know some of the nurses so I can be more in tune with what is going on when we have to send one of our kids there, I hope some of them speak English.

My dog bite wounds are healing, slowly but surely. I am terrified of them getting infected as I see the most horrible infections here on a daily basis. I took the hospital bills to the dog's owner but she said her daughter was out of town and wouldn't be back until the end of the month, and that's when I could go get my money. Well whatever, I'll be here a while so I can wait. But no one has seen the dog around in a few days, so we're not actually sure what happened to it. Maybe someone did something finally.

So, to explain the title of my post; "Mai Pen Lai"... it means "no big deal/it's all good". Every single Thai person I've met says it all the time. It means "you're welcome", it means that whatever happens, even in the case of someone dying, it's no big deal. Which explains the laissez-faire attitude of this country. I find myself saying it multiple times a day to the kids.

I am still in love with this place and seem to be falling deeper every day. I am getting used to the dirt and the bugs (although the bugs do seem to be getting bigger, I swear), and the way of life. I am learning how to talk to people slowly and understand them better when they speak to me. Hopefully my journey tomorrow will provide me with a Burmese to English dictionary so I can better talk to the house mothers. I can now name all the simple body parts in Thai!

I think that is it for now. I hope you all are well.
Love and miss you,
Ani

I am getting pretty used to the routine here, as evidenced my decrease in posts, which I knew would happen, and am sort of glad it has. It lets me spend more time with the kids, and even adults as I make more friends here that are not under the age of 10.

Last week's trip to Kanchanaburi was uneventful, except for fearing for my own life on several occasions while riding in the minibus and then the motorbike. Oh the drivers here are just insane. On a two lane highway with curves that they take at 50mph they don't care that they are supposed to drive on the left side of the road. They pass people who are going too slow, with a honk of the horn, and doesn't make any difference if you can't see if anyone is going to hit you head on in the other lane, they do it anyway. Then the motor bike in the city going 40mph with me barely hanging on to the back, trying to keep my dress from flying up over my face, no helmet of course. The city itself is huge, and smelly. It was actually kind of strange being there, I immediately wanted to go back to my little jungle. I heart my little jungle, more and more as each day passes.

Friday night I fell asleep while watching a movie with the kids. When I woke up the movie was over and I had about 5 kids sleeping with me. It was the first time I've comfortably slept on a concrete floor, the first time being cuddled by sleepy children, and the first time being told by the Nepali guy that I am a beautiful sleeper. Well, whatever, it was a pleasant experience.

Yesterday I spend 1,300 baht on clothes from the weaving center. They are all hand made: two shirts and two skirts. I love them already, and want to forewarn everyone that they are all getting handmade scarves or purses for Christmas this year. Now I just need to figure out where to buy a bra in this place. I haven't seen one yet.

Last night I walked to town to buy some beer for a party I was going to and saw hundred of Farangs in town. It made me a little angry actually, knowing that these white folks were just here for a visit, this isn't their home, this is my home, and your bringing in your commercialism and complaints and ruining the culture of these amazingly cultural people. Of course that is all just speculation, but that's what I felt at the time.

Well that is about it for now. Will write more on my day off, I promise!

Love, Ani

Tonight was a special night. We celebrated the children's birthdays for the month by having pizza and giving gifts. I think 10 kids or so had a birthday. The ISV volunteers are leaving tomorrow so it was a celebration for them as well. We don't get another group until November, which will be a nice reprieve for everyone, myself included. I guess they do help, but I think they cause more damage in the long run by attaching themselves to the kids for 2 weeks and then leaving. But I will miss the fried food they get and then I scavenge.

Anyway, after the pizza, they aimed the truck (the one truck/school bus/shuttle/delivery service) towards the crowd of kids, turned on the lights, and had the older children throw candy out of the second story window. It was a pretty cool sight, watching all the kids scramble for candy while screaming and laughing. I'll have to take pictures next month. That is the good thing about being here for a long time, I don't feel so rushed to take pictures.

The internet has been out for 4 days now at the home because the electricians came to run another junction box to the home and the phone line got in their way so they cut it. And of course, according to my calculations of Thai time, it will probably take about 2 weeks to a month for them to fix. So, in order to post this I will have to walk down to the bakery to use their internet. But of course I work 7am to 7pm, and cannot walk in the dark, which it is by the time I get off. So this may have to wait until my next day off.

