ThailandJourney

BURIRAM

2010-02-17T12:22:00.000-08:00

I was excited to get to Buriram and visit the church that is there. Going there and being able to see the church again for a visit and talk with P Charlee and his family was after all most of the reason we were in Thailand. It took most of a days travel to get there, leaving the guest house at 6:30 in the morning and getting to Buriram at around 5 at night. We did get a chance to visit the child Vallerie sponsors with world vision along the way, which did take up a bit of the time and definitely more than worth it.

That evening we were able to visit the family a bit and even walk down to the end of the road to visit the market that is there on Friday evenings. Vallerie opted out of buying the pigs head that was sitting on the table and instead bought some oranges to eat on during the weekend. P Charlee was out on the rice fields trying to finish up his work there so he didn’t come home till later. I was able to sit down and talk with P Bam about helping some of the kids in the area with their schooling. This was good because it’s very easy talking with her since she remembers to talk to me like I’m a kid. (I hope she does this because she realizes it’s easier for me to understand her and not because she thinks that my maturity level warrants that type of talk, though I’m sure some here might disagree.)

The church was excited about the opportunity to help the kids in the area. Right now P Bam told me there was about 10 or 12 kids she can think of that could really use the help. We were able to raise $1500 to help with the costs of school for the kids which should be a great start. They took us over to one of the families house that we are able to help with the program to be. An elderly lady named Yai Mo lives there and is raising her two grandchildren, 14 and 11 years old. This is a real common thing around this area for the children growing up to be raised by relatives while their parents have either left or have gone to work in the city looking for money. The strain it puts on the family members left to raise the kids can be pretty large.

Yai Mo weaves grass thatching together, used to make roofs on small houses or huts. She was weaving them when we got there, I would say it takes about 30 minutes to make one of them and she can hopefully sell them for around $0.40 a piece. P Bam told me how she used to sit around and drink all day before coming to the church. Yai Mo came to the church there and became a Christian. The house she lived in with her grandchildren was very small and made out of grass. It was still standing when we went to visit her. After coming to the church, she stopped drinking all together and the small church wanted to help them. They pooled some money together so they could build a proper house for her, complete with everything but a bathroom, they still shower outside next to the house (not uncommon) and go into the woods for the bathroom (probably also not uncommon). It was great to see how the church comes together to help its own out, even when this is by no means a church with money. Most of the people in the church are struggling to make it themselves, spending long hours at a time farming rice.

It was good to visit Yai Mo and meet some of the people we are able to help (I mean all of us when I say we). I was really encouraged by the church there and also seeing the dedication and sacrifices of P Charlee and his family to stay there spearheading the church. I’m excited to see this new program take shape and I look forward to next year when we plan to go back and see how things have been going. I’m also hoping to spend a lot more effort increasing my Thai here in the States to help with our phone conversations.

Thank you guys for also making sacrifices to help the broken families like Yai Mo’s. The people in the church wanted me to tell you that they are grateful for your guys’ support of them!

P Charlee holding Gaga and his family, Cherry, Peach, and P Bam.

P Bam teaching the kids at one of the cell groups. P Charlee and P Bam travel about 4 nights a week to teach cell groups in villiages nearby. It's difficult for the people there to make church on Sunday morning, most of them have no way to get there. P Charlee teaches the adults and P Bam takes the kids.

Inside P Charlee's house. This is the dining/storage/my bedroom/sancutary/lounge room.

Getting ready for church. Peach plays drums, Cherry sings and is on keys, P Bam sings. Me and Vallerie were in the next room with P Charlee who had bible study with us on what he was going to be preaching and praying together.

The congregation on Sunday morning.

Childrens church in the next room.

P Charlee drove us to the bus station that afternoon, as well as his younger sister who was heading back to Bangkok to find work. His sister left her son with the family to take care of while she was gone. That is common around this area, not because of cultural reasons so much, but out of need to earn money to raise the child.

Right before getting on the bus for the 4 hour trip back to Bangkok.

Back in America

2010-02-13T15:38:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, sorry about the lack of posts the last few days. Things went pretty quick over there. We made it back to the states this morning, Saturday around 9 am. Pretty exhausted now after that many hours of travel. I did get to spend time with the boys I had worked with previously through CCD which was amazingly cool. I'm going to get some sleep now, just wanted to let you know we're back safe. I'll definitely be posting more stories over the next few days here and probably some pictures too so keep checking. Thanks again for everything!

Made it back

2010-02-08T01:14:00.000-08:00

We made it back from Buriram last night around ten o'clock. The bus ride back took 2 hours in a van and 4 hours on a bus. It felt really long. The trip overall was a good one. We got to meet with the church and pray with P Charlee and the family a bit. We also got to see some of the people we are going to be able to help there. We met one lady who is about 70 years old and has 2 grandchildren she is looking after who are 11 and 14. They used to live in a grass house but the church there was able to help them by building a house they can stay in, though they still don't have a bathroom in it. I'll be able to share more about it when I get more time, but it was good to see the church up there and know some of the things that P Charlee and the church are doing in the surrounding villiages. Everything else on our end is good, i think tomorrow i'll be able to see the boys i worked with last time. I'll let you know how that goes when i get back!

Thursday evening

2010-02-04T00:56:00.000-08:00

Today we went to the zoo. Vallerie wanted to see an elephant and they had a place there where you could feed them for like 65 cents. She seemed to like that. My Thai is coming along which is nice because tomorrow first thing in the morning we are heading to Buriram to visit P Charlee and the church. I'm hoping everything goes good with the planning for helping to sponsor the children in the area with finishing high school. The setup with this part of the trip has been a bit more difficult since they do not speak english and talking Thai over the phone isn't the easiest thing. It will be good to see them and try to get an idea what P Charlee thinks will be the best plan for helping the children there.

The bus ride there could also be a bit of an adventure too. I have already gotten lost going there once and hopefully won't be making the same mistakes again. Should be about 6 hours on a bus to get there so we're going to have to get started early tomorrow morning.

Vallerie seems to be adjusting to Thailand more each day which is good because Bangkok can feel very large at first. I'm loving the ability to eat the food again and enjoying some of the nuances of the culture that I miss also. It's been pretty hot here the last week, but personally I'd take that over the cold back home anyday!

wednesday night

2010-02-03T02:52:00.000-08:00

It's already wednesday night here. Time goes quick! We've spent the last 4 days travelling around the city here seeing a few of the different sites in Bangkok and visiting with friends. Monday and Tuesday we went to CCD to visit the kids and some of the staff. It was nice to see the staff again and talk to koon Wasan a bit about how CCD is doing. Everything there seems to be really blessed. They have been able to get a few more programs started up since I left last time. For the older guys that live there they have a couple different farms that they are starting where they can learn to raise livestock and work with fruit trees.

It has been really good connecting with past volunteers and Thai staff. Friday we are leaving for Northeastern Thailand to visit P Charlee and the church there. Should be about 6 hours on a bus for us. I'm really looking forward to seeing them again and spending a few days up there. Keep us in prayer for the language though as they do not know any english and my thai is a bit rusty still. We will be out of communication until monday when we return then we plan on staying around the city for another day after that. I think Koon Wasan will be able to get me in to see the boys at the place i worked before even though they are not letting in foreign volunteers. Pray for that opportunity also as i'm really looking forward to it.

Everything else is going great and we are loving the time here. It's really been a great trip so far being back for a visit. Thanks for the help and prayers! I'l write agains oon

Alive!

2010-01-30T23:10:00.000-08:00

Well we made it here to thailand all in one piece. The best part is that our luggage made it also! Cheers for that since I haven't had that smooth of a trip since 2004. The total travel time from the time we left my apartment to the time we got to the guest house in Bangkok was 30 hrs! At least it was midnight and I was able to get some sleep when we got here. Got up today and did a little running around, checked out the weekend market since today was the only day on the trip we'll be around for it, and now hopefully we'll be getting in touch with some of my friends soon.

Thailand is just as hot as i remember it and the smell is still the same. It's definitely nice to be back even though it's only for a short time. I was able to get my phone to work here which is nice. If anyone needs to get in touch with me the number is +66 08 6987 0439. The time difference is 13 hours ahead if you're calling from America.

Thanks for all the prayers and support! I'll write more soon here. Feel free to ask any questions!

jeff

Thailand 2010

2009-12-30T11:40:00.000-08:00

Well, the time has come to take another trip to Thailand. This time the trip will be a bit different than the last ones, including the fact I’ll only be going for 2 weeks this time.

The shortened trip means I won’t be volunteering again with disabled children through a Thai organization known as CCD (Christian Care Foundation for Children with Disabilities). Due to the swine flu scare that has come about this year the government in Thailand is restricting foreign volunteers from working in the government area with the children. I am glad the government is taking precautions with the children (especially since the children share everything with one another) but this means that I won’t be able to volunteer with the guys I have built a relationship with over the last few years. CCD does have a foster home that is not on the government grounds and 3 different community based rehabilitation (CBR) projects where they can still use volunteers. However, there are plenty of volunteers coming in to work in only half of the places there were before.

I have really enjoyed my time with CCD and I believe they are doing a great service to not only the disabled children who have been orphaned by their families in Thailand, but also for the families living with disabled children. Other than a brief visit to CCD I will be spending my time elsewhere during this short trip. I’m going over toward Buriram, a city that is northeast of Bangkok. I’ll be spending time with my friends, Charlie Pimpat and his family, along with the rest of the church they are working with in the rural villages near Buriram.

One of the difficulties for children living in the villages around Buriram is the lack of funds to finish a high school diploma. The government stops funding high school for children when they become a junior and the family has to come up with the money for tuition, books, and uniforms themselves. Since many of the families there do not have money for school, a lot of the kids don’t have the chance to finish their high school education. Looking for work, many end up traveling to Bangkok and working low end jobs for high pay, or even ending up in the sex trade industry.

My goal is to help families in this area financially be able to support their child to finish high school. I plan to do this through the church that is already there, establishing a fund through the church that the kids can come to for help with tuition, books, and/or uniforms. I’m not a fan of handout programs and I do understand that a high school education doesn’t guarantee anything for a student, but I do see how having a high school education can play an important role in someone’s life. My desire is not only to fill a child with confidence in life through education, but also to give us the chance to help others through the sharing of our resources.

My travel expenses have already been covered and currently I’m trying to raise some money to either help the children near Buriram, or to help CCD with the funding they need for their ministry. Would you prayerfully consider whether you would like to partner with either of these ministries in Thailand? You can see the online journal entries from my last couple trips to CCD on this site below.

Blessings,

Jeff Berdine
Berd_mann@yahoo.com

Last writing while in Thailand

2008-06-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

This is the last bit I wrote when I was in Thailand. I came home the morning of the 11th after a pretty messy flight schedule. My bags are still missing in action, but I'm doing pretty well. The last couple weeks in Thailand were a pretty big blur, keeping me incredibly busy trying to get things wrapped up. This was what I wrote while i was back up in Buriram visiting the family I know there again. I didn't get a chance to finish it, but I'll leave it as it stands. Come back though, I'll still be posting more thoughts and experiences from the trip, as a way to help me process what I've learned and also to let you keep seeing more stories!

I can’t believe it’s already less than a week till I get back home in the good old US of A. Things had been incredibly busy the last few weeks of work here. I ended up working 20 out of 21 days before I finished my work with CCD. Tuesday was my last official day at work, though I will be going back on Monday to visit the guys and drop off some presents.

The last week couple weeks has been rather hectic trying to wrap things up here in Thailand and say goodbye to everyone. I’m not sure when I’m coming back, but I hope it’s not too long before I get to see the guys again, even if it’s only for a couple weeks. It’s been tough thinking about not seeing the guys or my friends here for who knows how long, but I am also glad to get back home and see everyone back there. Last time I left Thailand I feel like I had forgotten a lot of life lessons that working with the boys had taught me back in Thailand. It’s a strange feeling to walk into one airport and then out of another airport a mere day apart, yet be a world away. To go from playing with disabled kids and adults to pounding nails into 2x4’s. Here I sleep on a floor, eat rice everywhere I go, and stick out like a sore thumb. At home I never seem to go without, and I’m just another face in the crowd. Here I get upset about the way some of these kids have to live their lives, at home I get upset about gas prices.
It is such a transition that an experience from a mere week ago seems more like a dream that you had last year.

Bo's day out

2008-05-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

Sunday me and some of the volunteers here took one of the Rachawadee Girls to church, and then out for some ice cream afterwards. I think she really liked it and it was nice to take her to church because she's one of the girls that would understand what is going on and not sit there being bored. She also speaks more english than any of the girls at the wards, many of whom can't even speak at all, so she's really been a blessing to work with by all the volunteers that go through there. She has a great memory of the past volunteers too and can tell you who they are by the pictures she keeps with her in an album. Plus she told me that I'm handsome, so that instantly put her on top of my favorite's list!

It's great taking the kids out when we can because there is so many kids here that want/need to get out that they don't get out often at all. It's hard to choose which one's to take, but they really appreciate wherever they get to go. Bo hadn't gone to church in about a year, which is much like a lot of the guys I'm working with who want to go but don't have people to take them. This weekend we have to do some kind of yard sale in the rich American neighborhood nearby (I'm not too fond of the whole neighborhood in general) and then afterwards we'll be taking some of the smaller kids to the aquarium in Bangkok. I'm looking forward to this trip a lot, but the day will be pretty packed. Sunday I'll be waking up early to take Pittaya to church and then out to the store afterwards. He told me he's earned about 15 dollars from selling his paintings to visitors and he's been really excited to get out to the store and church. The tuesday following that will be my last day at Rachawadee Boys and CCD. I'm sad to leave, but it will be good to be back home and start to make a little money rather than spending it. I'll have about a week off before my plane trip which will be spent writing reports, buying souveniers, and taking another trip to the northeast part of Thailand to visit my friends up there.

The weekend before last we ended up at an island down the coast a bit with 11 of us volunteers. Here's a couple pictures of the trip, in case you're looking for a reason to come visit Thailand. I'll be adding more to the picture website soon enough! The picture with the huts on it is where we stayed, a mere stone's throw away from the ocean for only 9 dollars a night, which I split between me and another guy that came with us.

Rubbish

2008-05-25T09:22:00.001-07:00

I've been a bit rubbish this past week at trying to get another blog up. Sorry for that...again. Last week went by pretty quick, culminating with a dinner at sizzler and Indiana Jones. Yeah, I was pretty excited to see the film, so were some people in the house. I figured it was time to treat myself to some western food (a rarity to say the least) and finish the meal with some Indiana Jones. With a free salad bar I ate so much I wanted to throw up. Then my burger came out and I had to finish that too. It was the first burger I had since I left at the beginning of January. All in all it was a good night. There were nine of us that went, the seven other volunteers and the volunteer coordinator that works for CCD. We treated her to dinner and the movie to say thank you for the work she does with us.

