Journey to Pakkred: Work and play

Well I am back from a short break with mum and Kathryn who are now away. It didn’t start particularly well as the day we left Kathryn and I had been up all night with sickness and diarrhoea (a kind donation from the kids who’d had it I think) but mum got us together and ‘shoved’ us into the taxi, laden with plastic bags and wipes and towels. But thankfully we got there without incident. And we were both very glad mum had made us go because we were able to sleep in air-con for the first time in 8 weeks and have my first hot shower. So we spent a few days doing nothing. Just getting better. Then we did a few trips, it was a great break. I was very much feeling in need of a break as I was exhausted emotionally and physically.

So this was my first week back at work. It seems to have been a bit disjointed with only two normal work day out of 5. Monday was normal but I went back at lunch to see mum and Kathryn into a taxi to the airport. On Tuesday I decided to take the opportunity to visit one of CCD’s community projects that works with families with children and adults with disabilities. They have a very small centre and then they do home visits to families’ houses too. I seemed to choose a good day, for one our staff had a meeting all day so I wasn’t missing my work and quite a few other visitors/volunteers were going on Monday too. So we went to see the centre and were told a bit about the running of it and what sorts of things happen from a community project and then we visited two families houses. Both very different. But it was LOVELY to see the children/young people with families who clearly love their children. Even though one of the families lived in a really poor area they still had their son at home with them. The way it should be. So it was a really good day, experiencing the other side of CCD’s work here.

A young man with his dad, showing us his plant business

Their home

Wednesday I went to Rachawadee girls because all the CCD staff health checks. There were four of us there. We went onto one of the wards and put a cd on and danced around, did the conga and generally just got very hot and the girls seemed to have fun. Then we went onto another ward and helped to feed some of the girls. In the afternoon we went to Rainbow house for training on autism. There has been a group of speech and language therapists here these last two weeks and they were doing the training for the Thai staff and volunteers. It was really good and useful and the staff all had some good questions asking for advice for specific children.

We then stayed at Rainbow house for the evening for some mother’s day celebrations. Mother’s day is a big affair here. I think it is celebrating something to do with the Queen or Princess. But as you can imagine, it is a sad time for the children in the orphanages here because a lot of them do have an understanding of the concept of a mother. One of the older girls got really upset at the end of it. Thankfully at CCD the director of CCD’s wife is considered by the children at Rainbow house as their ‘mum’. That is what they call her. So there was a time when all the mums in the room went up to the front. So community childrens’ mums and volunteers mums who are here visiting just now. And then the children sang a song. It is a really sad song. The words go something like ‘I miss my mum, where is she?’ So there were a fair few people in tears. Which here in Thailand, where they are not people to show their emotions, was just showing how sad it was. I wish I could have understood more of the words. Then after that sad bit the older students did a drama. It was hilarious!

Some of the hilarious drama

Thursday was a normal day. Outside our daycentre the climbing frame has been pulled down. It was falling apart and very dangerous, with nails sticking out. But now that it has gone there is less outside for the children to do. And in the afternoon it started raining (a tiny bit, but here if there is rain, even a tiny bit, they don’t like being outside!) so we had to come in. So we had all the very active children inside for the last 20mins, trying to keep them all under control. There were a lot of grumpy children.

Today was the government orphanages mother’s day. So at Fuang Fah we had a mother’s day celebration with a lot of the orphanage children coming out for it. There were various parts to the morning. I have to say the children were very patient as a lot of time there was not much happening. First, some children were picked to give flower wreaths to their ward mums, to say thank you. That was difficult to watch because these children don’t have their real mum’s to give things to. It was strange actually, one of the ward mum’s got upset. I was VERY surprised that she would get upset. Then a group of children got up and did a dance. They were very cute! And then a different group sang that same sad song and another one. They did really well. There was a blind boy leading the singing and he was an amazing singer! Then of course there was a lot of snacks. There was so much that Alex and I weren’t sure whether it was meant to be a snack or their lunch. But it was snack. 20 minutes later we went back to the daycentre and our children had lunch! This afternoon we had the children out in the garden. For quite a while two of the boys were playing very happily together which is very unusual. Because they are orphanage kids they tend not to like playing with each other as they see other children as a threat to any attention/food etc that they can get. So I was loving watching them. Just chasing each other round the garden and helping each other onto the slide. The pictures don't capture it quite so well! The staff have asked me to come and work at the daycentre as a physio when I graduate, there is a job vacancy...... (though I wouldn’t be able to have a paid job here with them because I’m not Thai).