Merry Christmas everyone

25-Dec

Merry Christmas everyone! Well, I must say that being here over Christmas hasn’t really seemed like I was missing too much of the Christmas season that you would get at home. You might think that in a country that is reportedly less than 1% Christian, Christmas would come and go without much thought. Surprisingly, this country just loves celebrating for whatever reason it can. Our Christmas season here was filled with all the songs, red Santa hats, and Christmas parties you would find at home. It’s actually kept me quite busy this month and I’m looking forward to the end of next week when things seem to go back to normal a bit.
Christmas for me was a bit of a slow day. We had a Christmas party all day and night Friday for work here, then Saturday morning we had one for the house. Saturday afternoon me and Sarah went into the city to buy some bus tickets and search for some Thai learning books. We thought it might be a fun treat to eat some American food while we were there since it had been almost three months since I had eaten anything without rice or noodles. Christmas morning at around 3:30 I was huddled in front of the toilet while the chorus of “We wish you a Merry Christmas” was going around and around in my head. The burger became quite regrettable and I decided not to even think of eating American food like that again until I had to. So, I had a fever and stomach ache all day which kept me from eating much at all.
I mustered up enough strength in the afternoon to gather the Christmas gifts I had bought for the family I lived with last summer and headed into the slum on the other side of the city. I was supposed to meet them for church in the morning but they were pretty understanding towards my absence. As usual, I was surprised by the time I had to leave at how much we could communicate with each other with the language barrier. It makes the hours I spend each week studying the language worth it. I left the slums and went directly to an American lady’s house who invited us for a Christmas Party. It was quite a change from going from the slums where I was trying my hardest to keep up with the language to going to this lady’s house. It must be one of the biggest houses I’ve seen in Bangkok and the people at the party where all older and definitely seemed to be in a much higher tax bracket than me and my compadres in the slum. The food at the party was sliced ham, different cheeses, breads, cookies, etc. It was really nice, though I stuck to the curry seeing as how it was the first time I had eaten all day.
Well, I hope that your Christmas goes well and I look forward to hearing from all of you!

Christmas craziness

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Things have been getting a little busy around here with Christmas and all. It's funny you know, you would think that coming to a country that's reportedly less than one percent Christian would mean that the Christmas season would come and go without much commotion. Not so this year. Since coming back from Phukket, we've had a party for the community based rehabilitation kids and families with CCD. This meant waking up before six on a Saturday morning to leave. The volunteers were expected to prepare a couple songs and the girls had to learn Thai dance to perform there. Then, on Tuesday, we had a big party at the government compounds for the small children hosted by CCD. It was a good christmas party and the girls had to prepare their Thai dance again for their performance. I escaped from performing in that one somehow. Friday is the big CCD christmas party where I had to go buy a gift for the gift exchange. I've been preparing some muay thai kickboxing dance thing with the guys at work that i have to perform there. Then i have to do a skit with the volunteers for the party. Then i have to sing a song with them. The party is in the afternoon and the morning is filled with CCD sports day. Apparently there's some games that we play against one another and for some reason I'm supposed to dress up like a girl at some point??? I don't really know what they were saying to me, we'll see how that goes. Then there's a christmas party at the house here on Saturday and on Christmas we have some open house with another missionary here working with CCD. Wednesday I think I'm going to a university somewhere to talk about what I'm doing here, but I'm still not too sure about that since I haven't heard anything since Phukket about it.

I've never heard of sports day, but i have a second one the following week with all the government staff too. Thailand is finally having it's cold season, this means about a weeks worth of 80 degree days and 70 degree nights. I think this is the only time that they can play sports here without dying of heat.

Everything is going well though. I'm going to take New Years and go to an island nearby with some of Sarah's friends. It'll be nice to enjoy the rest for a change.

Well, that's a small taste of my Christmas so far here, I hope all your shopping is going well and have fun with the decorating!

Phukket

December 13

Last weekend was the weekend we spent in Pukket. It was pretty amazing actually being in the place that the Tsunami had devastated last year. It was funny to think that everything we had seen was different than it was last year. I think the thing that amazed me the most was the emotional effect it had left on the people in the area. The fear of another Tsunami is so large that the sound of any siren still sends the people running for the surrounding mountains. We stayed in a small community of houses the following two nights that was build for the people who had lost their homes in the Tsunami. I can’t help but think that the fact that every house on the four small streets that make up the community looks the exact same serves as a constant reminder of what brought them there.