Most of the girls living in the house here have been sick from some kind of stomach flu or another, so the week was pretty depressing at the house here. I left thursday night into the city to see the family I know from Buriram as they were at a conference hosted by a church in Bangkok. The speaker was a pastor from Georgia, USA. It was good to see the family for the evening and they insisted on driving me back home. I tried to tell them it wasn't necessary, since I could take the sky train over all the traffic and then catch a bus and be back in a mere 45 minutes or so. It's hard to refuse the hospitality though, and probably by some cultural rules they felt some kind of obligation to make sure I made it home. They are a lovely family though, so I don't complain one bit...even though it took 2 hours to negotiate our way through the traffic before we made it back. They have been really good to me everytime I come out here, since I lived with them in the slums one summer. They call me their foreigner son, and I call them my Thai parents. I try to show their picture to people when I'm trying to negotiate for a Thai price on something and say that I'm not a foreigner at all. Doesn't work too well, think I might need a darker tan.

On that note, I'm trying to learn the Isaan dialect, which is the dialect spoken in the Northeast part of Thailand, where they are living now. It's hard to learn because there are different tone rules on the words, and around 15 to 20 percent of the words are completely different than Thai. It's hard not to confuse them, but I figure that if I can at least know the words to understand what is being spoken it will be a big help, since they can all speak central Thai up there.

I'll try to get another post up tomorrow with some pictures from today when we took one of the cerebal paulsy girls to church and then out for ice cream. She was super excited about the whole day and it was a lot easier than Tuesday when we took 6 of the girls out for dinner and ice cream all at once!

More Adventure room adventures

2008-05-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

We took the kids to the childrens museum last friday which was a ton of fun. I don't know if the kids had more fun than I did, but I sure hope so. I didn't have a kid I was personally responsible for because I wasn't sure if my visa situation was going to go as easily as I was hoping. The visa worked out great, thanks for the prayers and support. I spent most of the time at the childrens museum helping with Anna. She's the girl I was responsible for when we went to the zoo, so I was really excited to do that. After lunch we took the kids into the library for some reason or another. It wasn't really a quiet place after we brought the kids in there, and one of the autistic we took spent his time running around and hitting the books that the other adults were quietly reading to their children. The other adults there were really understanding to us though, which was nice. We didn't lose any of the kids for very long, but some of them are quite good at running off during moments of chaos.

Monday at work we had a birthday party for one of our staff at Rachawadee Boys which the kids liked. We cooked some food that they ate on top of the food that the government gives them. After work Monday I went into the city to help take 30 kids from the homes to go see some concert that was to benefit disabled children. It was an odd experience. One of the government ladies invited me to come with, but I think she was surprised that I said yes. So I went, the only one from CCD, and the only white person in the whole place. We basically took all the kids in a big covered truck (the cover did nothing for the rain on the way home, I was soaked) into the city which took 2 hours to get there. We ended up with 31 kids when we arrived...I still don't think anyone knows who the extra kid was. They said we'd get back around 8:30...but this is Thailand. 8:30 that night translated into 11 pm. Pretty standard.

Tuesday I had a blast with the kids in the adventure room again. I love going to that place and the kids get a kick out of being there. I really enjoy the fact that it's a big padded room where I can throw the kids around. I realise that there is a lot of things I get to do here working with the kids that most people my age aren't really allowed to do anymore. Such as playing on playgrounds, or in ball pits. I'm really lucky to be out here and have such a great job. The kids here are really amazing people to work with and get to know. I tell them how I'm only able to be out here because of you guys back home, giving me time off from work and helping financially to come here and buy things for the kids or take them traveling around. Thanks for all the support, I'm really looking forward to the last four weeks here!

I'm back

2008-05-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

I made it back into the country ok. There weren't any problems going to Cambodia today and coming back which was nice. It was just a draining day spent driving to the border and back. I will have to leave the country one more time before I go back to America next month, but I'll have some time to think about what would work out best. I didn't get any pictures though, mainly because there wasn't much to see other than the inside of the van, the crappy fence at the border crossing area, and the casino on the Cambodian side where we ate lunch. No photos were allowed inside the casino, though there wasn't much in there. It had the feel of being in a bingo hall to me.

Although I've beeng wanting to take some time and see Myanmar since the protests that were going on there last summer, I feel like this isn't going to be a good time to go up to the border and try to get in. Especially since they aren't even letting US aid workers in. It does seem pretty grim up there and I hope to be able to take a trip up there before coming home next month. As for our life here though it still seems like Myanmar is a world away. A lot of staging points for aid supplies and news reports are here in Bangkok, but now where we live. There isn't lots of trucks parked out front loaded with supplies, so it's hard to remember how close this really is to Bangkok. The storms never hit us here, though the original reports were that we would get some thunderstorms coming all last week because of it. We did have some storms of our own about a week before that which did some damage here. The winds tore apart the roof of the movie place nearby and even bent over a metal fence on the way to work. The metal here in Thailand doesn't seem to be as strong as the metal I'm used to back home and many of the small buildings and thrown together houses aren't meant to stand up to sever weather. When the storms hit here a couple weeks ago I thought they weren't much of a big deal since we get much worse back home. The reality was however that roofs of people's make shift house were flying off, and the food stands were sailing all over the roads. I can only imagine what is going on in Myanmar now, especially in the Irawaddy Delta where it seems there isn't a whole lot of stable building to begin with.

A day in the life of an illegal immigrant

2008-05-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Last night sometime around midnight a thought dawned on me that I was supposed to check my passport to see when my visa expires. I told one of the other volunteers to remind me to do so, but I think I asked the wrong volunteer. Instead of putting it off till morning, I climbed out of bed (aka. up of the floor) and saw the stamp in my passport indicating I was four days past my allowed stay in the country. The person in charge of sending in the paperwork to renew my visa hadn't done it a month ago when it was due. Now there's no way I can really keep my non immigrant visa (that I know of) and my best option is to go on a "visa run" to Cambodia tomorrow. It'll cost me $50 for the whole trip (lunch IS included so I'm happy about that) with some kind of agency that helps out with these things. I figured since this is my first time going to Cambodia to do this I better pay the agency than let everyone at the border try to rip me off wherever they can. Especially since I'm switching from a non immigrant visa to a 30 tourist stamp, and I'll have to pay a fine for the days I overstayed. The only problem with a 30 stamp is that my flight back to America is in about 35 days (seems like it's coming too quick). This means I'll have to leave the country again, or stay gone this time for about 5 or 6 days. I'm opting to plan a trip outside Thailand towards the end of my stay. Another volunteer has to leave also so at least I should have some company then.

I'm not surprised that I didn't even think about my visa expiring till it already had. I tend not to think about things like that, especially when someone else is supposed to be doing it. It's kind of just out of mind for me. I'm also not surprised that the person in charge of doing it didn't think about it either. I am a little irritated about the whole situation though. It's costing me extra time and money that I shouldn't need to give up. I should still be back to go to the childrens museum friday, but I told the government I can't take the kid I was going to. If something happens and I have to stay in Cambodia or something like that I don't want the kid to be sitting there waiting. All the other volunteers already have kids they are taking so I will just go along with them and help out with whatever. That's not a big deal.

Today we were taking a group of kids from work to go swimming at this international school in Bangkok. The kids were pretty excited because the pool at the government wards has been under construction and they haven't swam in a long time. After loading all the kids up in a bus and trekking them into Bangkok, and waiting outside for half hour for the guy who set it up to come down and meet us, we were told that the pool was being used by someone else and we weren't going to be able to swim. But we could take the kids over to sit outside at the playground. Thailand.

Learning some Thai

2008-05-06T03:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I decided against fishing yesturday. I needed a day to relax a bit with nothing to do. Then I was bored not having anything to do so I travelled down to a computer mall that is nearby and bought a couple movies for the kids to watch at work. On the way back I got off the bus a mile and a half away from home to buy some pepsi because it's cheaper there than the store at the end of the road. Realizing after I bought my pepsi that I was going to lose all the profits I made on that stop on another bus ticket to get back home, and not wanting to walk home in the hundred degree day, I popped in next door to the coffee shop to do study some Thai. It was a really peaceful day, but I didn't get back home till about 7 at night. I was wanting to get home earlier, but I couldn't just get a cup of coffee to go. If I did that I would have been better not to even walk over to the coffee shop in the first place. The air conditioning of the little cafe was nice to relax in for a while. It's the place I usually like to go when I need to get out of the house and get some work done doing something such as studying or writing.

One of the motivating factors of learning Thai for me has been that I didn't really want to walk around confused all the time. Even when a Thai person speaks English there still seems to be a lot of unnecessary confusion about the details of the conversation. Over time however, I have learned that about 90 percent of the confusion has nothing to do with translating issues. I think it's just the mentaillity of Thai people. I was told last week by some of the staff from another day care that we were taking our guys swimming today. Now I know that it seems I would've had to ask the people I work with to find out if it's true or not, but I thought I was ahead of the game. The people I work with usually tell me wrong dates or leave out details, so I thought that this information was better than the information I usually get. Plus the entire conversation was in Thai, so it couldn't be wrong.

I'm glad I didn't wear my swimsuit to work today. The new rumor is that we're going tomorrow.

It's about time we get some holidays here...

2008-05-04T03:04:00.000-07:00

I found out on Friday that we have this Monday off of work for labor day. I asked last week when the Monday that we have off work is and they told me that it wasn’t this weekend, but the one after that…somewhere around the ninth of May. I showed up the next day and noticed a calendar that shows we have this Monday off, not the following Monday, but the Monday after that we also have off for holidays. We also (because you can never get too many holidays) have next Friday off. It’s good to spice things up and get a Friday off every now and then instead of all these Mondays.

The days off though are good for having the time to take out other kids that we don’t always get to work with. Yesterday I went with one of the staff to take two of the kids that live in CCD’s foster home to the small island of Koh Kret (walking distance from where we live). We took a boat ride that tours you around the island and stops at a few shops along the way. Afterwards we ate some lunch and came back for a nap. We took two of the kids, Sebone and Tiger. I don’t get to work with them often, but everyone tells me that was an odd pair to take out. I had a lot of fun going and helping out though.

I took one of the guys I work with, Nin, to church today and then out to KFC and do some shopping. I got him some things he had been needing, like razors for his shaver, batteries, pocket knife…you know, the essentials. A couple of the other guys had been asking about getting small backpacks to carry their things around in, so I took a look to see if I could find something suitable. I figure I’ll buy a few of them and give them to CCD staff to distribute to whoever needs them the most.

After taking the kids around all weekend I think I might spend the day off tomorrow going fishing with one of the staff. I used to go fishing with him when I was here last time, but he’s studying at a university on the weekends now so we don’t get a chance to go often. Next Friday for our day off we’re taking some of the smaller kids to a children’s museum in Bangkok which I’m looking forward too. Sethi and Lien from Belgium returned home Thursday night, leaving me now in a house full of English girls. Not as exciting as it sounds…nothing against the English, but living in a house where you’re the only guy isn’t as good as it might sound. Last night they took me salsa dancing somewhere in Bangkok (I spent most of my time down the street at the Seven Eleven). Afterwards we came back home and put on a movie…Dirty Dancing 2, Havanna something or other. My one vote doesn’t seem to go as far as their 6, no matter how many cockroaches I kill for them. I ended up in my room watching the movie Hitman on my computer. It’s a pretty man-tastic movie if you ask me.

Thai Culture

2008-04-28T09:53:00.001-07:00

Yeah, this is two back to back posts. Sorry.
I thought I'd give you a quick glimpse into what it might be like living here among the Thai people. I love the culture and the people are great, but there definitely is a different mentality towards life than there is back in America. It's a very "no worries" attitude out here, where there is no fear of the cold weather and food is cheap. Thai people have a lot of patience, and live in the moment that they are presently in, rather than looking ahead to what they will be doing next, as we tend to do.

You know that spacey person that never seems to know what's going on, but is never bothered by it. The kind that forgets about meetings and never seems to pay attention to the time. Yeah yeah, I realise that some of you are thinking that I just described myself. Well, working among the Thais seems like being in a country that is full of those people. Living in a country like that might sould great if that's your attitude towards life, but it's not as easy as you might think when everyone else is thinking the same way. For instance, you go to a restaurant and order some food. It's not that uncommon for them to forget your food, or make the wrong thing. The reason...they never seem to write anything down when you order. When you ask to collect the money, they come over, look at your plates and start doing the math in there head. And there's a lot of times when they are wrong, not intentionally, but come on, they can't be expected to remember everything your ordered and correctly do the math for everyone that's coming to eat some dinner that night. They got a buisness to run.

Thai people always seem to be late, but if you show up late you're usually the only one that came late. Meeting times change on a whim and noone ever seem to understand what is going on, but that's not so bad when you don't feel a need to know what's going on. I used to think that my problems was the language barrier, but it doesn't matter what language you speak to some people, they probably won't remember too much of what it is you were trying to tell them and ask again later...or just do something they think you probably wanted. Asking Thai people for directions is like a form of gambling. You're always going to get an answer, you just have to go and find out if it was the right one or not.

Friday we had a staff meeting where the director told us that it wasn't going to take long, not like the last one that lasted 3 hours. Since the meeting is in Thai and doesn't pertain to the volunteers we said if it was going to be long we would just leave after the introduction. He said it would probably only be an hour. 4 Hours later (after everyone in the room had fallen asleep several times) the meeting had finally ended.

What made me think of this tonight? We were visiting our friend who lives on an island by our house tonight. She invited three of us over for dinner since the two belgium people are leaving back home thursday morning. We showed up and she asked why everyone else didn't want to come eat too. I thought it would've been rude to show up with 8 people when she invited 3 (who know's how much food they had prepared) but I guess it was rude not to invite everyone. Then they waited till 10 o'clock to let us know that the boats stopped running at 9:30. I don't think they had stopped to think about that till then. They asked if we were willing to wait half hour for her aunt because she was coming to the island on a boat and we could ride it back. No sweat, but if you know anything about the culture, a half hour never means half hour. Hour and a half later we were on our way back to shore.

I got laughed at the other day by two girls who were wearing bags on their heads.

Work again!

2008-04-28T09:52:00.001-07:00

Back to work as usual here. Last week was really nice because it was the first whole week we’ve worked since the 25th of March or something like that. Our schedule has been riddled with retreats and public holidays. Not only did I get to work Monday thru Friday, we also took a group of kids to an international school in Bangkok Saturday for a fun fair they had for kids around the city. The fun fair lasted all day, including magicians, old guys trying to rock, and free food. I ate a cheese dog…not a big fan.
The six days of work seemed to be a nice change to the several weeks in a row with days off for the many public holidays that Thailand recognizes.

Last week we took some of the kids to a nearby mall for the day. You’d think there would be a plan for having them there, but there wasn’t. We just walked around all day and looked at things. Towards the end of the day we had a session in the karaoke rooms on the third floor. The kids really loved the trip, despite how it seems it might have been boring for them. I though we would give them money and teach them shopping or something like that. Realistically though, the kids never get to go out and experience these things so they really enjoyed being there among the sights and sounds. I think we had like nine or ten kids in wheelchairs there. I think the only disappointed person on the day would have to be the very bored looking wheelchair saleswoman at a booth in the center of the mall. She must have seen our large pack of wheelchairs coming and thought the gods had been smiling down on her. I don’t think I wanna know what was going through her head when we stopped at the art booth right next to her, then passed her by as we walked/rolled off to the rest of the stores. Oh well.
It’s been storming a lot here the last week. Some kind of nearby cyclone I hear. Last wed. there was a good sized storm to come through. Knocked off part of the roof to the movie theater by our place. It was disappointing seeing as how the power was out at our house so we walked through the rain to go see a movie instead of sitting in the dark. Apparently they don’t show movies when there is water pouring into the theater through a hole in the roof.

