Mum's last few days

I can't believe her holiday is over already - it 's flown past!!

On Tuesday I took her along to Wat Pho (That's the HUGE big gold Buddha that I've written about before - if your interested you can read about it here). We decided to have our fortunes told since Wat Pho is famous for it's fortune tellers (and massage - what a combination) and I've never had it done. Well, we ended up sitting there waiting for aaaaages as this Indian family of about a billion went before us.......ok, so it wasn't actually a billion it was only five but they really took their time......at one point the son actually asked if the fellow could tell them what year his mother was going to die!! (She was sitting right there - nice eh.......I could have asked but I think Mum would have bashed me!!). Anyway, Mum was told that she's going to be coming into money and that she was going to meet a man in the next couple of years (she was also told that she talks too much and that she should think before she speaks.......which gave me the giggles till he said the same about me when it was my turn!!). According to the wee blokey Chris and I are going to have a long and happy life (that's good), we're going to have two children (that's not so good......do you think cats count?) and I talk too much!! (Harrumph!!). After that we went to Khao San Road and comforted ourselves with pizza and then went on a boat tour of the Klongs - God I was knackered when I got home!!

On Wednesday I dragged Mum out her pit early and she accompanied me to the orphanage to see Mo-Cha-Ya. I've not been able to go for ages as the place was shut to visitors......some infectious disease (it was nothing serious just very infectious) was doing the rounds. God she's grown and after a few cuddles was very smiley (I have discovered that she likes raspberries blown on her tummy and that she has really tickly feet) so I got some great photo's which I'll use for the scrapbook. Mum really liked the place and, like me, was pleasantly surprised - actually it was quite lovely......we watched a family come and collect their little boy......the new Mum took one look at him and burst into tears and he couldn't wait to be picked up and cuddled (would bring a tear to a glass eye!!). It's now become habit to have lunch at The Beirut Restaurant when we get back to Bangkok so it was hummus and pita bread all round - this is what I do every Wednesday and it was great that Mum got to see, and participate, in my real life rather than just the tourist side of things.

Thursday was Mum's last day and was also the BWG November lunch. This is one of the lunches that has vendors attend so I had arranged to have a welfare table. We had coloured gels (generously donated by Carolyn) that you can stick on your windows and they look like stained glass when the sun shines through them, we had batik cushion covers made by kids that live on one of the slums, wine charms made by moon and my drawings. Mum came along and helped me set up and then Carolyn, Anne-Marie and Mum helped me sell our items. We did really well - over 3,000 baht will go back to the slum kids (I'm doing another sale in a weeks time so we'll be able to add to that), over 4,000 baht went to Moon to fund her kids though school and so far I think we're at about 4,000 baht to go into the BWG Welfare Fund. (I sold five drawings......FIVE......I couldn't believe it......was grinning like a loony all through lunch!!). Speaking of lunch - the food was fab and I had arranged for a girl called Kyra to come and speak on the history of the Karen Hill Tribe and we presented her with a cheque at the end of her presentation. It was a great day and, because we had done so many BWG things, Mum knew loads of people who made a point of coming over and speaking to her.

Sadly after lunch it was time to come home and attempt to pack everything Mum had bought into a suitcase. We took one look at all the stuff and decided that there was no way it was going to fit into the case she had brought so she ended up borrowing one of the HUGE cases we had brought when we moved over here (I should have taken a photo). I advised her that the best thing to do was to leave Chris to do her packing since he is master packer extraordinaire - even he had his doubts that it was all going to fit.....I'm happy to say that we got there in the end. (and in her defence she now has all her Christmas pressies bought AND some birthday presents for next year)

I was really sad to see her go - but was chuffed to bits when she said that she'd had high expectations for the holiday and we'd managed to surpass them in the first few days!! I think she's going to have fun boring people to death with hundred's of photo's (and I'm really not kidding about the hundred's of photo's either!!!)

Visit to a Bangkok Slum

Yesterday I did my first piece of work on behalf of the BWG.

Just after Christmas there was a horrific fire that swept through a squatter community in Klong Toey causing 300 slum houses to burn down and making numerous families homeless. The slum is under one of the expressways and it took something like 30 fire trucks about three hours to get the fire under control. It didn’t help that the gas canisters people used for cooking were exploding and sending fire balls into the sky and, to make matters worse, rescue services couldn’t get to the fire and ended up having to go onto the expressway to put it out.

At the time members of the BWG visited the site and offered to help where they could – people had been so generous that they were asked to wait till the site was cleared and then to give some money to help with the re-building of the area. So yesterday I met up with Julie and Louise and headed over to the Human Development Foundation (HDF), also known as the Mercy Centre, which is responsible for coordinating the relief effort.

The HDF is run by a man called Father Jo and what they do is incredible. It began as a single nursery school aimed at providing the slum children with a basic education and then grew into an umbrella organisation for 31 schools - 30 nurseries and one primary, all located in the slums around Bangkok (So far they have educated more than 55,000 children and there are nearly 4,000 students currently enrolled in these schools, taught by 110 teachers). There is even a ‘Special Kids’ programme which gives exceptionally bright children, that want to pursue higher education, financial help to continue their studies up to university level. Then, after arranging medical care for some members of the community, a regular service was set up three times a week (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday), until the HDC procured enough money for a medical clinic that now provides pre-natal and post-natal care, as well as general health care, seven days a week. It doesn’t end there…..they have also set up the ‘All-Slum Savings and Loan Programme’ to help fire victims rebuild their homes before developers can move in, they run vocational training and employment programmes (This involves giving slum mothers, who cannot afford to leave their homes, sewing machines and fabric and then selling the products they create in exhibitions and fairs), The Mercy Centre also cares for HIV carriers and Aids victims and serves as a hospice for the terminally ill so that they can die in comfort and dignity. (Told you what they do is incredible). Father Jo has written a book called 'The Bangkok Slaughter House' and it is about the lives of the people that live here - some stories are happy, some sad.........If you buy a copy your money will go towards improving the lives of these people.

We were shown round the centre and then headed out to the fire site to see what was still needed. I knew I was going to visit a fire site and had prepared myself for that but wasn’t prepared for what I saw. The site had been cleared of all the big pieces of debris but it wasn’t what I would have called cleared by any stretch of the imagination. The architect who is putting together a plan for the new site was telling us that they are just going to build over what is left (!!!!) but that no building has started as yet because there is a stale mate between the company that actually own the land and the Government. There is no-where else for these poor people to go!! The Government have unofficially pledged 30,000 baht per house to help re-building but the company that own the land are sending people to stand watch and it’s possible that anyone who starts building will face arrest.

Oh my God - You should see how these people are living. The Klong Toey district office has put up temporary shelters for the homeless families to stay inside the compound of the Klong Toey flat – they have no water, no electricity, no sanitation and the entire place is infested with rats. No-one should have to live like that!!! We signed a check on the spot for 70,000 baht and we will go back in a few weeks time to see how they are getting on.

I went home and designed a volunteer form and wrote a paragraph explaining what my idea is and how it will work – I hope that I will be able to make a difference!!