Tuesday
Waking this morning to the sounds of a couple of chirpy toddlers, bucket showers in action, traffic outside, bustling in the kitchen.. We take stock of the situation over breakfast (which, incidentally, is eaten on the floor, with the hands, like most meals. Also, like most meals, it is based on rice, helped along by most members with lashings of chilli paste.)
About 10 or 12 people live here - I'm still not sure exactly how many! - but there's Dee, of course, the bubbly leader/older sister/surrogate mother, two toddlers who Dee has rescued from abandonment and are not yet big enough for any of her children's homes; there's a bunch of guys, a few girls, and of course blessed old Timu, who takes care of everyone, champion of the kitchen, cleanliness management etc.
After getting ourselves together we pack our bags and pile into their old ute - 5 in the cab, 6 or 7 in the tray. 7hrs driving, here we go!! Agh, you're beginning to get a feel for this sore bum business? We're off to one of Dee's children's homes - primarily for taking care of a whole bunch of orphaned Karen refugee kids (Karen people lived in Myanmar until the Burmese decided to try and exterminate them a bunch of years ago. Dee is also Karen, and everything she does is centered on caring for her scattered people).
After a couple of hours we've finally beaten Bangkok and are out in the towns. We stop now and then for fuel, or drinks, or food (the last is easily the most important to all concerned). The ground begins to rise, the air freshens, we pass some lakes or rivers, and arrive at a cluster of little bamboo huts on stilts. One of them is ours! We meet the kids, and as it's the hour for showering Belle and I head down to the shower hut where we wrestle with soap and sarongs and tip buckets of water over eachother (which one of the girls is pulling up from the well there).
Back for dinner which we share on the rickety but clean bamboo floor; we have fun teaching the kids a little english, drawing pictures, saying and repeating.. We sing some songs and they copy our actions with suprising speed and accuracy. I tell a story, we sing some more, unroll our beds and sleep (the bamboo has a little more spring than the solid wood floors at Dee's, which is nice.) The cocks start crowing around 4:30...
Waking this morning to the sounds of a couple of chirpy toddlers, bucket showers in action, traffic outside, bustling in the kitchen.. We take stock of the situation over breakfast (which, incidentally, is eaten on the floor, with the hands, like most meals. Also, like most meals, it is based on rice, helped along by most members with lashings of chilli paste.)
About 10 or 12 people live here - I'm still not sure exactly how many! - but there's Dee, of course, the bubbly leader/older sister/surrogate mother, two toddlers who Dee has rescued from abandonment and are not yet big enough for any of her children's homes; there's a bunch of guys, a few girls, and of course blessed old Timu, who takes care of everyone, champion of the kitchen, cleanliness management etc.
After getting ourselves together we pack our bags and pile into their old ute - 5 in the cab, 6 or 7 in the tray. 7hrs driving, here we go!! Agh, you're beginning to get a feel for this sore bum business? We're off to one of Dee's children's homes - primarily for taking care of a whole bunch of orphaned Karen refugee kids (Karen people lived in Myanmar until the Burmese decided to try and exterminate them a bunch of years ago. Dee is also Karen, and everything she does is centered on caring for her scattered people).
After a couple of hours we've finally beaten Bangkok and are out in the towns. We stop now and then for fuel, or drinks, or food (the last is easily the most important to all concerned). The ground begins to rise, the air freshens, we pass some lakes or rivers, and arrive at a cluster of little bamboo huts on stilts. One of them is ours! We meet the kids, and as it's the hour for showering Belle and I head down to the shower hut where we wrestle with soap and sarongs and tip buckets of water over eachother (which one of the girls is pulling up from the well there).
Back for dinner which we share on the rickety but clean bamboo floor; we have fun teaching the kids a little english, drawing pictures, saying and repeating.. We sing some songs and they copy our actions with suprising speed and accuracy. I tell a story, we sing some more, unroll our beds and sleep (the bamboo has a little more spring than the solid wood floors at Dee's, which is nice.) The cocks start crowing around 4:30...
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