The doctor, the medic and myself have been researching some of the kids here who are pretty sick. One is almost 6 and is the size of a two and a half year old. He had a PDA and had open heart surgery when he was 2 and since then has had severe growth retardation. He acts like a normal 5 year old though, so we think he may have some sort of dwarfism. Of course no one has ever done any tests, many have suggested to, but it just hasn't been done. So tomorrow we will go to the hospital to see if they can do a genetic test as well as check his hormones. We are also taking one of the girls who has Beta Thalassemia major to the hospital to get her blood drawn to check and see if she needs a transfusion. She has been getting them every 2-3 months. Often there is no blood at the hospital so all of the staff here have to have their blood tested to see if they have the same blood type because every time she needs a transfusion we have to be the ones to donate. I have never had my blood typed before, so tomorrow I will do it. Another girl here has thalassemia as well and had her spleen removed. Now she is maintained on folic acid, but still has to have her blood drawn every 3 months. We have a baby here who is 9 months old who has down's syndrome. Today I got a good look at him for the first time. I have never seen a baby with down's before, so I was a little surprised when he kept rolling his eyes into the back of his head and arching his back like he was having a seizure. One of the other volunteers was also surprised that I didn't know what the hell was going on. She says it is usual for children with down's to have hypertonicity of their muscles, hence the arching and the rolling of the eyes. She asked me why I didn't know, made me feel like crap, and I had to explain, for the millionth time that yes I did learn about this disorder in school, but have never worked with disabled children, or any child for that matter, as a nurse. Maybe I should have worked in pediatrics or the NICU prior to coming here instead of the opposite. I feel pretty useless most of the time.

But, I am still learning tons. Didi will soon start teaching me more about homeopathy, hopefully, and I found out today she is very interested in helping women give birth, like me. I told her I thought that is where my heart truly lies, in helping women who are having babies to have them safely and comfortably, and also to help teach those women who do not want to get pregnant about ways to prevent it. One of the other volunteers knows a group of midwives in town who she is going to give our antibiotics to and maybe we will go with her to meet the midwives. I am very excited about this possibility and would absolutely love to build a connection with this group.

It was my idea to donate the antibiotics, since we do not use them in the clinic. We have a ton of them that are about to expire. Didi does not prescribe them, I do not prescribe them, and neither does the medic (who has no formal training), so there is really no point in keeping them. We would just send them to the hospital anyway if we felt they were that sick, and then the hospital will inevitably give them antibiotics. I thought that people were not over treated here like they are in the US, but that isn't the case. They hand out both Tylenol and Amoxicillin to every man, woman and child who walks through those emergency room doors. I should know, I was one of them. Also I am beginning to see that we tend to over treat the common cold/flu here at the home. In my experience, when you are sick the last thing you want is someone pounding on your door to check on you every 3 hours. When I am sick all I want to do is sleep. Here we have to do rounds like 20 times a day, wake them up, give them phosphorus or gelsamium and then "magically" they get better in 2-3 days. So, every little cough or runny nose comes running into the clinic to get "treated", which doesn't bode well for their future, because when they go running into the hospital they will get more medicine that will just make them sicker in the long run. Didi says the kids need the attention, but I think they need some rules. These kids are the most rude and misbehaved children on earth. It is driving me a little crazy. But I still love them. And they do make up for it in hugs at the end of the day.

I can't believe I have been in Thailand for one month. The longest I have ever been away from home. I have moments where I get homesick, but they usually only last a moment. I have, for the most part, made this my home, and get daily reminders that I am living my dreams. I miss my friends and my family so much though. I want more than anything for them to come here and see what I am seeing. It is so difficult to describe. So I have started making movies. But it still doesn't take away the missing.

My Thai is coming along fantastically and every day I learn at least 4 new words. Today I learned how to say eat, and nice to meet you, and rice. I also know 3 colors and how to count to 30. Slowly but surely it is coming along. I want to learn to read, so bad, but my brain kind of just shuts down every time I try. I am really going to throw a wrench into my learning in a month or so when I get my "Burmese for Beginners" book and start to learn Burmese as well. Hey, it keeps me busy at the very least.