Change

2008-04-18T02:44:00.001-07:00

With the Thai new years giving everyone Monday through Wednesday off of work, we started back up yesterday for a two day work week. Not too much to write about the two days at work. Heather, the girl that came out here with me is leaving on Tuesday morning back to America. That means I’m over half my stay here. The two people from Belgium that are living here are leaving on the first of May, which is coming up pretty quick too. In the last two weeks the house went from having 6 people in it to having 12 people in it. After the first of May we’ll be back to 7, but a new group. Things here tend to change really quick with people moving in and out all the time. After being here for about a month I was feeling like things were settling down into a rhythm, but after about a month of calm, things started changing again and will probably continue to do so until I leave. I think I enjoy the changes…

Happy New Years!

2008-04-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

Songran is officially here. We’re celebrating the Thai new years right now, which is every year from the 13th through the 15th of April. It’s one of the hottest times of the year for Thailand and pretty much everyone across the country gets really excited for the holiday. It’s been in the upper nineties with the “feels like” temp up in the hundreds for the last couple weeks. I believe it’s been cooler here in Thailand this year so I’m thankful for that. This is the most anticipated holiday in Thailand and most of the people go home to see their families if they can get away from working.

The new years is pretty much celebrated with a nation wide water fight that lasts three days…only it’s more like 4 days this years because the holiday officially started on Sunday, but Saturday was really stinkin hot. Not only do you have people splashing you with water everywhere you go, but you also have a muddy mix of talcum powder and water that people spread across your face. It’s quite messy around here. Also, everyone wears Hawaiian shirts…I’m not sure why, but it is a nice touch.

Sunday we ran into one of our Thai friends while we were on our way to Bangkok to celebrate, and Beer (the name of our friend who is the staff coordinator for CCD) said that here family had a pickup truck and asked if we wanted to go around town in the back of it. Of course we do. We had about 12 people in the back of this truck (basically it’s a ford ranger super cab) along with a trash can full of water, some buckets and super soakers. We would drive up the roads and people would stop the truck by dancing in front of it while we would engage their friends in a water fight. Then we would drive along to the next roadside party. Because of the traffic jams we didn’t get home till around 10 that night.
Last night we went into the city to Silom Center. I had stayed in a Christian guesthouse in the area a couple times before when I was here. The area looked like times square on new years with the addition of water and white mud everywhere. We walked up and down the street for a couple hours smearing the mud on people’s faces and getting soaked. There wasn’t too many white people around which made me enjoy it more. Getting a cab back at 12:30 at night was difficult since we were very messy and had to go to the outskirts of the city, but the 2 Thai friends we were with helped us out with that. One more day of water fights to go until everything should return to normal for a while. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of this holiday, but it’s hard enough just trying to keep my money dry when I go outside.

Staff Retreat

2008-04-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know it’s been over a week since I’ve posted anything. Apologies once again. After the last post, we spent 3 days at work (two of which I was painting the building in the village) and then the volunteers all took of for a bit of rest. The rest was really nice seeing as we went to a small island near Bangkok. I think it was good timing for the rest, but it possibly came at a hectic time. It marks the halfway point in my stay here, and two of the volunteers are in their last days. Personally it was nice to be able to spend some time away from Bangkok reflecting on the previous couple months and preparing for the second half. It was also a nice getting to know the other volunteers away from work and a crowded house, and say goodbye to the others. The trip to the island was however jammed right between the retreat we took the kids on (previous post) and the staff retreat that we left for on Tuesday morning.

Tuesday we were up before 5 am for CCD’s annual staff retreat. It was a 12 hour bus ride up to the northern part of Thailand near the Myanmar border. The area around the border between Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand is known as the opium triangle. There are also several villages in the Thailand side composed of people from different ethnicities tucked away in the mountains. Wednesday we took a trip to the Myanmar border where the staff crossed over for shopping at the markets there. I only have a single entry visa so I stayed back with some other volunteers to see the sights on the Thai side. Thursday we took a three hour hike through the jungle and ended up at a small waterfall where we were able to swim if we wanted. I’ve been on a trip through the jungle up there before and didn’t like it because it was a rather touristy trip that left me feeling like I just experienced a commercialized part of the Thai jungle. This was nothing like that. We hiked for an hour and a half up the mountain/hill through the jungle till we arrived at a small waterfall that seemed hidden from everyone. After swimming for a bit we hiked our way back down. I did manage to step through the trunk of a dead tree, effectively placing my entire foot into a next of fire ants. All I can say about that is it hurt. I’m glad it was right next to the waterfall.
The evenings were filled with worship among the staff, preaching from some guy at the bible college we were staying at, staff games, and new staff initiation. As far as the initiation goes, I won’t show any pictures of what happened seeing as how the volunteers count as new staff too. I will say though that the eels I stepped on while I was blindfolded made a tasty dinner the following night. Friday we took the bus all the way back to Bangkok where we have a three day weekend (some kind of Buddhist holiday on Monday) which gives me some peace and quiet to catch up on my work here. It’s good to be home again. Don’t forget to check the pictures link on the side where I’ll be adding some new pics!

Boot Camp

2008-03-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

The last couple weeks has gone by really fast and very buisylike. I've been spending a few days helping to paint a building in a nearby villiage for CCD that will work as a home base for a Community Based Rehabilitation project that they are doing. Most of CCD's work is done with the disabled children who have been abandoned, but the idea of this project is to work with the poorer families in the villiages around Bangkok who are trying to raise disabled children. We send staff there to educate the families on the disabilities and the needs of the children, encouraging them not to give up on the child. It's a great project and I've been happy to be able to help out in a small way with it. Spending a hard day workin and being able to see some progress at the end of the day is also nice for me. Most of my days I work hard with the guys that have cerebal paulsy, but it's very difficult to see any immediate progress.

Last friday we took some kids after work to see Disney on Ice. It was a lot of fun for the kids. I was looking after one of the kids in a wheelchair. Not only was he such an amazing little guy to get to know, but his wheelchair scored us a couple front seat passes to the show. He really liked it and waved to all the actors as they were entering and exiting the ice. It was a blast to be there. I also have to say I'm thankful to all you guys who helped to contribute some money for me to be able to be here. It's nice to be able to take the kids to events like that and treat them to some overpriced cotton candy without putting myself into debt. I'm sure the kids really enjoy all the places I've been able to take them so far, like to the zoo, and to the movies. You guys really made it possible for me to be here doing this and I thank you.

Boot Camp!

Last weekend we took some kids on a retreat to a navy base on the beach a couple hours away from Bangkok. A buisnessman named Koon Visit, who I've had the opportunity to get to know here, has an amazing heart for the orphaned children around Thailand and brought 600 of them from around the country to a vacation at a navy base! He really likes the kids at CCD and we took about 50 of them or so to the retreat. Some of the kids we took had never seen the ocean, so it was an amazing opportunity to bring them along. 6 of the kids we took were guys I work with. They were so excited to be there and loved the all you can eat food court that was brought in for the kids. For me the weekend was completely exhausting filled with running around taking care of the guys that we brought along with the other smaller children that CCD had taken to be there too.

2 of the guys that I work with have Cerebal Paulsy really bad and don't have the ability to walk. We had to carry them into the ocean so they could swim. They loved it! Behind me in the picture you can see the human chain set up by the navy guys to keep the kids from going out to far. That beach gets really deep really fast, which I later understood to be crucial for the Navy since they can bring their large ships right up to the beach!

The navy brought this warship to the beach and took all the kids on a ride around the ocean on it. It was pretty cool for the kids to see. This happened on Easter Sunday, so while we were holding our worship service on the beach for anyone that wanted to come, this ship was docking in the backround. It made for an interesting easter service.

The first night we were there someone told me we'd be waking up at 8 or so in the morning which I thought was nice. I'd been had. We got up at 5:30 every morning to shower the guys and get ready for the day. The sun wasn't even out yet! I've never understood the concept of waking up before the sunrise...unless you were only doing it to see what it was like. But then, there's a lot that is foreign to me here. Me and a guy from Belgium were the only two white guys in the whole place. We stick out a lot, but that's not all bad. All the food venders would see us pass by and give us some of their food to eat to see if we liked their cooking. I gained 2 kilos that weekend alone!

Everyone, staff included, has been pretty worn out since that trip. We've been working with the kids for a few weeks nonstop now and are in much need of a break. All of us volunteers are taking friday off to go down to a nearby island and chill out for the weekend. I'm really looking forward to that, though I have to wake up in 3 hours to leave for it. The next couple weeks will be busy also. We have a staff retreat next week which will be nice to spend some time with the staff that we don't usually get to see in a normal week. After that is the Thai New Years which everyone around here seems to be excited about. It's the biggest holiday in Thailand, everyone runs around throwing water on each other. I'm excited to see what that's like. Then it should be back to normal after all that is done with. I'll get back in touch with you guys next week after I'm back. Thanks for reading this far!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

2008-03-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't get any pictures of it, but I showed up to work yesturday wearing a very green hawaiian shirt that I got on Sunday. It's the kind of shirt that the people here wear for the Thai New Years that they are celebrating next month, so naturally, everyone was wondering why I was a month early wearing the shirt. I told the kids I work with about St. Patricks day and all the traditions that go along with it, such as drinking green drinks, dying the chicago river green, and beating up all the rebels who choose not to wear any green on such a day. The beating up the rebels bit I was able to show them by pointing to the example of Nin and his not wearing green. After the thrashing I gave Nin on St. Patricks day I think he learned his lesson. I showed up for work today and Nin pointed out to me that he made sure to wear a green shirt today. Better late then never. After I helped him eat some lunch he said he wanted to drink some green pop, so I bought him some green Fanta to celebrate St. Patty's day. I figured it was OK since it was still technically St. Patricks day in America.

After work today me and Sethi (belgium guy) went to go play badmitton with some of the staff. I haven't played in years and it showed. I also sweat a lot seeing as the temperature is in the ninety's (36 degrees celsius today for you international types). It was a lot of fun to hand out with the staff after work, and it was good to get a bit of excersise in as well. We're supposed to go back tomorrow and play some more. I won't forget my shoes then since I had to pay 1.50 today to buy socks to go with the 2 sizes too small shoes that they made us borrow.

Monkeys, Birthdays, and Lasagna

2008-03-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty busy week here, and definitely a bit interesting. Monday night we had a surprise birthday party for one of the volunteers at the house. Since my birthday was friday, we walked into the house and he assumed the surprise was for me. His birthday was in January so it didn't seem to make a lot of sense to him when they said his name in the Happy Birthday song. It was a lot of fun though.

Monday they asked me to take care of a highly autistic kid living in the government house for about an hour a day. The staff that works with him seem to quit shortly after their assignment, so someone (who shall remain nameless) decided I would be a great candidate to walk him around. Noone seemed to give me any info on the kid, or even tell me of my new assignment until the morning I was to start, so I wasn't too pleased about the idea to begin with. If I knew much about autism it might be different. But I don't even think I know how to spell the word right, and I defintitely have never worked with this kid before or knew what I was even supposed to be doing. I didn't find out till after the first day (which only lasted 20 minutes or so)that the kid loves to bite the new volunteers. Fortunately I strong armed him away from any attempts. The second day only lasted 15 minutes before he tore apart some poor guy's (and probably hungry guy that day) food sending it flying all over the place. I haven't seen the kid since that day and expressed my frustration with the whole situation so we'll see what happens. I hope they can find the new staff that will take care of him soon.

Saturday we took some ten kids or so to the zoo to see all the animals. Average age of the little ones was about 4 I guess. I was in charge of a little girl named Anna. I did have to chase her down a couple times, but I never lost her for too long. She did however manage to acquire a lollypop from somewhere...I don't even want to know how. I wouldn't have given it too her (she might've known that part) so she was able to get someone else to open it up for her. Most of the kids from the orphanage are like that since they always have random people coming in and giving them stuff. They never grow up with parents or anyone close enough to them to teach them the little things in life, such as taking something that isn't yours in the government wards might help you to survive (or at least be happy), but in the real world that's stealing and not really permitted.

This is me with Anna showing her one of the Hippos at the zoo. I think she liked the tigers the best. It was a ton of fun being able to work with the little kids for a day, since I don't usually see them too much. They tend to bite, pinch, cry, and run away more than the guys I usually work with who have cerebal paulsy. The kids were really cute though and it was great to see them getting excited at all the animals. Some of the other volunteers planned the trip and I was glad to be able to come along and help with one of the kids.

It was also my birthday on Friday. One of the girls that volunteers with the kids around the government homes brought a cake for me to the zoo. We had a short party/cake break with all the kids there. On friday I didn't do too much. One of the guys with cerebal paulsy gave me a t-shirt for my birthday which was really nice since they don't have much to begin with. I was just thankful to be here with the guys and spend it with them. Friday night I spent with a couple of the volunteers here, then the zoo all day saturday with the kids. Saturday night we went to an American lady's house in Bangkok. She volunteers time for CCD, mainly working in the office doing fundraising things. She made us all lasagna which tasted great. I'd been craving lasagna for a while now so it really hit the spot. After three pieces of that and 6 pieces of garlic bread (I like bread) they brought out a surprise birthday cake for me that one of my bosses had made for me. They also brought a couple pies. I haven't been that full since I left America!

Buriram

2008-03-09T01:20:00.000-08:00

I've made it back from Buriram last week without a problem at all. Getting there was looking at first like it wasn't going to happen after we kept getting lost trying to leave a nearby city and ended up making a 5 hour car trip in about 8 or 9 hours. Thai people love to give you directions to where you want to go (pressumably because it makes them look smart) even when they have no idea where you want to go. Consequently, we arrived in Buriram at the church across the street from the families house around 2:30 in the morning. I slept upstairs above the church while the family slept in their house across the street. The family was poor when they were living in the slums of Bangkok, and now for the last 9 months they have been living in a villiage, still poor, but with a seemingly better quality of life. It's quieter at least. I was able to meet a bunch of people from the small villiage that would come to church, or that would know the family. I stuck out pretty badly as the only white guy around. Not to mention that I usually never have to look up to see someone in the eyes. That's a picture above of me and the family. We went to a lake nearby for some lunch and to relax at a restaurant on the beach.

I can't remember these guys names, but I'm sure I'll be seeing them again. They all go to the small church here that P Charlee (the father of the fam) leads. The first guy is a carpenter that was putting a small room on the back of P Charlees house when I arrived Friday, the next guy farms a rice field nearby (an impressive looking field at that) and the last guy asked us for a ride into town the first day. We never did give him a ride back even though I was pretty sure we were supposed to wait for him. He's still alive anyways.

P Charlee teaches at the church on Sunday mornings and leads a bible study there on Friday nights. He spends a lot of other nights at prayer meetings or praying for the people around the villiage that come and ask for help. His days are spent farming a rice field. Most of the guys around here work 7 days a week without a break. It's a pretty poor villiage. The church they have is small, being as most people are Buddhist. There's about 30 people or so in the church. P Charlee's daughter, Cherry, and son, Peach, help with the worship on Sundays. Usually there's another couple guys there for guitar and singing, but they were out that day so I got to help play the guitar with the kids. It was a great time getting to play with them. When I stayed in the slums with them the kids were usually so shy with me and Keith and hardly talked to us. Now at 10 and 12 years old they are leading worship for the church, playing keyboard, bass, and drums. It was a lot of fun.

