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Arrive in Mae Sot yesterday, Thursday February 15. An interesting day for sure. One of the fascinating parts of this trip is the variety of experience from one to the next. Mae Sot is an interesting place. A border town its located in northwest Thailand and only a river seperates it from Myawaddy, Myanmar. In later days (As I write this from journal notes I took at the time) I will learn that a number of factories are located here in Mae Sot, primarily to take advantage of cheap labor as workers are allowed to come across the border for the day as long as they return by 6pm. The town is an intereting combination of thai, burmese, and also indian and chinese influence as well.
Anyway, my focus here is to spend time at "Little Schools" a small non-profit started by an American English teacher, who has been teaching in different parts of Asia for the past 20 years. I'm here to get a sense of what they do and see if its a place I may want to spend a longer period of time at later in the year.
There are two other volunteers here at this time, Wendy--a Canadian andveteran world traveler, nurse, mother of 3 adult children, and fearless adventurer and Jason--an American from Georgia, married to a Thai woman and spending his vacation time volunteering her in Thailand, quite impressive! Already we have spent a good chunck of our time piecing together ideas of ways which we can best help the children here, I've enjoyed this coming together.
Talk about jumping right into the action, well at 9am Wendy (who has already been here 10 days) met Jason and I (both of us arrived last night) at our guesthouse. She shows us round town and gives us the rundown on how things work back at "the house". The house is located 20 minutes outside of town. A number of burmese children, some who are orphans and others whose families can't afford to feed them or provide shelter live with Teacher Dhane at the house. We will be meeting and joining them later in the day. We do some errands and then visitake a trip to the hospital.
Sadly, two days ago one of the boys, Ahay a 14 year-old burmese muslim, was riding his bike, trying a no hands trick he lost control and was hit by a truck. His toes were crushed and had to be amputated. Its a mystery whether he has a father and his mother and sister had not visited him at the hospital. It was unclear why they didn't visit, but for the moment, we were his family of sorts. Wendy had been there each day and so we joined her. I don't have relative experience to compare it to, but suffice to say the conditions were pretty rough in the hospital. We do our best to comfort him and provide support.
Heading back out to the village where the Teacher Dhane's house is, Wendy takes us on a mini field trip to take a look at where many of the children's families live. Underneath the "Friendship Bridge" the connects Myawaddy to Mae Sot, families are camped out and this is there home. Clothes hanging to dry on bushes, people bathing in the river, tarps for temporary shelter. Its a depressing scene. A few children come up to us with cartons of cigarettes for sale.
We make our way home to meet the children. Running to us as we enter, it was wonderful to meet and spend time with them. We went for a swim in a nearby swimming hole and played some games. Quite an interesting first day here.
previous travel blog entry
lizastravels says:
I was looking for little schools website and I ended up running into your blog. I love these kiddies. I was just there for a week or so last month! there making plans to move into a farm house which has a swimming hole.