I don't know if I mentioned the visa run I have to do before. I have to leave the country for at least 24 hours to get my visa renewed so I can stay for another 3 months. I can go anywhere in Asia. I wanted to go to Cambodia, but am thinking now of Malaysia, for a nice vacation on the beach. It is also possible for me to go to Burma, up at Mae Sot, a 20 hour bus ride away, but a lot cheaper. Also, it would be a way for me to see Burma, if only for a couple of hours. I guess I just want to go to say I have been there. I know it is an unstable country and not safe for whitey, but, but... I want. I want to see the land where so many people I work with come from. To see how they live on the other side. But... I think by the time my visa expires I may be leaning more towards a white sandy beach rather than more of the same as I am seeing now. Also, a hot shower... omg. You have no idea.

Off to bed for me.
Love to you all,
Ani

So sorry that I haven't posted any pictures lately. It happens, life becomes routine and things get a little less fascinating. Although that isn't entirely the case here, I am still very much in awe of my little village, but walking around with the camera around my neck would make me stick out even further than I already do, and I am feeling a little self conscious. I wonder if the locals will ever stop giving me the stare down? Yeah, by the way, "The Land of Smiles"... so not the case here. It should be more accurately named "The Land of Glares". Maybe it happens more so here than other parts of Thailand.

So anyway, this is why I don't take as many pictures as I should. Also, I don't get out much. When I do it has been to go to the bakery to use their internet, or to go on a quick market run with Saw to get something from the clinic.

Today on my walk into town I saw an 8 year old driving a motor bike with his 3 little brothers riding in back. And I got angry, but not at the fact that the driver was 8, nor was he wearing a helmet, nor were any of the other children. No, I got angry at the fact that this 8 year old could drive a motor bike better than me. Ah, assimilation. I will have to learn soon enough though, Saw will be leaving me for Burma in two months and I will be all alone in the clinic, trying to run things by myself, trying to give Burmese medicine to people who only speak Burmese. I am not anticipating this to be an easy change for me.

I also saw a man and a dog on a motorbike. The dog was sitting in front with his paws on the handlebars like he was driving. On the other side of me a Karen woman walked with a bucket the size of a bathtub balanced perfectly on her head. And this is normal, every day life. As are the geckos that live in my room, the mangy dogs that live everywhere, the potatoes and curry for breakfast lunch and dinner. Everything that was once so foreign to me is becoming a bit more like home every day.

I found a bra. I know it's not so PC for me to be talking about my underwear situation, but, funny story. So, Asian women are tiny right, and here in Sangkhla there are modest. So I go into the store that sells bras and shoes and pencils and sodas, and look at the case containing the little things. I ask the lady if I could look at one of them and she looks at me with that Thai Glare, and says "for you"? With shock. Then she said "nit noi", too little. She then reached into some dark corner of the cabinet and pulls out this ancient looking brassier that must be from the 60's. Well, already having been embarrassed about the fact that I am a fat whitey from the US of A, I took the thing and bought it any way, because yes, that is how desperate I am (or was) for this particular undergarment.

Don't even get me started on the other half of the underwear pair.

Clothes shopping has been quite the bust, with the exception of the weaving center which has some of the most beautiful skirts and dresses and tops of which I have bought 4 of already.

Anyway. Enough about clothes. I guess I am still trying to figure out a way to be as descriptive as possible since I fail on the photos part. Everything about this place is so distinct and different that there really isn't a way to explain it because it cannot be compared to anything I have ever experienced before. The smells are awful. Yes, sorry to bring you down, but Thailand is not this beautiful place that smells like lotus flowers and orchids and passion fruit. No, Thailand smells like rot. Like the jungle is trying to rot from the inside out. No matter how many air fresheners I put into my freaking bathroom it still smells of rot and mold. I have cleaned it to the best of my abilities pouring ammonia down the drains, hoping that will kill the smell, putting toilet cleaner into the back of the toilet, sweeping the anthill out every day, getting on my hands and knees and scrubbing at what I can only pray is not black mold. Dirty. That is truly the first word that comes to mind when I try to find a word to describe this place. Just dirty. Dirty dirt, trash strewn about, dirty feet from walking in the dirty dirt barefoot, dirty lake water that kids go swimming in. But the people aren't that dirty, I mean physically some of them can be, well, given their circumstances, but they are still the most beautiful people I have ever met. After the initial glare and if you put some effort into talking to people, you find that they are really lovely.

