At the end of our Kanchanaburi trip, we stopped at a school run by a nun for orphans and disadvantaged kids. One of the things that Tim has always wanted to do is to help some of the less fortunate people here in Thailand. She's started doing that by helping out some schools.
The school was a couple of hours outside Kanchanaburi. To get to it, we had to drive up a moderately steep unpaved road. Tim's SUV doesn't have four wheel drive, but it was able to make it up. If the road had been wet, however, I don't think that we would have made it up.
The school educates about one hundred students, about seventy of whom live on site. The school teaches the children to speak, read and write Thai, as they speak a tribal language. They educate up to the third grade level, but some students are as old as twelve because they started their education late.
There are a few solar panels that power the electric pump used to bring water up the hill for the school and the kids to use. They don't have running water, however, and have no other electricity, so there are no fans and certainly no AC to provide relief from the heat.
The nun in charge told Tim that one of the big concerns is food, as they don't have a lot of money to feed the children. The kids had few toys and their clothes were often dirty and worn. One of the things that the kids wanted were croc-style shoes, but not because they were fashionable or trendy. They wanted them because their flip-flops would often fall up when going up and down the hill that separated the school and their dorm.
Despite their impoverishment, the kids smiled and laughed a lot. I took some photographs of them while I was there, and they seemed to enjoy looking at the pictures on my camera’s LCD display. I want to have some of them printed when we go back to give to the kids. When I took the photographs, I would start to count to three in Thai, but stop at two and pretend that I couldn’t remember the word for three. The kids would yell it out for me. By the end I would say “neung, som” and they would yell “sahm” before I could even pretend to have forgotten.
Tim spoke with the nun for some time and found out what they needed. Our plan is to return in March. In addition to the money that Tim and I are giving, we hope to raise some more money to help out. Yeah, I’ll probably be reaching out to people at some point.
A visit like this really puts a lot of things in perspective. Yes, things in the U.S. are tougher for many people than they were a few years ago, but there is no comparison to the poverty here. The opportunities for education and to better yourself are much scarcer here. Schools like the one we visited may help give these kids some kind of chance for a better life.
When we were leaving, Jacob told me something to the effect of “dad, I know how lucky I am. I won’t ever say life is unfair again.” I know he’ll forget it from time to time as we often do, but it made me proud and happy that he learned that lesson.
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