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Published: October 5th 2007
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When tummy troubles hit, it’s good to know you are flexible enough to squat for endless hours over the toilets here. It helps too, to know that when you finally reach the bleached comfort of your own squat toilet, you can lean exhausted against the cold tile and soothe your fever at the same time as letting you bowels run free.
Today my focus was solely on traveling from public toilet to public toilet, waiting…waiting, for my tummy to give up. It didn’t relax at breakfast, it didn’t relax at the bazaar, it didn’t relax at the bus station…it thought about relaxing on the three hour (no toilet available) bus ride, but I told it not to!
It finally relaxed, with fever and chills, the exact minute I made it home after an exhausting two day trip to Phuket Town.
Now I sit, with Spy in hand, resting and feeling so good to be home.
As for the spider…
Did you know that the spiders in this country watch you…oh they do indeed! They watch you sleep, eat, move about during your day…. and they get very cranky when you try to photograph them! The
jump and chase you….I have never run from a bug before….but this arachnid, I run from!
He used to live under the stairs near my dish area. One evening he got wet and decided that my bathroom was a much happier place, particularly when I couldn’t see him. He now lives behind the flushing water bin.
He came to visit me while I was crouching. He scared the shit right out of me.
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I don’t feel well again today, I have a fever and my music speakers just blew my entire collection of ipod tunes to oblivion. Now I have a busted ipod, no music and 120 bucks of electronic equipment down the drain. I can’t deal today.
The rain and wind blew all my laundry across the muddy street in the middle of the night, the fly’s are driving me insane and I am clashing with one of the volunteers here. Arghhhh. I feel like an idiot everytime I look at my LSAT book, I can’t seem to get the kids motivated to do anything with school and I am stressed about the Myanmar border trip.
Speaking of Myanmar:
I am not sure if you recall my mid-October plans to head to Ban Dada Orphanage? The border of Myanmar is a questionably safe area right now with the unrest in the country of Burma (Myanmar). Even though the area’s under patrol by troops are not in the same area, I am hesitant to take the kids all the way there just to discover it is not a safe place to be. We may wait to see what happens in the next few weeks rather than continue with our plans to Chiang Mai and then Burma. I hate doing this as it seems so easy to just stay in the relative safety and comfort of the apartment and the village, but I just don’t know.
Maybe I am taking the easy way out…?
The kids and staff (and us as well) are heading to Bangkok for three days in mid-October. We will know better by then if we will continue from there to Chiang Mai or not.
The kids are going for a meeting with the Duang Prateep Foundation at the start of their holidays. I will know more later when I talk to Kwang.
We now have 45 children at the orphanage. Aan came to us yesterday. She has no father to speak of and her mother beat her terribly, so she is now a resident here. She is five years old with doe-eyes and a shy smile. She is pretty nervous right now, but it is usual at first. I remember Jing Jang doing the same.
Her story is a sad one, although she is physically healthy. I don’t know how she came to the attention of the orphanage, but she is here to stay.
I hope to work on the translations of the kids bio’s soon. Before the Bangkok trip I hope to have them completed so we have an accurate English translation for each of the children’s bios.
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Malie had the opportunity to dress up for a dance again this week. Her classes start tomorrow, but the girls were preparing for a dance performance for a group of visitors (that never showed I might add….tsk tsk…) and Malie was invited to dress up again.
I just took a couple pics, so beautiful!
The kids were all somewhat disappointed with the
no-show visitors, but Mai Pai Lai, they took it all in stride. We set about unpacking the items we picked up in Phuket for the orphanage instead. Rice sacks, new towels, school socks and a new rice cooker.
Our trip to Phuket this time was mutli-purpose. We saw Kat off, back to Sing’pore and did another supply run for the kids. We were supposed to collect a few English books for teaching but couldn’t find anything useful. It was a nice break but took its toll and I am convinced I am suffering through a small bout of food poisoning. We stopped at the Central Festival Mall in Phuket, the massive Farung happy mall. It’s air conditioned and frighteningly like home. Hated it…
Miles found the gambling machines on the third floor and I couldn’t help but snap a picture of him! Otherwise the trip was uneventful except that we met up with Buffalo Joe again. (a pic for you this time!)
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dian mccreary
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Hey so good to hear from you again. I'm sorry you're feeling sick. Hope you're better soon. As for Burma, maybe you shouldn't go, it doesn't sound very friendly at the moment, for anyone.