Mae Hong Son (Day 2) - Huay Gung School

Gawd it's taking me some time to get to the end of this trip isn't it......Your going to be fed up reading about it by the time I'm finished!!. In my defence, during the last week, we have gone through all our stuff, had it packed up ready to be shipped, had the splats chipped (Lugs was determined not to get into the cat basket and had all four feet employed in the task of avoiding it) and we've been waiting with bated breath to see what on earth was going to happen with Thailand's political situation....ok, I'll stop making excuses and get on with it.

As I've already reported (here) leaving the village of Mae Jong was nowhere near as nerve racking as our arrival. The road, or the muddy track as it's otherwise known, had dried up overnight so we were not sliding all over the place much to the relief of all concerned (although the plummets on either side did still cause a few heart stopping moments!!). We had planned to visit Om Ai School which the BWG recently gave money to for the refurbishment of their bathrooms (If you look closely at the picture you can see the village) but we were told that the road was impassible and the only way to get there would have been by elephant......we didn't have the time.....or the elephants!!

The next school we visited, Huay Gung, was one of the most heart breaking places I have ever been and I left there with my blood boiling and a determination to help change things there!! My first impression of the school was that it was not too different from the others we had visited but once we started asking questions and walked past the main building we were shocked by what we found.

To put this into some kind of context - there are 190 kids attending this school aged between 4 and 16 and over 30 kids live here full time.

To be honest I don't really know where to start!! (The photo's don't show just how awful it was there). There was rotten, mouldy food all over the place...there is no canteen, all food is cooked on this one stove, and not enough teachers to look after all the kids, never mind keep the place clean, so they are kind of running riot. The water tanks which are supposed to provide them with a water supply for the year are leaking, the classrooms were in a terrible state and the accommodation for both the kids and the teachers was just horrific!! I don't know if you can see from the pictures but there are no beds, no proper mats or mattresses, mold was growing up the walls, mouldy boxes were piled up in a corner along with broken desks and the teachers, that don't sleep in with the kids, sleep in the cooking area cause there is nowhere else for them to go!!!

To add insult to injury some idiot in the education department (I have no idea which government was in charge at the time) pledged that every school in Thailand would have a computer and computer room. The people that run the schools were told that the money would have to come out of their budgets (no extra funds were made available) and that they had to comply. So, as a result, this school has a computer room and something that would pass as a computer....they can't use it........because they have no fucking electricity!!!! That money could have paid for another teacher, or beds, or a new water tower but nooooo someone wanted to be able to tell the rest of the world that every school in Thailand has it's own computer!!!!

On a happier note - The school now has a new headmistress in place and it was her that approached us for help and showed us round. She has some excellent plans for tackling the problems there but she needs financial help to achieve them so, upon our return to Bangkok, I made a special request to the BWG Committee that we pledge to support this school for an initial period of three years to help it get to an acceptable standard. It was agreed and I have offered to co-ordinate the project from the UK.