This is a picture of me and a lot of the children from the villiage who went to church on Sunday. We're standing on a place they are hoping to be able to build an actual church someday. Now they meed in the bottom of a house across the street from this land, but P Charlee is trying to get enough money together to build a small church here along with a place that they can teach the bible to the local Thai's who want to become Pastors and future church leaders. P Charlee is also hoping to someday transform the front of his small house into a free internet cafe for the children in the slums to help with their homework. He really cares for the people in this villiage and seems much happier to be there instead of in the slums. The people in the church are also hoping to do something for the children of the slums who want to continue on with their education after the age of 15. The government stops paying for their schooling then and the families in the villiage are predominantly poor and can't afford the $300 a year to keep the kids in school. Many of the children leave for Bangkok looking for work. I'm planning to go back in the end of my stay here and see if they're is anything I can do to help get some kids the opportunity to stay in school after the government stops paying. I'm hoping we may be able to get something up through the church their for the kids in the villiage. God willing.

All in all I was amazed at the generosity and kindness of the family and the people in the villiage towards me while I was there. They refused to let me pay for anything (including my bus ticket back to Bangkok) even though they don't have much, and they treated me as one of their own. It was a really great experience and I look forward to being able to make one more visit before I get back to America.

Bai Tiaow! (Going traveling!)

2008-02-27T05:44:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'll be heading out to another province in the northeast part of Thailand to visit my friends from the slum and see the church that they've been helping to start up there. I'm really looking forward to seeing the family again and seeing the new life they have up in the northeast. I'm sure it's going to be quite different than when they were living in the slums. I'm real happy for them to be up there, but sad that I don't get to see them that often. I hope we'll be able to communicate with each other this weekend really well. I'll definitely let you know how everything goes. I know that there's something about me and their church and prayer but I haven't yet figured out what he keeps trying to tell me so parts of it should be a bit interesting as well!
Yesturday we took some guys to KFC for some dinner and then for some ice cream afterwards. They loved it! The guy in the had is 20 years old and doesn't get to go out often at all. It was the first time he'd had KFC. Odd is in the back of the picture...he's from Norway and volunteers at the boys home with me. Noom is sitting in front of Odd, he's the guy that calls everyone Jeffy. He was a riot to take out. He's got a great smile and was real happy wherever we went. The guy in the front of the picture is Even who came with Odd from Norway. He works with the kids younger than 7 and brought It with us. It is short for something that I couldn't pronounce. That kid loved being out with us and making a mess wherever we went! It's funny watching the guys pick the ice cream that they want from the big menu they gave us. The two in the back got whatever the special is...I think because they were overwhelmed with having to make a choice and chose the first thing on the menu. It however, proudly chose the biggest thing he could find! I wasn't sure he'd be able to finish it, but he's got a lot of fight in him when it comes to ice cream. Plus I think half of it ended up on his chin which helped him to be able to finish. I almost think Noom was there for the water more than the ice cream. He drank four glasses of water and barely finished the ice cream. I hate to think of how many times they had to take him to the bathroom after we dropped him off. It was a whole lot of fun for them though. A couple times they would start laughing histerically while they were eating. We turned a lot of heads that day!

Tomorrow we're going to a villiage nearby in the morning to open up the second Community Based Rehabilitation center that CCD is starting. It should be a good time, though I'm not sure how the time frame will work out since I have to be back in Bangkok at three to meet P Charlee to go to Burilam. They said we'd be back around two, which means nothing in Thailand. We didn't even find out we were going until three O'clock this afternoon. Tomorrow was going to be a big party for Odd as friday is his last day. There's already a sports day or something planned for friday, so the guys were working hard this week making him paintings and cards to give him at the party. After finding out about the day that was already planned for the volunteers at three o'clock today (in typical thai fashion where noone really knows what's going on until the last minute, and then, still really don't know what's going on) we had to cancell the party for tomorrow and just do a short one on friday. But, as they say in Thailand...mai bpen rai (no worries!)

Makka Bucha!

2008-02-24T08:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Makka Bucha day everyone! This must one of the bigger holidays here in Thailand. It's to celebrate a whole bunch of monks spontaneously showing up to hear the Buddha's teaching one day. Since my memory of reading about this is a little faded I'll leave my summarization of what is actually being celebrated to that. Thursday there was no work for a lot of people to honor that day. Since I work at the government wards we had that day off as well. It was a bit wierd having the thursday off and not the friday. Probably half of the volunteers here took friday off to go visit friends and families down further south in Thailand. The kind of trip that requires more than just the travel you can do on the weekend. Friday it was only me and one of the staff with the guys, then the staff had to go in the afternoon for a meeting, which just left me with the guys.

We did have a pretty fun day though I thought. It was nice and relaxed on friday. On wednseday one of the guys asked if I could bring in an action film for them to watch for friday. I went down to the market and bought a couple films..."Hitman" and "Beowolf". In the morning we brought a bunch of the guys over and they watched "Hitman". It looked like a pretty good movie and they enjoyed it, but I didn't understand a whole lot of it because it was in Thai. Generally the English subtitles on these dvd's do more harm than good so I was quite happy to watch it without. For some reason, the words get translated from English to Thai for the dubbing, then back into English for the subtitling. This translates to a bunch of words that don't make any sense at all. For instance, in one movie I had seen the actor said "you're being an asshole". Thai's don't really have a word for this so when it was translated back into English it was "you're being fecisious in the anus abundantly". Personally I enjoy the second phrase better, but it sure doesn't do any help in trying to understand a film.

After lunch I had to option of going home or staying since it was only me. I wanted to stay though because a few of the guys couldn't come in the morning and one of the smarter ones (smarter in the sense that he can understand the movies and really enjoyes seeing them) wanted to come back and see the other one. Since it was only me I only grabbed three guys total to watch Beowolf. Taking more than three would eat up a bunch of time since I have to run back and forth between the ward and the daycare center bringing them one at a time. It was a relaxing day, and I think the guys enjoyed feeling like they had a place that we could all just hang out and watch a movie. It definitely breaks up their normal routine.

The rest of the week went pretty normal as far as the work here goes. Today me and another lady took a couple guys to church and then out to look around at the shopping mall. They were really excited this morning when I got there and I think they were pretty tired by the time we got back to the government wards. It took most of the day to go around with them but it's a great blessing to be able to take them. I just wish there was enough people to take all the guys that wanted to go every sunday.

Thursday night I'm meeting with the family I stayed with wben I was in the slums a few years back. I spent a lot of time with them and the other people in the slums last time I was here, but since then they have moved up to the Northeast section of Thailand to help start a church there. I'm really excited to go and see them again and see the church they have there. It in a small villiage I believe, but it's hard getting all the details over the phone since they don't speak any English. I'll be staying with them till the sunday and then coming back to Bangkok for work Monday morning. I'm cautiously excited about spending four days without speaking English. Cautiously excited because I know how exhausted my brain feels after just one afternoon speaking only in Thai. Keep me in prayer for the time there if you will, I am really excited about going.

Couple things to be thankful about...my wrist has healed most of the way. I stopped going to see the doctor and my medicine is gone so hopefully it'll be completely healed in no time. It's looking a lot better now. I also after about three weeks of searching was able to find a pair of sandals that were big enough to fit my feet. Odd how hard it is to find anything in size eleven here! If you can also pray that my ankle heals up quick. I was rear ended by a wheelchair today taking the guys to church and it cut my ankle pretty good. I'm not overly concerned about it, but I know how fast infections spread in open wounds when working around these guys and with the trip up north later this week I'm just hoping its no problem at all by then. Thanks for sticking with this one till the end! I'll try to post more frequently so that they don't have to be so long.

What a week

2008-02-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

Well, things have been jammed packed since my last entry it seems, and everything seems either to be good or bad this week. I'll try to keep this one from getting too long. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures for this entry because everytime we went to do something this week I never seemed to have my camera with me for one reason or another.

The week started off with an upset stomach that lasted a couple days. All of the volunteers seemed to have it, along with just about every one of the guys from the ward. Then I had some kind of infection on my wrist that's been giving me grief for the last week or so. I thought it was a mesquito bite at first, but then the Thai staff told me that other volunteers and staff seem to get it from time to time when handling the guys. In one of the government wards that we take kids from, most all of them had scabbies and skin infections this week just like the one I seem to have, so I'm pretty sure that's where it came from. At least I can identify with their pain, though I have a hole in my wrist now and have to go to the doctor everyday for my daily dose of pain that they seem to enjoy giving me. I got some meds from them and its getting better, I just hope it heals up soon.

Thursday we had a valentines day party for the guys where we made a giant card and brought some snacks and ice cream to the disabled girls at CCD on the other side of the wards. They had a ton of fun with it. Friday we were supposed to go on an outing, but it was cancelled so I paid for some movie tickets so that we could take a bunch of guys to see a movie at the theatre. They loved it, and don't get to go often at all so they were real excited when we got to take them out. There was a total of twelve of us that went that day. Saturday I went out to lunch with another lady that works around the government wards with the guys and Bok. Bok used to be one of the guys that came to CCD but now he goes to study instead. He was so excited when I came back to Thailand to work here and has been wanting to go out one day and get lunch with me. So we took him to a friends house to eat lunch and then shopping at the market for a watch for him. It's his birthday sometime around now, noone really knows exactly when, so we celebrated it with some cake and a day of going around town. He was real excited and I was exhausted by the time we got back to the wards to drop him off.

A couple from England came to visit CCD this weekend which was great. We had a worship and dance session at the foster home CCD has on friday night. I worked with the couple the first time I was out here and since then they have been a huge blessing to CCD by working in England to earn some money for them and get some awareness out about the work that CCD is doing. They're legends around CCD. I hadn't seen them in four years so it was great to be here when they came and catch up with them. It was so interesting to think back to four years ago when I was working here and see all the things God has done in my life since then. After all, when I was working alongside Henry and Lydia four years ago I had never planned to even come back to Thailand. Praise God for all He's done since then!

Typical Tuesday

2008-02-12T01:31:00.000-08:00

It was Tuesday today which means that we take some of the guys to the adventure room and throw balls at them. First thing first though, we burried Sen (on the right) and Nin (left) in the balls before we tossed them all out and hurled them across the room. Every week on Tuesday we come here and we grab some different guys to go with us so most of the guys only come here every couple months or so. It was a good time today. I was able to use Nin as a shield against the balls flying at me. He turned out to be good at blocking for me. Sen on the other hand, tackled me at a couple points in time and held me down while I was being pelted by everyone else. Nin? Yeah, he tried to get away when Sen pinned me down. Some blocker he turned out to be.

This afternoon we took some kids out and played some games with them. A lot of the guys in one of the wards now are sick with stomach promlems so a lot of them couldn't come out today. In the other ward most of the guys have skin problems, like scabbies so only two of them could come. I hope that the problems go away soon. It's no fun having to see the kids suffer like that and the days are slower when we can't take as many out with us.

On Valentines day we're supposed to help the guys make some cards and then bring them over to the girls daycare center to pass them out. It would be nice to hang out with them for a change. It should be a nice party Thursday. I'm also looking forward to Saturday when I get to go to lunch with one of the guys from the wards. He doesn't come to CCD anymore but he used to the first time I was here. His name is Bok and he does some paintings using his feet. He remembers me each time I come back and he always looks forward to spending time with me. He wanted to go on an outing with me, so as long as Saturday works out for the staff in the ward, I"ll be taking him along with a Canadien lady here who has been doing a lot of work among the boys, especially Bok, for a while now. I'm hoping it all goes well this week though and that the overall health of the guys on the wards gets better soon!

Dirt moving and what-have-you

2008-02-07T02:11:00.000-08:00

Well, we're home from Laos. It took 12 hours to get home by the bus that we took, which was a long time and got us back around 5:30 in the morning. I slept in that morning and went to work in the afternoon. The guys were glad to see I hadn't died in Laos or anything.

On Wednesday we went to work in a villiage that CCD will set up a remote location to teach the parents from the area nearby about disabled children and help to give physio and training to those in the community. We got to the building that CCD has been given and there was a large pile of dirt in front of it that had been sitting there for about a year. We dug and picked at the dirt all day trying to move it so as to backfill around the building and keep it from flooding. I'm pretty sure we got at least 23 percent of it moved. I believe this picture above is an accurate representation of what we looked like working. It was very hot and we were covered in sweat and, in my case, dirt. The digging was a nice change of pace and I was actually glad to do it. Today however, I have been very sore from all the work as well as the others. I was happy to realize that it was movie day for the guys which didn't involve a ton of running around for me. The rest was nice. I look forward to sticking around Bangkok this weekend and visiting friends. It should be a nice change of pace after the last couple of weeks.

Greetings from Laos

2008-02-02T00:10:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm stuck in Laos for a couple days so it's time to make the best of it. I'm in the tourist part of the capital city, which isn't much, but it's much better than nothing. The embassy is closed until monday so I have to wait till then to go pick up my passport before I can make the journey home to Bangkok. The people here are friendly (except the ones that keep trying to rip me of, which is only about half of them) and I'm able to try to meet some other travelers while I'm out here. The weather was cold yesturday, and today it's rainy. Hasn't rained in two months here, but I show up and bring the rain. Oh well, I'm getting to try some different foods here which is fun. Today I ate something called "Devil with rice". Tasted pretty good actually, despite the sound of it. I might try to take a week or so and travel around Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam right before I leave Thailand. Since I'm already out here and I think it would be great to see some of the land, I might try to squeeze that in before I return back to America. But that's still a few months away so I think I'll wait to see how this Laos trip goes first. Hope all is well back home, I'll write more when I make my way back to Bangkok.

well, still no pics

2008-01-30T02:00:00.001-08:00

I'm trying on the pictures though. I'll have to go another avenue I think. Things have been good over the past week, but a bit crazy. Over the weekend I went with all the other volunteers to a province nearby called Kanchanaburi. It was pretty relaxing and really good to get to spend time with the other people here. It was great spending time with them and learning about their countries. I even watched a little soccer with them one night, though I had to call it "football" in order for them to understand me. I got to ride an elephant while I was there which was OK, but I had already done that on a previous trip so I wasn't too enthuised about it. After riding it though we took them down into the river Kwai and washed them which was cool. I got to see the bridge over the river Kwai and check out some museums there too. I might go back there one more time just to go kayaking down the river with some of the volunteers.

I'm off to Laos tomorrow to get a visa. The Cambodian trip fell through and now we'll have to go stay in Laos for a night and get the proper visa. It's a headache and one that I should have been able to avoid, but I'll know better for the future I guess.

The last couple days with the kids have been pretty good. Today we took the to the main office to see a movie with all the other kids. We saw Tranformers, but it was in Thai. Not a bad movie I guess. After that the kids all got some fake money and had to buy there own food downstairs in a makeshift food court that had been set up. The whole point was to help them learn how to use money, but some of the kids just tore their money in half. Maybe they were just greedy and wanted twice as much. All I know is that I won't be handing them any of my money to hold for me.
Monday we took some of the guys to a park on the outskirts of Bangkok. The park was part of a Buddhist temple I think, and was a nice place to have a picnic. We took the guys there and cooked food and fed some fish. I got to learn how to cook some Thai food which was pretty fun. The kids wouldn't eat the food I prepared though (wimps) so I had to stomach it myself. Next time I might ask for a little more guidance in the cooking aspect of things here!

