First Day

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We had our first day at the orphanage today and it was lets say an experience! So the day started with a rather early wake up (we're still adjusting to the time difference! Especially seeing as on Sunday we didn't get up til midday!) and breakfast of black yellow leaf tea and what Hannah described as a chocolate version of a pink panther biscuit! Then we met prachit and walked over to the bus stop where a yellow and green truck type thing with no doors picked us up and took us the 40 (yes 40!) minute journey to the Viengping Orphanage! On arrival all volunteers (of which we've met one - who is from Finland and is very friendly) sign in and passports are scanned etc.


The orphanage is built on a massive stretch of land which is very green as its not in a towny area, and there are lost of buildings which segregate all the children into respective groups; 0-1.5, 1.5-3, 3-5, 5-6, and then school age children (at 6years they are separated into boys and girls). In the centre of the buildings there is a grassy area with an exceptional playground which has everything from swings and slides to roundabouts and monkey bars, and it looks near enough brand new! Later on though we realise that this is because the children hardly ever get to go outside, let alone outside to play!! We spent the first half of the day with the 1.5-3 years olds. When we arrived at the room we were told to choose which child we wanted to have for the morning!!!!! Needless to say we literally didnt know what to do? How can you choose a child out of a room of about 20 children? To then realise that only the children you choose are going to get to go outside and play! By this point Prachit had just chosen two children for us and had their crocs (yes crocs) on ready to go! They children did seem a bit dazed at first but soon warmed to us and we had a pretty nice hour with them in the playground before it was 10:30 and time for their lunch!!! All the children walked to the canteen where they were presented with a pretty substantial meal, but all the children with no exceptions were able to feed themselves completely independently. The children (all ages except school kids) then napped for 3 hours. And astonishingly enough so do the few members of staff that are in the rooms with them, the whole place seems to grind to a hault for the three hours.


During this time we went to the 'staff canteen' where we were introduced to a man named john (61 years old and single - which he kept re-iterating) who has lived and volunteered in Thailand for the past 8 years! He definitely seems to have a bee in his bonet with the orphanage, and kept saying how the children were well fed (5x a day, including take away pizza as an afternoon snack which we were witness to that afternoon) but not necessarily well loved and that some staff in the past had been abusive to children, but because its hard work and low pay the orphanage will take anyone on to work and no staff get any training at all (mum you would be horrified!!). Anyway after he rambled on for about 45mins (some of it very interesting some of it not so much, but has done and is still doing a lot of good for the orphanage) he took us with him to visit some of the orphans who were in the local hospital.


The hospital as a bare building from the outside looks much like an English hospital, big with lots of windows and even the inside the basic layout of nurses stations and bed areas in similar. But the children (of all ages) are put in these metal cage like cots about 10 to each area of the room, with 4 ceiling fans providing the only air conditioning for these patients who for the most part have high fevers. Anyone can enter and leave the wards, anyone can pick up the children and anyone can feed, take the temperature and administer the medication for these children (much of which we did whilst we were there). They have a 'the more you do the less we have to do' kind of attitude. And again there is very little love and affection shown to these children. John says this is pretty normal and most thai parents have little compassion for their children!! After spending a few hours at the hospital with these gorgeous children, we then headed back and spent the second half of our day in the baby room. Normally this room has 30 babies and two members of staff, but with us and another volunteer and Prachit we seemed to have better staff to baby ratios! They have these children called 'the favourites' who are singled out by staff members because they are cute or good natured and these staff pour their attention into these few children. We were introduced to one of these babies today who was called 'Cham' and she was to die for! but because of the favouritism she had been fed lots of extra food and was a classified obese baby. Honestly for a one year old she was HUGE!! Could have been a Sumo baby!!! In the baby room we were shown how to change nappies (they don't use disposables they have cloth nappies which have to be folded and tied in a certain way), everything is shown or gestured to us because none of the staff talk English. And then we got to play with the babies 😊 so of them were doing fabulously, but some (namely the less loved ones) were a bit slow on their development. We had an 8/9 month old called 'Tamon' who was very floppy and barely able to sit independently! Probably due to spending most of his time lying in the cot. John said that when they are very low on volunteers the children can go for days without getting out of their cot! And there was a very very tiny 3 month old who was poorly 😞 was very sad!

Kate and Hannah x

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