Volunteering in Thailand

I'm currently in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand [near the Myanmar (Burma) border]. This town is home to many refugees from Myanmar, particularly ethinic Mon and Karen peoples.

These three weeks I've been volunteering at Baan Unrak, a community development project that serves the children and mothers in need. The 2 primary functions are the orphanage and the primary school. Other projects include programs such as one that provides various support for mothers, aiming to help them get and maintain employment and not to have to give up their children.

Children here are orphaned by fatal diseases (which are rampant due to conditions in Myanmar), as well as by poverty. Most places will not hire women with children. Some parents simply can not afford to feed their kids. Others resort to selling one child (to child traffickers) in order to afford to feed the rest of the family. And of course, there are cases of children from abusive homes.

The poverty and lack of employment and schooling is a complex problem. Luckily, there seem to be many aid projects here, but of course there are never enough resources. And when you've got someplace that has some resources, it attracts loads of other people desparate to escape the exploitation of a corrupt political system.

Anyway, going back before this Internet cafe closes...

I live in the volunteer house, which is one block away from the primary school. I teach English to kindergardeners and 2nd-graders in the mornings, Monday through Friday. Every afternoon (Sun - Sat), I hang out with the 6 kids who live in a house on the school grounds with the Didi in charge of education. We go swimming in the lake, use the Internet, eat meals together, and stuff. [The other 200 or so kids live some blocks away at the home with the Didi in charge of the orphanage.] These kids live here instead of the home for one reason or another.

There are 4 girls and 2 boys. One girl is 14, and the rest of the crew are 11-year-olds. One of the girls (triplets with the 2 boys) has a physical disability, and she and I spend a lot of time closer together--and man, she could melt the grinch's icy heart in under 5 minutes. These kids are completely capable of entertaining themselves, and staff are around campus all the time, but Didi A prefers that they have frequent direct attention. The kids are fun, can be rowdy, and a pain when they're in naughty moods. The Didis are in Malaysia for 3 weeks for a conference, so we're without the regular check-in's with their top authority figure. Thank goodness they keep each other in check, because I can't understand a word of Thai. I know someone's breaking a rule, if I suddenly hear Didi's name half a dozen times in the midst of a railing in Thai. They're English is pretty good, though it's really 2 of the girls who I'd say are best able to express most things in fragmented sentences.

The websites for Baan Unrak are: http://www.baanunrak.org/ and http://baanunrakprimaryschool.com/

Okay, sawadeekaw for now!