Tonight I went with some of the other volunteers to one of their houses as a housewarming party of sorts. It was really nice, sitting on towels and blankets on a tile floor and just chatting away. I got to know one of the volunteers from America who will be here for one month. It is so nice to have another american face around, although I swear I was doing just fine at understanding the Brits. So after the evening was over we each went our separate ways and everyone was again confused and scared that I was walking home alone. I said I would be fine and so I head off in the direction of Baan Didi, just as I am coming over the hill where the awful dog who bit me lives, the same stupid thing comes running up toward me growling. What the hell man, do you remember me or something? Does my blood taste extra good to you? Well I thought those things later, the first though was to call another friend for a ride, which I did, and he came and got me and we were both safe from that stupid animal. Now I need to talk to Didi. Myself and several other people are in a predicament. I don't feel safe walking by that dog during the day, much less at night, and neither does anyone else. The dog nearly attacked another volunteer last week. It's ridiculous, and Didi needs to have something done because her volunteers are not working safely or efficiently. Does she expect me to just sit at home in my room and not go out past 6pm? Well, yes, she probably does, but it ain't going to happen. I do hope to have a little bit of friends before I have to leave.

Off to bed,
Love to all,
Ani

This is the expression that keeps popping up into my head lately, and not so much in a good way.

Three days ago it was, "Surprise! There is no running water and we have to wait for someone to go to Bangkok and back to get the pump to fix the issue!" Two days ago it was "Surprise! The workers are going to put tile in the clinic so you will have to move to the back room and work out of a 2ft x 2ft space for the next week!" Last night it was, "Surprise! You will have a roommate for an undetermined amount of time!"

The water problem was bad, the clinic space was doable, the roommate situation... iffy, but all three combined along with the daily relentless demands of children with no boundaries has gotten to me. I woke up today feeling homesick for the first time. Like really truly missing home, and the feeling still hasn't gone away. I have tried to stay positive for the last 5 weeks, as much as possible, but the positivity is starting to wane and I just don't know how much longer I can keep it up.

Today was an interesting day. I felt the urgent need to escape, so the first chance I got I hopped on the back of the motorbike to go to Wimalai, the town where the private hospital is located, to take a child to see his mother. Neither Saw nor myself wanted to go back home just yet, so after the hospital we went to Baan Dada which is a children's home run by a Dada instead of a Didi like here, but in all other ways is very similar. They only have 50 kids and one volunteer. The Dada took some time to show me around, which was very nice, and I was just so glad to be away for a little bit. After getting back we found out that while we were gone one of the kids had sliced his finger open so bad that it went to the bone. They were a little more than pissed that neither the nurse nor the medic were in the clinic to help the kid, but Didi sent him to the hospital to get stitches, which is what we would have done anyway. Which made me feel even more overwhelmed, like, what I can't even leave for two hours? The kid is fine by the way, 3 stitches and... you guessed it Tylenol and antibiotics from the hospital.

Anyway, as we were sitting in the clinic talking we look out the window and see the kids playing in the truck (no boundaries, remember) and all of the sudden the truck is rolling down the hill with about 20 kids inside. They had taken off the handbrake. One of the other volunteers was standing nearby and she jumped in and tried to stop it. Too bad she is American and jumped into the wrong side of the truck. So it went slamming into the concrete wall, tearing up the side of the door, but luckily none of the kids were hurt.

These kids are allowed to play anywhere they please without consequence. So of course we promptly took them to the temple to play without being punished in the least.

My second escape of the day was also very pleasant. And I got some amazing pictures of the kids. They are all such good little Buddhists (in the presence of a monk anyway). They kneel and pray like pros. The monks all know them and give them "panom" or sweets. I went shopping at the Mon market. The kids who work there all want to practice their English with me, and now I know a few words of Thai to understand this. Strange I know, but they say something in English and then Thai and I can mostly only understand the Thai.

As I was writing this the second child injury of the day walked through my door. Yes in my room. But I'll get to that in a minute. This one was actually important enough to walk into my room. He was covered in blood and had bitten straight though his lip and consequently broken his front tooth off. His permanent tooth. So I get him cleaned, put some ice on his lip and go to find Didi to ask if we need to take him to a dentist on Monday. "And do what?" she asked. Oh man, I am still getting used to this lifestyle. I guess in the states it is all about cosmetics and that is why we would fix a broken tooth like that, but here in the jungle, they break their tooth, they're SOL. I worry about the pain he will have with the exposed root, but what do I know. Mai pen lai.