Frankie goes to Hollywood

2008-01-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

It was a good day with the guys today. Thursday is usally movie day which the guys seem to like a bit. I was sitting next to Pittaya who kept hitting me in the back of the head when I wasn't looking. Then at lunch time I went to get the food and there was only two pots instead of three. I took the empty pot back and pretended to dump it over sen's head. He was laughing so hard he fell over in his wheelchair and just about took the table with him. The guys thought it was pretty funny.

And then there's Frankie. His Thai name is perm, but we call him Frankie for some reason. Today after work me and Berg, my roomie, took Frankie and Samer to the movie theater place near the house called Hollywood Majors. There's a KFC on the bottom of it where we took the guys. One of the girls from Rachawadee girls came, Gat Gow, and a couple of the babies came out too. All in all, there were 13 people there. After the KFC we took them to an ice cream place called Swensons. They claim to be America's favorite, but I've never heard of them before. The guys really liked the food and ice cream and were really excited for the opportunity to get out and do something different. They were looking forward to it all day long. We play to do it pretty regularly with the guys, either to there or off to church with us on Sundays. They really get a kick out of it and are soo excited when they get the chance to get out.

Good news about the visa problems. We don't have to go to Laos. We can actually choose to go to any country we want to. Well, I had already known this, but what I didn't know was that Cambodia seemed to be a much better choice than Laos. I think that the entire trip can be done in a day and costs less in the long run. I think we'll go next Wednesday. Thanks for the prayers, I'm relieved not to have to spend the weekend in Laos. Hopefully this works out well for us!

Balls of Fury

2008-01-22T01:29:00.001-08:00

Today was a pretty good day with the kids. On Tuesday mornings we go into the sensory room with about 5 of the kids. What's a sensory room, you might be asking. Well, it's a dark room with mellow music where the kids can go and chill out, playing with different things that light up, floors of different textures, and of course, air conditioning. It's usually a pretty chill place and the kids seem to like being in there a lot.
However, little did I know (I had to take care of things last week so I arrived late last time) we go to a wonderful place called the Adventure Room before we go into the Sensory Room. Now, a better question might be, "What's an adventure room?". Well, there's lots of cushiony things, trampolenes, foam blocks to clime on, a slide, a fort, a swing, and oh yes, lots and lots of those plastic balls all over the floor.
It only took about 2 1/2 minutes of us being in there before those plastic balls that kids love so much were flying across the room, hitting anyone and everyone in their path. I think I threw about 200 fastballs in the span of about 45 minutes, which is quite tiring for any pitcher i would imagine. The kids seemed to love it a lot and some of them got some accurate throws. I was hit in the face more than once! A couple of the kids have decent reflexes, while a couple of them had reflexes like a stone wall. I think one of the kids got hit right between the eyes without even flinching! That's tough to do even when you try. They seemed to love it a lot though, and I don't know about them, but I can't wait to go back to this adventure room.

The sensory room was a good change of pace today, though there was 2 bus loads of students coming to visit from a school in Bangkok. People kept opening the door to peek inside and come and see the kids and take some pictures of what was going on in there. Probably wasn't very chill for the guys today.

On my lunch break today I learned how to sew...I tried to sew a big J on a piece of paper but it came out backwards. I think I'm confined to practicing my sewing while everyone else gets to work on the actual project that I'll have to use this new found skill with. Apparently I'm pretty bad at it.

No pictures yet...

2008-01-19T22:20:00.000-08:00

I'm having troubles loading pictures up on the blog here so I'm going to have to get another site to load some pictures on to. But not to worry, they should be coming soon!
It's about 91 degrees here in Bangkok, which is pretty nice here now. The evenings cool off a bit which is great. It's supposed to get hotter from now on, but I'm enjoying it now. I say this because I just looked at the weather back home and it's like 3 degrees! I think I picked a good time to be here.

This weekend has been pretty quiet around the house which is nice. Half the house has gone to a beach somewhere and the rest of us have just been around the area. One of the girls had a friend come in for the weekend. Other than that I was able to get my laundry done and catch up on a few things. It's really nice to be back and meet up with people that I haven't seen in a couple years and also to meet some new people that have come here to help out. It seems like everytime I come there are more people here helping out with the children in the government wards. This is encouraging.

On friday some important lady from the Thai government came to CCD to see the work being done there and visit the children. This was a good idea, but they came 3 1/2 hours late. By the time they had gotten there most of the children were already supposed to be back at the wards and getting ready to eat dinner. It was then that I realized that cranky children tend to throw teddy bears across the room if you don't feed them first. The lady came with a big bag of gifts but some of the kids had nothing to do with them! Oh well, it was a nice thought and I was glad for her coming. Maybe the kids will be calmer by tomorrow...

One week down

2008-01-17T07:07:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that I've only been here for a week. Being back here sort of feels like being back at home. It feels good to be back, but there is a lot of things that are different that I'm trying to get used to. The area here has changed with the addition of a bridge build here. A lot of the bus stops have changed and restaurants have come and gone. I'm still trying to figure out a couple things.
Most of the kids all remember me and are really excited that I'm back. It has been an amazing week so far getting to see them all again and they all get real excited to see me in the morning. Everything seems to be a bit better on the wards now than when I had left last time which is also encouraging. The guys and staff here all seem to be a bit happier. One of the guys here, noom, has been talking a lot more since I had left the last time. He used to only really say the word for pretty a lot when playing with legos or what have you. Now he seems to talk more to the staff and volunteers. He has been calling all of the volunteers Jeffrey ever since I left last time. It's really funny, everyone is Jeffrey. He calls the girl volunteers Pretty Jeffrey.

Today we did some cooking with the kids. It was a noodle salad...the noodles were like ramen noodles and there was a lot of different things in the salad. The guys got to chop some vegetables and put in their own spices. They all seemed to have a great time doing it even though my group made their dish really sour at first. A bit of sugar water cured it right up though.
It's great being back with these guys. Thanks to everyone that helped to make this happen, I'm sure these guys would tell you how much they appreciate it if they had internet!

Feeling like home again

2008-01-13T07:35:00.000-08:00

It's sunday night now and I'm going to start working tomorrow. I'm pretty excited. I've spent the last few days resting up and running around Pakkred and Bangkok meeting up with old friends and meeting new ones. I was able to meet up with some of the Thai people that we hung out with last time I was here and catch up with how they are and what is new with them. Also, there are two girls here from California doing a research project so we met up with them in the city and saw some sights together. It was great. They will be here for the next couple days then return home.

Right now the volunteer house is pretty crowded. I don't even know how many people are here now, but it seems rather full. I hear that in a couple weeks it will empty up a little bit which will help some. It's not too bad for now though, I'm coping pretty good. Most of the volunteers were gone all weekend, but we'll see how the week goes.

I'm 2 for 2 on killing the cockroaches I've seen in the house. This is a good statistic seeing as how these things have a lot of fight in them. I usually have to smash them about 3 times to finish the job.
I think one of the baggage handlers at the airport stole the deodorant out of my bag. This was not a funny joke and I hope he feels sorry about it now.

Well, off to bed, I'll write more after I officially start working. Pray that I don't have to go to Lao to get a visa...there's talk that I might have to.

40 some hours and 5 airports ago...

2008-01-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

I don't remember how long it took me to get here, but it involved a lot of waiting. While I haven't experienced enough to have a highlight of the trip thus far, I think it would be safe to say that the lowlight has to be the 3 + hours I spent on the New York subway system. When traveling to New York I wouldn't recommend making that the primary sight that you see, though, the wonders you may see there!

Our first flight out of New York was 3 hours late by the time we took off. Had it been 3hrs 15min late we probably would have missed our connecting flight in Taiwan. Had it been 2hrs 45min late, we probably would have not only arrived in Bangkok on time, but so would our luggage.

The first thing I noticed in Bangkok was the smell...ah that familiar smell. Nothing too attractive about it, but it still has a familiarity to it...much like these tiny mosquitos that accompany me as I type. It was about an hour car ride from the airport to the place we are staying. We arrived about the same time the others got off from work today which was nice that we got to meet them all. The names of the other volunteers are... Well, the names aren't important now, I'm sure I'll learn them once i get a little sleep in me, and maybe a shower.

Praises. Yes, there are a few of them. For one, the language is coming back to me and I was able to navigate the taxi and understand what I was getting for dinner. My room has AC in it that can only be turned on at night (brilliant!). We were able to travel here safely and get into the country with no hassle. We have to go next week I believe to get the proper visa, but we're still legal for now. And Amazing Grace. My prodigal luggage has returned! After wandering off the path of righteousness in Taipei and refusing to board the same plane as me, it has returned tonight to bring me joy and clean clothes. Yes, this was great blessing today. Thank you God!

Time to go try to sleep off some jet lag, tomorrow will be a whole nother day

Gearing up again

2007-10-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

well, the time has finally come for another trek to the outskirts of Bangkok to work with CCD again. The plan is go for another 6 months as a volunteer with CCD, starting sometime around the middle of January. I am hoping to get down to Panama for a couple weeks before hand to visit a good friend, Todd, who is working there in some villiages with a catholic organization. his website is www.toddsinpanama.blogspot.com so you should check that out too. I hope i can go and work there for a couple weeks with him first, but we'll see how it all goes once I get my final OK from CCD and can start getting plane tickets and visa taken care of.

I'll try to start updating this again during the planning process and encourage you all to keep on checking in on me. Send me an email if you want more information on donating or on the organization. berd_mann@yahoo.com

until next time friends,
jeff berdine

been a while

2006-05-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anyone is going to reading this anymore...since it's been about 3 months since the last entry. But, I figured since I have it here I might as well continue to give updates I recieve from Thailand and also updates in my life as to what is coming up next.

Remember Nin?

I heard recently that he was dropped by one of the helpers in the wards. The helpers, for the most part, are guys that used to live in the wards (usually from a mental disability) and have grown too old to stay there anymore. Since some of these guys have nowhere else to go, they can work for the government. It's good to give these guys something to do and continue to provide for them, however, often they get used to much and overworked. Another downside, is that they don't always carry the guys in any kind of a proper way...usually one hand under the knees and the other hand around the neck/head of the guy they're carrying. And so, at some point, someone dropped Nin on the floor. The fall damaged a nerve in his right arm which is bad news for him since that was the arm that he used to eat, paint, play games, etc. His left arm doesn't work that well already.

Thanks to some persistence from Paul, Nin is now getting some therepy regularly which I hope will help. He could still use your prayers though

2006-03-01T08:43:00.000-08:00

Feb 22

Allison left last night to go back to America. It was sad that she left because she really wanted to stay longer. I wish she could have too because all the kids and the staff were glad she came and it was great having another Physical Therapist here. Her leaving means that I only have about 3 more weeks here. Normally I would have 2 and ½ weeks left to volunteer with CCD, ending on a Friday and fly out on a Monday the 13th. However, there is a team of 8 people coming in on the 7th and the volunteer houses are going to be overcrowded by 2 people for the remaining days that me and Sarah are here. We decided that amidst the commotion it might be a good idea to take a few days to get out of the houses and go rest somewhere when the new people are coming in. So, we’re going to stop a week early and go recap the 6 months and start mentally preparing to go home. After Sarah leaves on the 9th I’m going to stay in Bangkok at a cheap guest house and visit with P Charlie and his family in the slums and take care of any unfinished business. I haven’t thought any about what it’s going to be like when I have to leave, and probably I won’t really think about it until a couple days before. I definitely will miss the guys I work with though and everyone else here. It’s definitely easy to fall in love with this country.

I’m thinking a lot more about coming out here for 5 years to do work among the slums in Bangkok with an organization called Servant Partners. The slums seem to breed hopelessness and sins which breed more sins and more hopelessness. I would be serving people through Servant Partners by helping to encourage social justice and spiritual freedom in the lives of the people. I was supposed to go today and meet again with one of the guys working in this organization, but he had lots of appointments today and so we rescheduled for next week. Instead I made it to the dentist and had my teeth cleaned and X Rayed for $22.50. Not bad considering I have no health insurance.

Upon returning home I was greeted by a snake in my room. Not sure what kind it was, but it seemed pretty scared once it realized I was still going to try to catch it despite the fact that it pretended it might bite me at first. After chasing it into every corner of my room I finally caught it using a coat hanger and my hand (a little technique I learned watching The Crocodile Hunter on the Discover Channel…see, TV can be a good thing). I figure that the snake was in my room anyways because it’s about 8000 degrees C. outside today, so I had some compassion on him and didn’t want to kill it. I dropped it off my balcony out back and then went to try to find it so I could take it to some guys and ask what kind it was. After I got downstairs though I couldn’t find it. Ah well.

2006-03-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

My days here are a teeter totter, going from things that make me really sad, to things that make me really happy. This really is a city of contrast. I tend to focus on the things that make me happy more when I write because they are much more fun to think about and I presume they are more fun to read about too. However, at times, the sad thoughts can't be completely ignored. I wrote this the other night after being at work and thinking about going back home...

26-Feb-06

Strange, but I only have 1 week left to volunteer with CCD and tben one week to pack up and take care of the last bit of details before I make it back to the States. Crazy how time has gone. It’s not been too bad though thinking of leaving, because, I haven’t really thought of leaving. I’ve told a couple of the guys that I’m going…the ones who can understand it more. The thing is, it would be a lot harder to leave if I didn’t think I would ever come back to see them again. When you get here, you get an initial shock for the way that the guys have it. Granted, some of the guys are better off here than they would be with a family that doesn’t want them, but still most of the guys don’t have much at all in life and spend their days laying in a bed shared with 2 others staring at the wall or TV. Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, and the next thing you know…you’re 30 years old and nothing has changed except maybe the occasional change of wards or beds. Some of the guys have good brains, you look in their eyes and know they understand things and what is going on. They just lack the physical ability to speak or move their limbs, and so they probably have the hardest time passing the years.

When you get to the wards though, you can’t be sad. Well, you could, but what’s that going to do? These guys aren’t looking for people to cry with, they’re looking for a break in the dullness, someone to touch them because they want to, not just because they need to be moved or have their diaper changed. So, since you know you can’t be sad when you get their, it’s hard (for me anyways) to want to be sad for it when I get home in the evenings. I don’t wanna remember the things that make me sad when I think of the guys and work, I want to remember the smiles, or how much fun they had singing songs with us. You remember the fun interactions, how happy they seemed when they said “good-bye” at the end of the day. You go home happy you gave them memories, not just another day of 3 meals and a shower.
After about a month then, the sadness starts to fade out and you start to unknowingly come into a subtle acceptance for the way things are. You stop praying everyday that God would bring about change in their lives and end the injustices. Sometimes something tries to bring you back to the reality. You hear for instance that all the kids in one of the wards are getting colds because that ward staff won’t give them blankets at night during cold season since they’re just going to pee on them anyways. Or maybe you see one of the babies being hit because they are crying and that’s the only way that the caregiver can quickly stop the crying so they can finish their job. (Strange how when most small children are in trouble they tend to cry more, but when one of these kids gets punished, they stop crying immediately) But too, after a while, you forget these things and think of the caregivers that do really love the kids, and the smiles on the faces of the guys even when you bring them back. You quickly accept the situation again…until you start thinking of going back to America. And then you remember that you get to go back home and they are already in the only place they know of as “home”.