The children we brought from Bangkok seemed to really enjoy being down there though and were able to encourage some of the local children to share their experiences with the Tsunami. The area is beautiful down there though and the children seemed to really enjoy swimming in the ocean, even though a couple people were stung by jellyfish! The evenings were filled with programs where the children would go and share a performance for the others. Of course, this meant that we foreigners also had to share a program which left us scrambling for ideas (we always seemed to be informed of these things shortly before we are supposed to give them!). The Thai love for Kareokee eventually led into singing where I was called out to sing for the people. I chose “Kung Fu Fighting” at the request of Sarah. During the musical solo I broke into some Kung Fu moves. In the end, none of the Thai people could understand if I was singing in Thai or English! After that, 4 little Thai girls who prepared a dance for the evening requested that I come up and dance with them. Apparently they thought it was funny enough to ask me to join the following night when they did it for the other children.

Our large colorful bus which we rode in for about 40 hours or so during these pas four days also had a kareokee machine which got plenty of use.

PITAYA
(pee ta ya)
I realize that I don’t talk much about the guys that I work with. It’s easy not to talk about them much because most of the stories seem sad. But this isn’t fair either since the stories need to be told and their lives are just as important as you and me. So, I’ll try to pick a new person every other week or so to tell you about.
This is being written to remember Pitaya. I can’t think I can really describe him any better than to say that he’s just simply put, a beautiful person. Pitaya is 30 years old and has lived in the government wards since he was at least 5. The records aren’t that good so I’m not sure if he was brought here at a younger age or not, I wonder too if he remembers anything about life outside of the government complex. I also know that there is no real way us to know what it is like to grow up there, but I’ll try to give an idea as best I can tell. Pitaya has spent most of his life surrounded by other disabled people being taken care of by government workers. Most of the children had either been abandoned because of their disability, or they had been dropped off after a couple of years when the parent dies or cannot afford to take care of the child anymore. Pitaya probably has never lived in a room with less than 30 other people at least. The government employees are good, but with so many kids to feed and bath, etc, it becomes impossible to give all the children the same attention a child with a family gets.
He has probably always had ample food to eat and a bed to sleep on…even if he has had to share it with other people at times. Pitaya doesn’t get to chose what he eats everyday though, he doesn’t have any freedom to go for a walk if he would like. He can’t go see the city at night or spend some time alone to think about things when he’s feeling a little down. Basic freedoms that we can tend to take for granted were never really an option for Pitaya. He has pretty severe Cerebal Paulsy and can’t walk or even eat on his own. There most likely wasn’t much physical therapy available when he was a child or the resources for any kind of operation that might help him. Then again, maybe given all the resources and care he still wouldn’t be in any better physical shape today, I couldn’t tell you if those things would’ve helped. He is smart though, but unfortunately fell through the cracks and wasn’t given any kind of education. One day a lady was walking though the ward and Pitaya said “Hi Sandy, how are you today?” Sandy was really surprised and said “You know my name!?” Pitaya knew everyone’s name, but his intelligence was realized too little and too late.
He’s among the smarter of the guys I work with, but without education and living among other disabled children his entire life hasn’t pushed him to excel in this area. He can understand how to play games like checkers or connect 4, but it’s hard for him to become really good at it. He paints with his mouth though and makes cards which either CCD or another organization here help him to be able to sell for money. It’s not an income, as if he needed one, but it gives him purpose. This is important.
Pitaya always seem happy. It seems he’s learned how to appreciate the little things in life. He’s never had to think about the future, so he has lots of time to be happy for the day. He likes learning English and is pretty good at remembering some words. After about a month of working here I came in one morning and was really tired and hot. I sat down and said “how ya doing Pitaya” not expecting a response at all. I was amazed when he said “I’m fine, how are you?” Since then I try to teach him the basic English, we both like it. He also likes to arm wrestle with me when he sees me. I figure it has to be good for him since it helps strengthen his arms and he seems to have lots of fun doing it.
Pitaya is a good friend to have. He’s the kind of friend that always makes you smile when you see him.