So more on the boundaries thing. Although I think I've mentioned it before. They don't really exist here. These kids are allowed to do whatever the please, whenever they please, however they please. And there is no please involved. No thank you either. The kids lie, steal, and cheat and they are not reprimanded in the least. And whenever I scold them they just scold me right back. Or go and tell their friends about the "Falong mai kwam" or "mean foreigner". And then they call me fat or ugly or stupid, which kids anywhere would do I guess, but it gets old. I am really tired of being called fat. I know I really shouldn't take it personally, but jesus H. maybe I should just go on a diet or something.

It has been raining for the last week straight. Oh the sweet, sweet irony of buckets and buckets of rain pouring every minute yet not to have running water. The mosquitoes are insane now. I am having to cover myself in mosquito spray (so thankful to my father for sending me some!). But I still get bitten, right after I shower, during the shower, when I pee. And aside from the crazy itching I look like I have some sort of strange disease on my legs.

Well I am done with today. Better get some sleep before the next one begins.

Love,
Ani

Today I met two midwives from Australia who have started a clinic in a refugee camp called Japanese Well. They don't really practice midwifery, but they do hand out medicine, take blood pressures, check blood sugars, and refer people to the clinic at Three Pagodas Pass. The women are leaving in two weeks and desperately need someone to be at the clinic one day per week, at least, so that these people can get at least a bit of care.

Seeing as I am still spending my days while the kids are at school on my increasingly large bottom (as the kids so kindly remind me of daily), I offered myself up once a week to help out. And that is that. Starting in two weeks I will be going to the camp to help out for a day a week.

I am so excited! This is what I want to be doing. Branching out, meeting other people who are here doing the same mission as myself, getting away from BU for a little bit, using my Western medicine skills, and feeling useful again. I am a little scared, the language barrier is going to be the biggest challenge to date. And also, Japanese Well is actually in Burma. But since it is a refugee camp the government couldn't really care less about it and gives the people the OK to live there, most of the time. This is a place far different from my village and makes Sangklaburi look like a resort town in comparison.

Three Pagodas is the border crossing where many NGOs have set up camp, including a clinic where there is a doctor giving medical attention once a week. Most of the refugees cannot go to the hospital because they have no papers and no money. I guess they are not even refugees because to have that high of a status they have to be recognized by the Thai government, which they are not. They are stateless. Burma does not consider them citizens, neither does Thailand or anywhere else. It is so heartbreaking, and I really can't even fathom what that must be like.

And here I sit, complaining to my fellow volunteers that I have to share a room, or that my TILE bathroom floor is dirty, or that my RUNNING water is brown. I feel like I am living a life of luxury when I see what some of these families live like, and it puts it all into perspective for me. But, you know what? They are happy. Truly some of the happiest people on the planet I have met come from bamboo houses, abuse, neglect, disease, death and mosquitoes.

I am so, so, so happy to be able to see their world and grateful that I can help in the small way that I am.

I decided to take today off because I thought I would be going to Bangkok tomorrow to take children to the hospital there. But turns out we are not going until Thursday, or Friday, or next month. I don't really know anymore.

So two other volunteers and myself decided to do a little sight-seeing and took the song-tau (pick up truck with two benches in the back) to three pagodas pass, where the border to Burma is. There is a market there and three pagodas, but mainly it is the significance of the place that made us want to go. The ride was beautiful, this part of Thailand still makes me smile. When we got there we walked a little bit through the village, and ended up going down this one road. There was a guard who looked at us and didn't say or do anything, so we kept walking. Then, the road abruptly ended and there was a little bridge over a little moat, which could only be one thing: the back way into Burma. No one was trying to stop us so we wandered right on over the little moat and into Burma. I wish I could express the significance of this, but you really have to know the history of this country and the regulations they put into place to keep people like us camera yielding farangs out. Needless to say it wasn't the safest of things to do, but, when in Thailand...

We were stopped about two feet in though, by a motorbike driver who said we could not go any further. And a man on the Thai side took the time to explain to us that we had just crossed into Burma and that his sister lived over there and he lived over here. So back to Thailand we went. We shopped at the market and I bought a necklace with a blue stone (because apparently my throat chakra is blocked and wearing blue will help to open it, so says my reiki lady). The market is so well manicured and organized, and everyone speaks English, it is easy to forget where you are and what is on the other side of that little bridge. Then we went to the official border crossing where there sat a Thai guard with a very large AK-47 and many, many Burmese people going back and forth. We went a little too far and got waved off by another citizen, not the Burmese guards, and went to the temple.