2006-02-22T00:26:00.000-08:00

Feb 18

Thursday we took the guys to the zoo. Since I’m coming close to the time I’ll be leaving here I was able to spend some of the extra money to sponsor them to go. We were able to take out seven of the kids because we had 7 volunteers that day. We took a lot of the kids that don’t go on outings that often, or who had never been to the zoo before. It was great to take them to experience it for the first time. They all seemed to love it tons, even though a lot of the cages had walls that were too high to see over from the wheelchairs.
Also, Paul (another volunteer with the guys) went out and bought some more swimming tubes so that we could take more of the guys swimming on Fridays. Yesterday worked out really good to because the girls were there and so were the smaller kids from the babies ward. It was like being at a giant pool party for them. I think they really enjoyed having so many people around swimming in the pool. This week we’re going to work on painting with them and some basic English also. I’m looking forward to that now that we have 2 more volunteers and so therefore can spend more time with the guys individually.

2006-02-22T00:24:00.000-08:00

Feb 14
Last weekend we were able to go with Koon Visit, who is in charge of Friendship For Peace (another Thai organization we have become friends with here), to hike a mountain. It was quite an experience. There were six of us total, 3 volunteers and 3 Thai people. The mountain was 5.5 kilometers up and took us around 6 hours to conquer it. It was great to be with them for the whole weekend and enjoy the Thai culture with them. The Thai people are incredibly welcoming to us wherever we go which always makes the time spent with them great. I have to think that Thailand is probably the hottest country in the world (as far as I’ve experienced it) but still I almost died of hypothermia last weekend. I have seen my breath for the first time since last winter in America. I didn’t bring much in the category of warm clothes, and what I did bring became wet as it rained all day Sunday and our tent collapsed soaking everything I owned in water. Sunday night I didn’t have a blanket either since it was wet and I slept the night in my T shirt and plastic rain poncho. I made it through the night by remembering that the next day I would be cooking in the heat again and dreaming of that cold wet feeling again

Nin

2006-02-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

NIN

Nin’s name means “blue sapphire”. I don’t know exactly what that color looks like, but I’m sure that Nin doesn’t look like blue sapphire. However, he’s a great guy to be around and one of the first guys I see in the mornings. Chork usually gets Nin’s wheelchair and pushes him to CCD in the mornings before we go and pick up the other guys. Nin is more clever than most of the other guys and so he is lots of fun to talk with even though he can’t move his mouth very well which makes talking for him difficult.

He’s 25 years old however, like me, which I think adds to the fact that I like spending time with him even more. He’s good at concentrating on things when we do paper mache and play games like connect four or even checkers. Usually he sits in his wheelchair all day (which he has trouble staying all the way up in it all the time since his body is so stiff) but when we do activities like paper mache we’ll sit him cross legged on the floor until it hurts his legs too much. This is a little harder for him because he has to keep balanced, but it’s good because he’s able to work on the floor with the other guys instead of at a table by himself. He seems to enjoy it.

Nin seems to enjoy playing games most of all when he’s with us. He’s really smart at connect 4 and likes to play simpler games like dominoes. The also like to play this memory game that one of the other volunteers had left for them and Nin usually gets more than I can! He plays connect 4 a lot with me and with some of the other guys like Sen and Pitaya. I think they like playing each other a lot but usually I have to be there to put the pieces in for them. Nin can do it himself but gets tired after a time. I don’t know how much he’s played checkers before me coming here but he seems to have picked it up pretty quick when P O, one of the staff, was teaching him. He plays it pretty good with me, except sometimes gets the rules confused because I taught him American style too since it was a little easier to play. He still hasn’t gotten chess figured out, but he sits and studies the board sometimes when me and P O play during lunch. It would be great if him and one of the other guys can be able to learn it before I leave here!

Nin, like the other guys, likes to arm wrestle with me. He also teases my by calling me fat, after which I rough him up a bit. He seems to never get tired of teasing me! He also is a Christian and loves to sing various Christian songs and learn the motions to them. Me and Paul, the new volunteer, teach him some English in the mornings. He’s getting good at responding in Thai to the questions that I ask him in English. It’s amazing how clever he is, hopefully he never stops learning new things and joking around with the volunteers here. He provides a lot of fun for all of us.

Feb 6

2006-02-06T06:21:00.000-08:00

Saturday I went fishing again with two of the staff that work at CCD. It was good to be out there fishing, however, I don’t think I’ve ever fished for such a long time before. We arrived at 8 in the morning and didn’t leave till after 6 at night. We only caught 3 fish (2 of them were looking small) but didn’t catch the first one until 3:30. I caught that one and it was quite a good size. The day seemed a lot more fun after that. Saturday night we had all the volunteers here at the house for some games. Sunday morning me and Paul took two of the guys from the ward to church and then to eat at KFC afterwards. They seemed to enjoy it lots and loved being at church. Sen can speak much, but when I asked him what his favorite food was he was pretty quick to yell out K F C! It was great to be able to take them. Paul has been a great blessing to have here. I think that just the presence of another guy around is a welcome change, plus he has a good sense of British humor and English is his first language. He really likes working with the guys and has been a good source of motivation coming into the last month or so here. We’re going to try taking the guys out more often to church and other places. It helps having another guy around to help with all that here.
Allison has also been a great blessing since she’s been here. All the staff and the volunteers say that she’s doing a great job and they all notice the great love she has for the children in the wards. That’s been great because it’s the kind of love that rubs off on people. Please be praying for us and the government staff that will be here long after we leave that we won’t grow weary of loving these guys and taking care of them!

Oh yeah, the wrestling was pretty fun. It turned out to be American wrestling. The Smack Down Live tour. The one guy that all the kids knew was sick with pnemonia and the only other wrestler I knew was the Undertaker. Still it was great to take the kids to, they all seemed to love it!

2006-02-06T06:19:00.000-08:00

Jan 30

Saturday night was good here in Thailand. We had a Western food cooking night for some of the friends that we met through the Friendship Foundation in Bangkok and also with some of the staff at CCD. They were interested in our different foods so we set up a night to treat them to a good western meal. I made hot wings using “Wild” sauce from Buffalo Wild Wings. Allison was kind enough to bring this out. Most of the Thais said it was too hot (more for me!) but some of them really liked it a lot! Sarah made some chili, mostly American style but with some Thai ingredients. We also had Swedish meatballs made by the Swedes (apparently they just call them “meatballs” in Sweden) and some mashed potatoes. Someone brought a yellow watermelon from Thailand too which was interesting to me. It was all a lot of fun though and a great night to be able to bond with the people we’ve met and those we are working with.

I had a chance to meet with the leader of Servant Partners on Thursday to talk about my possibly coming out to Thailand for a period of 5 years with that organization. They focus on urban poverty, both bringing to gospel to them and searching out ways to bring some social justice as well. It’s an incarnational ministry which means I would be living in a slum with the people for the time that I was here. I’m excited about the work they do and the possibility I have to come and serve with them. I’ll keep you more updated as I know more about my plans after I return. Only about 6 weeks left! The time is going fast.
I’m going to see some wrestling (I think Sumo Wrestling!) on Thursday night with some of the kids from the government wards! I’m very excited about this. Friday night I should be going into the slums for a prayer meeting and to visit the friends I have there, then Saturday I’m going fishing with about 8 other guys from CCD’s staff (which will be interesting since it’ll mean I have to communicate in Thai all day) and Sunday me and Paul are taking Sen and Ratchanok to church which they are really excited about. Paul is the new volunteer that has come from England to work with CCD for the next 6 months. It’s very good having another volunteer at work. Well, the next week should be full of lots of stories and hopefully some good pictures too!

Fishing with the Thais

2006-01-24T06:06:00.000-08:00

Jan 22

Saturday was quite a day. I went fishing with some of the Thai staff here at CCD, and a couple other guys who I didn’t know. We traveled about an hour by motorbike to get to the lake which was a trip in itself. I still don’t know the name of the guy whose bike I rode on the back of, but he was pretty good at going through the middle of traffic jams. I guess we were fishing for some pretty big fish because we were using some 12 inch catfish as bait. I was using an eel (at least that’s what I think it was) for bait, but that didn’t work. The driver for CCD seemed excited to have me come out and seemed to do the most fishing. He tied a catfish onto the end of a rod and cast it out into the lake with a bobber attached to it. I had a suspicion that the fish was probably eating our baits because I kept seeing the bobber attached to the catfish swim up next to our other bobbers and rest there for a while before moving on. Our lines were tangled too since we had 9 rods on the ground next to each other. The catfish swimming around didn’t help that problem. After about six hours of only catching three small fish, we decided to go to another lake. Apparently the fish in this other lake eat bread because that’s what we were using as bait. At least I think it’s the fish who ate the bread off of my hook, but possibly it was something else because we didn’t catch any fish at that lake to prove anything.
I did manage to get a lot of sun that day though, and the ants were biting a lot more often than the fish. After the two catfish we used as bait and the 3 small fish of about the same size we caught, I think we only came ahead by 1 fish. I guess that’s better than leaving with less fish that what we came with!

Sen

2006-01-15T08:02:00.000-08:00

Sen’s name means 100,000, or it can better be translated as meaning, “extreme”. I think this is a pretty suitable name for him since he seems to have more of an extreme personality. I have to say too that Sen probably has one of the biggest mouths I have seen on a Thai person, which makes his smile extra big. I wonder what Sen would have done with his life if he weren’t disabled. I tend to think that he would have been the class clown, the guy that always makes you laugh no matter how bad you might be feeling. Sen loves to wrestle with me, or anyone else for that matter. He also shows no fear of hurting himself and loves to play games that see who could stand the most pain.
One day we were doing paper mache and I looked over at Sen and saw him painting glue on one of the other guys’ head rather than on the boxes. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw how Sen just laughed like anyone of my friends would when they play a trick on me. That’s Sen though. What makes his antics even funnier is the fact that he almost hast to move in slow motion to have the ability to control his arms at all. It’s really funny to watch him shut the door on one of the other guys (who also lack the ability to move quickly) before they can get through. He always has such a great smile and laugh when he does it too.
His speech is also really slow and sometimes it takes him a few breaths to muster up what he is going to say. I do think that he’s getting quicker at speaking though and I always wait for him to answer my questions before I move on. The more stimulated and excited he is, the faster and more frequent the words come from him. He’s pretty good at remembering English words too. One day after playing games and wrestling with him I took him back to his ward (where he spends most of his time) and he shouted out “See you tomorrow!” That was one of the first times I heard him speak since being here so I keep trying to teach him more English each day. He loves to write in Thai and English too, so sometimes I give him my notebook and write a sentence or two for him to copy. This could be an activity that takes most of the morning, but he always seems really excited when it’s finished.
I heard from a friend that last year during cold season Sen got really sick and almost died. I feel extremely blessed to be able to enjoy his friendship while I’m here because this place wouldn’t be the same without him. Praise God too that he hasn’t been sick this cold season at all. Please pray for Sen that God would increase his ability to speak and the movement in his arms and legs. Also pray for good health and lots more fun memories.

New House

2006-01-09T08:01:00.000-08:00

Jan 9

Saturday we had a new volunteer move to Thailand. Her name is Meg and she’s a 33 year old teacher from England who worked teaching the disabled there. About 7 more volunteers will be moving out here in January sometime so I moved into the other volunteer home on Saturday to help with the new volunteers that come in. It’s been a bit of a change, but still a nice change of pace. I’m excited for all the new volunteers to get here. Allison (my friend from America) is coming out in a little over a week to be here for 5 weeks. That’s going to be encouraging too. This house is closer to the work site, but further away from everything else it seems. Still, there is plenty to do around here and it doesn’t take much of a bike ride to make it to the other house.

Yesterday I went back to the other house to help with some “yard work”. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but when I got there Taktan called and asked me to cut down the papaya tree. I hung up the phone rather excited as I grabbed my machete(s) and went out to cut the tree. It was then that I realized I had no idea what a papaya tree looked like. I waited for her to come home and she told me it was the mango trees. If you ever have a chance to cut down a mango tree with a machete, I highly recommend it. I cut down three mango trees with a total of three swings of my machete. They are so soft. Then she asked me to cut down four other trees that were in the way I guess. It was a rather fun time and when it was done I think I was more thankful than she was.

Sports Day!

2006-01-04T01:35:00.000-08:00

Dec 29

The last two days have been a bit out of the ordinary. On Monday, I was told by the CCD people that me and Carina would be going to a university on Wednesday to speak about our volunteering experience in Thailand. It was supposed to be for an hour and we had to have a computer presentation. This made for some quick last minute work as I finished mine Tuesday night about midnight or so. The next morning we’re being driven away in a van about an hour north of the city where we were speaking. I was planning on spending some time during my talk explaining what CCD does, but right before I was to speak one of the staff with us took some time to explain CCD to the students. Some last minute changes made for a rough talk, but at least some of the students were interested. Afterwards they demonstrated some games for us that the different regions of Thailand would play and invited us to join. They also had some Thai dance done by some of the Art students that we were able to see while we were there. Altogether it was a good day and it was definitely great to talk with some of the students there.
Today was sports day at the government homes. I can’t really explain well what all took place in such a short space, but there were all kinds of people dressed up, cheerleaders, majorettes, an important lady sitting on a leather couch, banners, and a spectacular opening ceremony. The ceremony concluded with them releasing a banner into the air, which unfortunately was a little heavier than they calculated because the balloons holding it up we only strong enough to float it across the field at eye level into the trees rather than spectaculously up into the sky and out of sight. The games consisted of eating contests, potato sack races, egg tosses, water balloon toss, etc. Not really the sports I was excited about, but it was still a lot of fun for us and the children who were all divided into separate teams with us. I was supposed to wear a white suit for the opening ceremony, but surprisingly, I had left that out on my packing list for coming to Thailand. I did wear the tennis shoes I brought, which marks the first time I have worn socks since coming here.

Merry Christmas everyone

2005-12-26T08:38:00.000-08:00

25-Dec

Merry Christmas everyone! Well, I must say that being here over Christmas hasn’t really seemed like I was missing too much of the Christmas season that you would get at home. You might think that in a country that is reportedly less than 1% Christian, Christmas would come and go without much thought. Surprisingly, this country just loves celebrating for whatever reason it can. Our Christmas season here was filled with all the songs, red Santa hats, and Christmas parties you would find at home. It’s actually kept me quite busy this month and I’m looking forward to the end of next week when things seem to go back to normal a bit.
Christmas for me was a bit of a slow day. We had a Christmas party all day and night Friday for work here, then Saturday morning we had one for the house. Saturday afternoon me and Sarah went into the city to buy some bus tickets and search for some Thai learning books. We thought it might be a fun treat to eat some American food while we were there since it had been almost three months since I had eaten anything without rice or noodles. Christmas morning at around 3:30 I was huddled in front of the toilet while the chorus of “We wish you a Merry Christmas” was going around and around in my head. The burger became quite regrettable and I decided not to even think of eating American food like that again until I had to. So, I had a fever and stomach ache all day which kept me from eating much at all.
I mustered up enough strength in the afternoon to gather the Christmas gifts I had bought for the family I lived with last summer and headed into the slum on the other side of the city. I was supposed to meet them for church in the morning but they were pretty understanding towards my absence. As usual, I was surprised by the time I had to leave at how much we could communicate with each other with the language barrier. It makes the hours I spend each week studying the language worth it. I left the slums and went directly to an American lady’s house who invited us for a Christmas Party. It was quite a change from going from the slums where I was trying my hardest to keep up with the language to going to this lady’s house. It must be one of the biggest houses I’ve seen in Bangkok and the people at the party where all older and definitely seemed to be in a much higher tax bracket than me and my compadres in the slum. The food at the party was sliced ham, different cheeses, breads, cookies, etc. It was really nice, though I stuck to the curry seeing as how it was the first time I had eaten all day.
Well, I hope that your Christmas goes well and I look forward to hearing from all of you!

