Following Up, October 2005
This is what i've been doing on my most recent trip to Asia.
Relief Coordination in Pai, Thailand.
I found myself in the northwestern portion of Thailand during the first week of my trip, working on coordinating some disaster relief with flood victims in a small valley known as Pai. In a very underreported story, massive storms in the region had brought some of the worst flooding ever seen there. I spent my time coordinating with a small group of volunteers dedicated to helping out many of the local villagers that have been hard-hit by these floods.
Volunteering with Karen hill-tribe children
Afterwards I headed from Chang Mai down to Majeam province, where I spent time volunteering with a small organization that provides a home for Karen hill tribe children too poor to go to school. This was a beautiful little experience, involving many days living in a giant old wooden house under the tallest mountain in Thailand. I spent with my Thai friend Ole teaching English to classrooms full of eager Thai and Karen snots, most of which had never met anyone as tall as me. Other days we spent hiking into the bright-green hills and harvesting corn with gruff little nuns, avoiding heavy monsoon downpours under tiny thatch huts. I met a very large bug from the jungle there, who tried to tell me a story. I think he was very old and tired.
A Chance Meeting
I returned to Bangkok for some research and just before jumping into Cambodia, I ended up having a chance meeting with the friend of a friend - a wonderful Australian Catholic priest named Father Ron Nissen. His organization is one of the principal supporters of the Sarnelli House orphanage in northern Thailand – a place which changed my life two years ago. I had a long conversation with him about our various endeavors and projects helping people between Thailand and Cambodia, and shared our new ideas for compassionate action. At the end of this talk, he offered the generous support of his organization, the Marist Mission Center in Australia, to our Dam and Canal reconstruction project in Cambodia. On top of that, he offered us additional support to help us realize some of our broader goals. It was a wonderfully lucky connection, and I’m sure we’ll be sharing a dialogue with him for years to come.
Back into Cambodia
I had a rather difficult experience getting into Cambodia. Once I made it to Siem Reap, I made significant headway on our plans for dam reconstruction, including the induction of a new volunteer into our ranks to do project management for us on the ground. I spent a few weeks between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, meeting with development organizations and visiting local projects which we’re affiliated with. I saw Phnom Penh as I had never seen it before, washed clean by monsoon rains with green bushes and blooming flowers. Cambodia’s crazy capital is actually a lovely place in the rainy season.
My Nongkhai
After nearly a month in Cambodia I headed back into Thailand, met up with a friend in Bangkok and celebrated my 25th birthday with some of my expatriate friends there. Soon after we took a night-train northeast into Issan – the poorest and spicest region of Thailand. We found ourselves in Nongkhai, which sits just across from Laos on the massive Maekong river. We huddled with thousands of Thais and Laotians on the bank of the river the following night, waiting for the annual Naga serpent fireballs, which supposedly shoot from the water every year on the full-moon (a mysterious and unexplained phenomenon). We did not see them, unfortunately, but did have a fine time watching hundreds of burning candle-laden boats float by us as offerings to the mythical serpents.
We biked out to the Sarnelli house orphanage the following day. This is a home for children affected by HIV and AIDS, which I’ve volunteered at many times in the last two years. The blue concrete walls hold many warm memories for me, and seeing the children again after twelve months was a wonderful sight. They have grown! All of them have stretched upwards like taffy. They were healthy, happy, and full of enormous smiles.
A week in Nongkhai behind us, we headed back into Bangkok, where I had some minor dental surgery, and then pointed myself directly towards home.
I’ll be back in Asia come December, so I hope to connect with you before then.
All the best,
Tobias
Labels: Cambodia, HIV, Pai, Sarnelli House, Sut Dien, Thailand