The temple that is being used is the most plain looking one I've seen here, and behind it sits a beautiful and ornate temple that has been abandoned. We walked around the monastery and bowed to children and monks, and then went to take pictures at the official border crossing. Then we went the other direction from where we started out and ended up walking down another path. We saw people coming and going along this path, so we decided to take a gander. We were stopped by a Thai boy who said "you cannot go" and so we did not go. Then the boy came back saying "you cannot walk, but you can go by motorbike". Yes it was sketchy, yes we knew this, but I specifically asked the boy if the soldiers would shoot us and he said "mai pen lai". So, onward we went... through a hole in a gate... and into Burma for the second time. Another two feet in and the Thai boy turns to us with a terrified look on his face saying, "you cannot" again. So we turned around and walked away. As we were walking the Burmese lookout man tried calling us back. Just then the boy looks at me, takes off his shoes, and yells "run! run!" and takes off running down the road. We did not run, but I swear I have never walked so fast in my life, not looking back, run walking all the way out of three pagodas with my heart in my throat.

We were a bit shaken, but, mai pen lai. We still had many things on our agenda.

So we walked up the road toward the mountain where there is supposed to be a temple inside a cave as well as a waterfall. It was raining and we weren't getting anywhere fast, but we kept walking. We came to a sign, worn out and not readable, with what looked like a washed out road and some spirit houses. We took off our shoes and socks and waded through the knee deep water to the hillside but could not find anything. I might have to proactively take antibiotics from that walk.

We walked a little bit more up the road and then our "bus" came and so we flagged it down and hopped on. Just as we rounded the next corner we found the entrance to the cave. But it was raining hard by then, and we all figure we have much time to see these things. Back to Sangkhla we went.

We ate at the market and talked about American politics and how effed up the world is and how we can make a difference and what we can do to help and how much we all want to do so much but it is so frustratingly difficult. For example, another volunteer and myself both have medical backgrounds and firmly believe in sex education and birth control. Why not include this in our monthly relief runs? What do we need to do to make this happen? We need someone who speaks Burmese as our medic is leaving in 6 weeks, we need access to contraceptives, we need money. How to go about getting these things? Who do we know in the community who can help? How can we collaborate with the hundreds of other NGOs here in Sangkhla to make progress? I think right now the biggest thing, as usual, is lack of money.

Which, by the way, we need desperately. One of the volunteers started a campaign thing to raise money. If you can give up your daily cup of Starbucks for one week and donate that money to us, we can buy enough rice to feed a family for a month. If you donated $20 we could buy condoms for a whole village. Condoms prevent the spread of HIV, which is prevalent here, and also help the women who so desperately do not want to have their sixth child in six years. Birth control pills would be ideal, but how do we get them? I'm still trying to work that one out.

(This is my subtle way of asking for help from everyone who reads this).

Anyhow. We made it back home to find out that our only Thai employee has decided to leave. She is the woman who does countless things for us, watches children, runs errands, makes appointments, and puts together all of the visa paperwork that we all need to get our visas renewed. She had a "falling out" with the didi (which unsurprisingly seems to happen a lot here) and moved all of her stuff out within an hour. The plus side to this, which my roommate and I pounced on immediately, is that there is now an empty room next to mine. So tomorrow I will be moving next door to a smaller and more private room. No more kids knocking on my door! A bathroom without anthills! A TV (which will immediately be donated to the kids)!! Oh, luxury. My roommate will stay in this room as she has no problem with the kids knocking on her door all the time.

So with this woman leaving I also found out that one of the kids has to have surgery in 10 days. No one told me this. I can only hope that didi knows about it. I just have to let some things go, let go of that control, and trust that she has been doing this and caring for these kids on her own for over 20 years, and just hope for the best. Although it may be just a little important for the freaking nurse to know that a child is about to have a cleft palat repaired. Ah, just breathe, breathe.

I think that's all the excitement I can handle for one day. It is nearly 3am and I was hoping to get up early to go meditate at the meditation room on top of the hill, but I think I may sleep in instead.

Love to you all, and I will stay safe(r).