Christmas craziness

2005-12-21T08:26:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Things have been getting a little busy around here with Christmas and all. It's funny you know, you would think that coming to a country that's reportedly less than one percent Christian would mean that the Christmas season would come and go without much commotion. Not so this year. Since coming back from Phukket, we've had a party for the community based rehabilitation kids and families with CCD. This meant waking up before six on a Saturday morning to leave. The volunteers were expected to prepare a couple songs and the girls had to learn Thai dance to perform there. Then, on Tuesday, we had a big party at the government compounds for the small children hosted by CCD. It was a good christmas party and the girls had to prepare their Thai dance again for their performance. I escaped from performing in that one somehow. Friday is the big CCD christmas party where I had to go buy a gift for the gift exchange. I've been preparing some muay thai kickboxing dance thing with the guys at work that i have to perform there. Then i have to do a skit with the volunteers for the party. Then i have to sing a song with them. The party is in the afternoon and the morning is filled with CCD sports day. Apparently there's some games that we play against one another and for some reason I'm supposed to dress up like a girl at some point??? I don't really know what they were saying to me, we'll see how that goes. Then there's a christmas party at the house here on Saturday and on Christmas we have some open house with another missionary here working with CCD. Wednesday I think I'm going to a university somewhere to talk about what I'm doing here, but I'm still not too sure about that since I haven't heard anything since Phukket about it.

I've never heard of sports day, but i have a second one the following week with all the government staff too. Thailand is finally having it's cold season, this means about a weeks worth of 80 degree days and 70 degree nights. I think this is the only time that they can play sports here without dying of heat.

Everything is going well though. I'm going to take New Years and go to an island nearby with some of Sarah's friends. It'll be nice to enjoy the rest for a change.

Well, that's a small taste of my Christmas so far here, I hope all your shopping is going well and have fun with the decorating!

Phukket

2005-12-21T08:23:00.000-08:00

December 13

Last weekend was the weekend we spent in Pukket. It was pretty amazing actually being in the place that the Tsunami had devastated last year. It was funny to think that everything we had seen was different than it was last year. I think the thing that amazed me the most was the emotional effect it had left on the people in the area. The fear of another Tsunami is so large that the sound of any siren still sends the people running for the surrounding mountains. We stayed in a small community of houses the following two nights that was build for the people who had lost their homes in the Tsunami. I can’t help but think that the fact that every house on the four small streets that make up the community looks the exact same serves as a constant reminder of what brought them there.

The children we brought from Bangkok seemed to really enjoy being down there though and were able to encourage some of the local children to share their experiences with the Tsunami. The area is beautiful down there though and the children seemed to really enjoy swimming in the ocean, even though a couple people were stung by jellyfish! The evenings were filled with programs where the children would go and share a performance for the others. Of course, this meant that we foreigners also had to share a program which left us scrambling for ideas (we always seemed to be informed of these things shortly before we are supposed to give them!). The Thai love for Kareokee eventually led into singing where I was called out to sing for the people. I chose “Kung Fu Fighting” at the request of Sarah. During the musical solo I broke into some Kung Fu moves. In the end, none of the Thai people could understand if I was singing in Thai or English! After that, 4 little Thai girls who prepared a dance for the evening requested that I come up and dance with them. Apparently they thought it was funny enough to ask me to join the following night when they did it for the other children.

Our large colorful bus which we rode in for about 40 hours or so during these pas four days also had a kareokee machine which got plenty of use.

2005-12-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

PITAYA
(pee ta ya)
I realize that I don’t talk much about the guys that I work with. It’s easy not to talk about them much because most of the stories seem sad. But this isn’t fair either since the stories need to be told and their lives are just as important as you and me. So, I’ll try to pick a new person every other week or so to tell you about.
This is being written to remember Pitaya. I can’t think I can really describe him any better than to say that he’s just simply put, a beautiful person. Pitaya is 30 years old and has lived in the government wards since he was at least 5. The records aren’t that good so I’m not sure if he was brought here at a younger age or not, I wonder too if he remembers anything about life outside of the government complex. I also know that there is no real way us to know what it is like to grow up there, but I’ll try to give an idea as best I can tell. Pitaya has spent most of his life surrounded by other disabled people being taken care of by government workers. Most of the children had either been abandoned because of their disability, or they had been dropped off after a couple of years when the parent dies or cannot afford to take care of the child anymore. Pitaya probably has never lived in a room with less than 30 other people at least. The government employees are good, but with so many kids to feed and bath, etc, it becomes impossible to give all the children the same attention a child with a family gets.
He has probably always had ample food to eat and a bed to sleep on…even if he has had to share it with other people at times. Pitaya doesn’t get to chose what he eats everyday though, he doesn’t have any freedom to go for a walk if he would like. He can’t go see the city at night or spend some time alone to think about things when he’s feeling a little down. Basic freedoms that we can tend to take for granted were never really an option for Pitaya. He has pretty severe Cerebal Paulsy and can’t walk or even eat on his own. There most likely wasn’t much physical therapy available when he was a child or the resources for any kind of operation that might help him. Then again, maybe given all the resources and care he still wouldn’t be in any better physical shape today, I couldn’t tell you if those things would’ve helped. He is smart though, but unfortunately fell through the cracks and wasn’t given any kind of education. One day a lady was walking though the ward and Pitaya said “Hi Sandy, how are you today?” Sandy was really surprised and said “You know my name!?” Pitaya knew everyone’s name, but his intelligence was realized too little and too late.
He’s among the smarter of the guys I work with, but without education and living among other disabled children his entire life hasn’t pushed him to excel in this area. He can understand how to play games like checkers or connect 4, but it’s hard for him to become really good at it. He paints with his mouth though and makes cards which either CCD or another organization here help him to be able to sell for money. It’s not an income, as if he needed one, but it gives him purpose. This is important.
Pitaya always seem happy. It seems he’s learned how to appreciate the little things in life. He’s never had to think about the future, so he has lots of time to be happy for the day. He likes learning English and is pretty good at remembering some words. After about a month of working here I came in one morning and was really tired and hot. I sat down and said “how ya doing Pitaya” not expecting a response at all. I was amazed when he said “I’m fine, how are you?” Since then I try to teach him the basic English, we both like it. He also likes to arm wrestle with me when he sees me. I figure it has to be good for him since it helps strengthen his arms and he seems to have lots of fun doing it.
Pitaya is a good friend to have. He’s the kind of friend that always makes you smile when you see him.

The Haircut

2005-11-30T07:49:00.000-08:00

Nov 28

You ever have one of those moments when you’re sitting in class, or a meeting, minding your own business, zoning out, until someone says something that quickly snaps you back into attention? I had one of those moments the other day. I was sitting in a meeting with the director of CCD, Koon Wasan, and the other volunteers, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I hear Koon Wasan say “…and they asked me to play Santa Clause for them, but I said, why not have Jeff be Santa Clause instead? So Jeff, you’re Santa Clause on Dec. 6!” A sentence like that captures my attention pretty quickly. The other day he told me that they really wanted him to be Santa Clause instead, but I’ll be able to be Santa on the other day. I have no idea what is going to happen that day, but I’ll be wearing a big red suit and saying Ho Ho Ho (only probably in Thai, I still have to learn that).
I went to get a haircut last Saturday too. That was an experience. The only word I know that has anything to do with getting a haircut is “pom”, which means hair. I didn’t think that word was going to help me too much when trying to explain to him how to cut it. I didn’t even know how I wanted my hair to be cut in the first place, so I knew right away this would be fun. I walked into the barber shop and one of the guys waiting for his friend handed me a newspaper. I gave him a funny look since I don’t read Thai and he just laughed and then handed me the women’s underwear ads instead. I thought that was funny. One of the hair cutting guru’s told me to sit down, and as I was walking towards the chair we exchanged that familiar look. It’s the look I often get when I approach someone and they can tell by the expression on my face that I don’t speak Thai, and I can tell from the expression on their face that I’m probably going to be lucky to get what I came for. Fortunately, when I started to mumble something in Thai to break the silence he simply pointed to the wall where there was about four pictures to choose from. I quickly pointed to the one in front of me and sat down. I’m not sure why I pointed to that one, I think I knew deep down that it didn’t matter what picture I chose, in the end my head wouldn’t look like either of those four pictures. I was right, but it’s still a pretty good haircut.

Happy Thanksgiving

2005-11-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

24-Nov

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Me and Sarah couldn’t find anyone here in Thailand that celebrated Thanksgiving, other than a Canadian (that doesn’t count). People seemed interested in knowing what it was, so we decided that we would cook some traditional food for them and invite a bunch of people over. The first problem is that no one in Thailand seems to have a working oven that’s more than the size of a toaster. Once we realized that Thailand doesn’t have any turkey’s either we figured that ordering from pizza hut would be just as good. The only way to describe a turkey to a Thai person is to say that it is a big chicken. They eat chicken all the time so we figured it would lose the meaning if we just bought a couple chickens to eat. Sarah also made some fondue for the night.
So we celebrated. We had 2 Swedish girls there, 1 Thai guy and 1 Thai girl, 1 girl from Austria, 1 girl from Switzerland, 1 girl from England, a Canadian lady, and Sarah and me. Quite an interesting mix for Thanksgiving. The only leftovers though was one piece of cold pizza in the fridge the next morning…didn’t take long before someone got to it. Today for Thanksgiving I brought in some cookies and snacks for the guys I work with. These guys are all smart enough to take care of themselves, or at least know what they need. They ate their fill of snacks and then would say they didn’t want anymore. Except one boy. He ate most of what I brought in. I set the box of cookies down and walked away. He ate the rest. I would guess he is about 20 years old or so and most of the time he seems pretty disinterested in my presence there. I try to play with him but it doesn’t last long and he goes back to his own world quickly. For some reason which I couldn’t understand at first, he seemed to be full of energy that afternoon. He was running around trying to play catch with me, we’d play for a couple minutes and then he’d see the exercise bike and insist on being on it. I thought that was rather strange since he seems to have a fear of gravity and doesn’t like to walk down stairs, let alone ride on any kind of bike. Pretty soon I realized he was doped up on sugar and all the snacks I brought in were gone. Still, I’ve never seen him so interactive and happy…makes me want to bring in a bunch of pixie sticks for him everyday!

New people and a Big Jungle

2005-11-21T08:12:00.000-08:00

22-Nov

Another girl arrived today from England. She came to work today and I welcomed her home to Thailand by giving her a ride to our house on the back of the motorbike. I never rode with anyone as nervous as she was! I prefer weaving through the busy streets with two Thai women on the bike than with on jumpy foreigner!
The Belgium roommates left on Saturday to do some traveling. It’s nice to have more room in the house. I think they were frustrating to live with for most of us, so things seem to be going better around the home. It’s really clean anyhow.
Also, a Thai guy named Dao just started volunteering today and will be here for the next 3 weeks or so. This is nice because it gives me someone else to speak some Thai with. I think he’ll move into our house here, which means I have to clean the room tonight. It would be good if he comes I think because where he is living now there are no people for him to talk to and go get food with, etc. It’s a good chance for him to learn English better if he comes here, which is what he wants to know more of. I finished chopping down our jungle of a yard today. Now I’m left with a giant grass pile in the front of our house. I have to figure out what to do with that. I was given a pair of hedge clippers to cut the lawn with. I realized pretty quickly that the job wasn’t going to be any fun and take forever. I decided to go down to the big weekend market here on Saturday and buy a couple of gardening weapons…I mean, tools. I figured a couple different swords (machette’s) would do the trick just fine. Surprisingly it only cost me 5 dollars for the two swords I used to cut down our jungle. And, the job became a lot more fun rather quickly!

Gratong Day

2005-11-21T08:09:00.000-08:00

Nov. 17

Yesterday we celebrated some festival here in Thailand called Gratong day….or something like that. It was pretty cool to see. Basically they take these little rafts, or graton’s made of styrofoam, or something floaty, and place candles and maybe gifts on them and float it down the river. It’s a Buddhist tradition so we didn’t take part, but just went to see it. It was amazingly crowded but really fun to experience. They float the Gratong down the river as a prayer offering I think. I keep hearing different things about why they do it. I hear it is an offering to the god of the river for any sins they may have committed against the river, such as littering in it, etc. Without any disrespect to the festival, I couldn’t help but notice the irony of asking forgiveness for littering in the river by having an entire city float styrofoam down it.
In other news, I think that living here is starting to wear on me a bit. The people and the culture is great, but going every day for the last 2 months not being able to understand when people talk or what is going on is getting a little annoying. For instance, yesterday morning one of the ladies came into work and said “so you’re going with Pueng tonight to the festival right?” This was the first I had heard of these plans so I said “huh?” To which she replied “Pueng told me you were going with her tonight.” To which I replied “oh…I guess I am. What time are we going?” She told me at 5. OK, Then after work I stopped by to see Pueng and ask her where we were meeting and TakTan had me drive her to the place that Sarah works to see her and the other people there. Apparently Sarah was entered into a beauty pageant and had just found out that afternoon. 30 seconds before she went on stage the lady that entered her told her that she had to do some Thai dance while there (of which she had no idea how to do), and the press was there also filming. That’s funny. After some more confusion we end up going to the festival at around 7 o’clock and coming back at half past 1 am.
It seems pretty common to hear about meetings and things while talking to staff by hearing them casually drop the information into the conversations. Today while talking to Sam he quickly said, “Anyways, I’m going to see you tomorrow after you get off work because you’re coming to the office for a meeting.” I need a vacation from all this confusion. Most things that should be very simple become so difficult without the understanding of the culture and the language. In other news, I saw the new Harry Potter tonight. It was good. I also found out today that I’m going to Phukket in a couple weeks to help with the children affected by the Tsunami. This will be a blessing I think because the Tsunami relief all came at once but now has died off a lot. I’m really glad for the opportunity. It was set up by the Friendship foundation people that we had the meeting with last weekend. I’m starting to understand I think what those meetings with them has been about.

just another random day

2005-11-13T18:25:00.000-08:00

13-Nov

So, a couple weeks ago we went to Reyong with that other foundation that works with orphaned kids in Thailand. They told us that we would all meet again on the 13th of November to have some kind of a forum about volunteering. They told us that 2 people from each country had to prepare something to talk about at the forum describing the volunteering in that country. Since there’s only two of us from America, that meant we would each have to speak. The Belgium’s were able to make there way out of going, and Sarah and the two Swedish girls spent the weekend planning and preparing what they were going to say. I had to wake up at 6:30 this morning and take a shower so I was ready for the van by 7. When we got on the van I decided to start preparing…after all, the press was going to be there so I needed to have something. None of us really had any idea what the goal was in this forum and spending the whole day in a classroom telling each other about what volunteering looks like to them didn’t sound real appealing. There was about thirty or forty people there, half of them students from the University. Only 5 of us didn’t speak Thai and so the whole thing was in English. This was harder for the people talking and for the Students who attended because they didn’t all speak English well. Lunch was good, and so was the opportunity to see some of the people that we met a couple weeks ago. I found out that the goal was to start building a network of volunteers…I think. We got back home around 5:30 and I was pretty tired of sitting through speeches all day. Oh yeah…about the 10 minute speech I had to give. I feel like it went pretty dang good. It felt like I was back in college again…getting assignments done at the last minute and sitting back in amazement when it all comes together as if I’d been working on it for days.

Connect 4 and dirty mop water

2005-11-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

Nov 10

Today was a pretty good day. I brought the guys at Rachawadee Boys (where I work) at connect 4 game. It is a pretty good game because they can all play it and it takes some mental concentration to win the game as well as some physical concentration to place the checker pieces into the slot where they want it. They really seem to enjoy playing it too. I also got to teach Sen and Peetaya some English today. Sen is really smart and seems to remember some from other volunteers in the past, but it takes him a long time to say something. It’s difficult for him to move any of his muscles so it always takes him a while to do anything. Peetaya is always asking questions about what things are in English but he has a hard time remembering the words.
After work I went home and had one of the funniest accidental falls that I can remember. I fell off of the stairs. A couple of the girls were cleaning the floor and put the kitchen chairs at the bottom of the stairs. I was on the 3rd step and went to step on the chair that was at the bottom of the stairs and somehow I missed it completely. I fell. I crashed through the chairs and fell on my back right into the bucket of dirty mopwater. I’ll try to put a picture of it up on the website. The other people in the house didn’t waste any time taking pictures of my circumstance. That’s all.

amazing thailand

2005-11-08T08:41:00.000-08:00

nov. 8

thailand is really cool. today i took the motorcycle in because the back tire had been popped. it's basically a bicycle tire. anyways, the guy had to take the entire back wheel off and put on a brand new intertube for me. total cost...$2. can't get service like that in the States.

i'm hungry right now though and wish i had a slice of pizza. i think this is the first time i have craved any american food.

girls night

2005-11-08T08:39:00.000-08:00

Nov 6

Friday night was “girls night” at the house. I’m not too sure what that meant since there are 7 girls living at this house and 1 other guy. That being said, every night here feels like girls night so I don’t know why there was a need to set a night aside for girls night. Oh well, I wanted no part of it. The moment I heard about it I decided that under no circumstances would I remain in the house on that night. So, I packed a bag and headed for Klong Toey, the largest slum community in Bangkok. I figured I would go and see the family I stayed with last year and either stay the night there if they offered or I would find a cheap guest house. It took 2 1/5 hours to get to Klong Toey by buses, I should probably find a faster route. I was an hour late for prayer that night but it was good to be there anyways. They had a prayer meeting with a bunch of different people in the slum. I recognized a lot of them from when I lived there last year and they remembered me. It was really good to see them again. We prayed a lot for the slum and when we were done I went back to P Charley’s house (my host from last year) and ate some Thai soup with him and the family. He offered me to sleep on the floor which I gladly accepted since it was almost 10 at night. So I slept on a hard tile floor all night with a sheet as a mat next to P Charley. It reminded me of staying there last year in a lot of ways. I never seemed to fully be able to understand what was going on at any given moment and I had a Bible study with P Charley late that night and early in the morning (½ in Thai, ½ in English, and ½ in gestures!)
I think the girls had fun at the house here, and, from what I hear about the level of girliness that was going on, I can’t think of a better place I could have slept that night than on P Charley’s floor!

motorcycle

2005-11-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

Nov 3

I have a motorcycle that I ride back and forth from work now. Well, it’s not really mine, it’s supposed to be repossessed soon, but the people haven’t come to get it yet. And, I have access to the keys so I take it to work everyday now. It’s a lot of fun. Today I took a couple of the Thai women that work at CCD to the supermarket. I wish I had a picture of that because the bike is only a 125cc I think and 3 people on it must look funny. A lot of people look anyways because I’m the only white guy in Pakkred I think that drives a motorcycle around.

Happy Halloween!

2005-11-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

Oct 31

Happy Halloween everyone! There’s no kids coming to the door asking for candy here, and even if there were I don’t think I’d understand them. Yesterday I took one of the guys to church with me. TakTan had to help a lot though. We took Peetaya to church and he really liked going. He wants to go to church every week he can but there isn’t always people who are able to take him. We went to church and then took him to McDonalds afterwards. He liked that food a lot better than the food he gets on a normal basis! He was talking to the other staff today about it and said how much he really liked going yesterday.
Today was payday for the staff also and some of them invited me and Sarah out to eat dinner with them at Sizzler. They don’t do it often but it’s a nice treat for them to be able to do. It was fun being there with them, even though we didn’t understand much of what was being said at all! The other thing I learned was that dinner at Sizzler didn’t mean a 1 hour endeavor. We met them there at 5 o’clock and didn’t leave until around 9 o’clock! It was lots of fun though and a great chance to bond more with the staff. Well, my Halloween was good, I hope that yours will be too.
Happy Trick or Treating everyone!

NongKai

2005-10-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

Oct 23

Me and Sarah had to go to Laos this week to get our non immigrant visas. Nongkai is the border town in Thailand, and in the town there is a bridge that crosses over to Laos. Everyone told me that Nongkai was a really cool city so I was kind of excited to go and see it. Plus I was supposed to go to the market there and pick up some things for people. Turns out though that I didn’t see much of Nongkai at all.
We took a bus that went all night long Wed. night and stopped in Nongkai finally 5:30 am (10 hr bus ride). As soon as we landed at Tuk Tuk driver was holding my arm and asking me where I was going. I expected this kind of welcome though since we were the only white people on the bus. It’s never a bad experience, just different than what any other Thai person would experience. He told me he’d take me across the bridge to Lao for 2.5 dollars. I knew the bridge wasn’t open yet, and when I said 1.75 dollars he accepted right away. Even in my state of just waking up I knew I probably wasn’t getting much of a deal here. All of a sudden we were brought to some kind of a shed outside where this lady told us she’d get all our paperwork done for $45. I didn’t know what kind of a deal this was, but there wasn’t too many other options and I didn’t feel like we would be ripped off to bad. So, we handed over our passports, she made us some coffee and I got to see a nice sunrise. After it was done we were taken by the tuk tuk across the bridge with another woman from the Philippines who was in the same situation we were in. Then we were in Laos and found out we had to spend the night. The next day we picked up our passports from embassy and rode a bus back to Thailand. As soon as we got back to Nongkai we were hurried onto another bus where we spent another 10 hours going home.
It turns out that it was a great thing that the tuk tuk driver took us to that lady, otherwise we wouldn’t have had all our paperwork and would’ve had to run all over the place and spent another day out there trying to get it! I felt so out of control during that whole experience, but I also was able to trust that it would all work out somehow in the end. Nongkai probably is a beautiful city, too bad I didn’t get to see it!

Weekend in Reyong, etc.

2005-10-17T09:12:00.000-07:00

Oct. 17

This weekend was pretty good I think. We went to some army base with a group called Friendship Foundation. They do a lot with children and want to do some joint things with CCD I think. I’m not too sure about everything that’s going on with it. It’s tough to sit through meetings when the person speaking has a difficult accent. I found myself last Tuesday sitting in some meeting that I had no idea what it was about, with the other volunteers and some of the Thai people from this foundation. As I started to space out a tad, the head guy here at CCD suddenly looked at me and said “Jeff, do you have any ideas for this, since you already have been here and know a little more?” That woke me up pretty quick, though I didn’t have much of an idea of what was going on. Next thing I know, me and the other volunteers here are on some army base 3 hours from Bangkok, getting to know a bunch of Thai college age students who also volunteer with this Friendship Foundation.
The other organization is not Christian, so I think that Koon Wasan (the founder of CCD) wanted us to be there so we could share with them why we would come from all around the world to volunteer our time with these kids. I think it went well. I still don’t have much of an idea about what we were doing there. Visit, who is the president of the other foundation, keeps talking about the three phases of his plan. I’m not sure what phase we’re in, but I think that we are supposed to meet up on the 13th of November with them again to give a presentation of what volunteering looks like in our own countries.
It was great though to be able to meet some other people from Bangkok and develop some friendships with some Thai people here in Thailand. It was a pretty interesting trip though, since there was about 24 Thai people, 4 Belgiums, 2 Americans, 2 Swedes, and 2 Brits from England. It makes me glad that my native language is English because I am always able to express fully what I want to say, even if the others don’t fully understand it! I am picking up more of the Thai language though. I find that I am able to understand more and more of what people are saying. I’m pretty bad at speaking it though as I tend to ignore the tones of words when I talk. I’m also getting faster at reading the language. TakTan, the Thai lady who lives here is really good at helping me out, though I think my unending questions about things might be overwhelming to her at times!
Good night.

Moments of Reality

2005-10-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

Ok, so to start off, the weather is really hot here. They have 3 seasons in Thailand, hot, rainy, and cold season. surprisingly, hot season comes right after rainy season...not much in between. Although, all the Thai people say that the seasons are not hot, rainy, and cold, but rather hot, hotter and hottest! All I know is that rainy season is starting to end and we're heading into cold season! The bad news however, is that cold seasons seems to affect all of Thailand except Bangkok and the area surrounding it. Hot season here we come...

Oct 11

2005-10-11T09:53:00.000-07:00

Oct 11

Today I was able to buy a bicycle finally. That was pretty nice since now I won’t have to pay the motorbike taxis for rides to work anymore, plus I’ll be able to get a workout at the same time. The bad thing is that the brakes don’t really stop me, just slow me down a little bit. The bike itself however was pretty cheap, I bought the bike and a lock for $40 USD. I’ll be able to leave it for other volunteers when I leave too so that’ll be nice for someone to use.
This weekend we’ll be going to Rayong, which is a beach a few hours away from here. We’re going with a group of Thai people who volunteer their time with other children from Thailand. Most of those kids have been abandoned, primarily due to AIDS. It’s going to be good to meet up with them and share with them why we would travel from around the world to spend time with these kids. Most of the people from this other organization are not Christians, so it’ll be nice to share with them. They have a big heart for the kids though and hopefully this will make for good connections between CCD and this other organization. They have a retreat every year for the kids in Thailand and try to bring kids from CCD as well. During our time in Rayong we’re going to plan for next years retreat and also build friendships with the people there. I’m looking forward to it, should be a good opportunity. Only the volunteers are going to be going on it though and I think that the Thai lady who lives in our house is a little disappointed that she wasn’t invited. The culture here is very passive though so she wouldn’t speak up about it. I’m not sure if I could say or do anything to help, but I think it’d be best if I just stayed out of it. She might enjoy a more peaceful weekend anyways with all of us gone.

Oct 8 Revisitin Klong Toey

2005-10-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

Oct 8

Today was a lot of fun. I went with the two sarah’s (one from America and the other from Sweden) and we met up with my friend Noon in Bangkok. Noon is one of the women I got to know last year while I was here. She lives in Klong Toey, one of the largest slums in Bangkok. She and her roommate moved into the slums to be able to minister to the people living there. We met up with her in Bangkok somewhere and then went to the slums to visit the family I stayed with last year. It was just like old time, sitting on the floor, drinking some water, and trying real hard to translate what they might possibly saying to me while most of the words just bounced off of my eyeballs. Noon speaks good English, so that helped a little, but most of the time I was just looking at them while they talked to me telling me stories of what was going on there. It was tough trying to keep up. The church in Klong Toey is doing good apparently. Last week they had an outdoor meeting where they had evangelists come into Klong Toey to preach for the people and talk to people in the community. 68 people accepted Christ that day. There was one man who was unable to use his arm, but he came and heard the message about the power of God. I’m not to clear on all the details of the story, but I do know that the man went home that night and decided he wanted to lift his arm, and to his surprise he could. He praised God and went and told everyone the good news.
It was real encouraging to hear the good news of what was going on there and to see my friends again. They invited me to come out there on Friday nights and pray with them at their prayer meetings that they have there. I’m definitely going to try to make many of those. I’ll probably be able to stay overnight with the family I stayed with last year, or find someone else to take me in for the evening so I can stay late and pray with them.
I’m learning the value of public buses too! Despite the time it takes to wait for the bus and then all the stops they make, they really make for cheap transportation that’ll take me all the way from one side of the city to the other when I need. I can take two buses to get to Klong Toey from where I am and it cost less than half a dollar to get there. I’m getting much more familiar with getting around here in Bangkok which is definitely making things much more fun. Now, if only I can get this language thing down fluently…

October 1

2005-10-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

Oct 1

Today I went to the Sunday market with the Belgiums, though I didn’t stick with them but rather went off on my own. We had four and a half hours there but I wasn’t too interested in shopping. I did buy some fisherman pants and planned on buying a tennis racked that they use to electrocute mosquitoes with, but I forgot. It was tiring being there for that long, but I made it through the day fine. I haven’t eaten much today other than some pineapple and a couple slices of bread, but I don’t really desire to eat much now either. The day was pretty cool, I went to some park across the street and sat there and watched the people for a while. It was pleasant. There were lots of Thai people having picnics there in the grass, just like what I would imagine it to be like in a similar park in America. My bargaining skills aren’t yet up to par though. The days can be kind of boring at times around here since there isn’t that much to do and I don’t intend to spend too much money always going out to movies, etc. The Belgiums usually just speak Dutch to each other, which doesn’t bother me at all, but it’s harder to get into conversations with them. Many times I’ll be sitting in the living room with all of them, but it’s just like I’m sitting by myself. I started reading the Da Vinci code because they have it here and that seems to capture my attention pretty well. There’s another volunteer house which is occupied with a bunch of people from around the world that are here for the seminar that CCD is hosting for the next month. I think I’m going to wait for Sarah and Karina to get back home from eating and see if they wanna go over there and meet some of the other people and find something to do. I have a feeling though it’ll just be lots of sitting around with nothing to do also.

Sept 28

2005-10-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

Sept 28

The second day of work for us was pretty uneventful. The staff for the house we are at are all in training so I don’t really know what is going on. With the Belgium students here I think that CCD has too many people volunteering for this week because there aren’t any staff working in the government complex with us. Otherwise, it’s pretty stinkin hot here. I have a hard time staying awake during the day because of the humidity. I just wanna go to sleep sometimes and I find myself dosing off unexpectedly. My stomach has hurt since I got here, sometimes I don’t really want to eat because it hurts when I do. Hopefully I’ll figure that one out soon though.

Sept 27

2005-10-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

Sept 27

Today was the first day of work for us. It was kind of uneventful since we were in a place that we won’t be normally and neither us or the staff seemed to know what to do because it was a different kind of day. There was a church from Bangkok there to play with the kids so we were kind of just sitting around. After work we walked most of the way back, then Sarah got a taxi and I hitched a ride with a CCD van I saw.

After work we sat around and worked on our Thai and then we went out to eat. I wanted to find some pineapple afterwards but it’s hard to find now with all the road construction here and we got drenched in a hard rain. It was nice to be at work finally and settled in somewhat. There’s not much room here for being by yourself since the house is pretty crowded. No worries though.