Quite by accident, I found out about an orphanage, Jeewan Uttan, with twenty-six children in Kathmandu, Nepal. Each month the woman who owns this orphanage, Bina, is struggling to find the Rupees to pay for rent, food, clothing, school fees, books, shoes, and transportation. There is never enough. They have no consistent support and from the point of view of capacity, she really shouldn’t have an orphanage at all. But from the point of view of the compassionate heart, it is absolutely fantastic that she has this orphanage she is running for less than a shoestring.

The children are mostly Tamang, one of the largest ethnic groups with a predominately poor population. There are a few Dalits (untouchable caste) who are even lower in the caste system. All the children come from Bina’s Tamang village in Eastern Nepal in the Malanchi district (about a five hour drive and a three day hike from Kathmandu). Many of them have had horrific beginnings in their short lives: neglect, beatings, alcoholic parents, lack of decent schools or no access at all to education, and they have no resources for help.

I met Bina and we liked each other from the start and became good friends. Really it was a match made in heaven. She was accomplishing many projects with very little money. She was a social activist as well as a humanitarian worker and she returned to her village at least ten days every month in order to help the local people. How she managed to help them with so little money is a story I have yet to hear. So I had ready cash, nineteen years of experience as a humanitarian aid worker on the micro level, some good connections and I’m not shy about making more (which is exactly what happened). I got to know Bina better and learned that she was one hundred percent trust worthy. The first thing I did was to take her on a shopping spree. They needed 26 of everything. 26 blankets. 26 shoes, 26 school uniforms, 26 of everything!…. I thought the van would burst but when we arrived at the orphanage the children were so excited.

But I also knew that it was important that eventually Jeewan Uttan should be able to be partially self-supporting. Towards that end, funds have been provided for them to start their own business selling candles, incense, and soap. Within twelve months, they should be able to earn about one third of their budgetary needs.

Now things at the orphanage are much more stable and since basic needs like food, clothing, bedding, and transportation are being taken care of on a regular basis, Bina can now concentrate on their psychological needs and issues related to their development. And there is time for fun! On my last visit I took all of the children for the day to Dragon World, an amusement park filled with rides including bumper cars and toy trains.

Bina also goes to her village in Eastern Nepal every month in Melanchi District. I accompanied her there in November 2008. It is a bumpy four-hour bus ride and then a six-hour walk up a very steep Himalayan trail. When we reached the top, we found ourselves at a Buddhist monastery run by a forty-year old monk named Guru who was accompanied by nine boy monks who were also orphans. The beautiful two hundred and fifty year old monastery also functioned as an orphanage. It was in terrible condition with loads of termite damage, structural deficiencies, and water damage. After a long discussion, I learned that $1200 would completely restore the building. The labor would be provided for free by local villagers.

Since the monastery was also an orphanage, the funds could be provided by100 Friends. The renovations are now complete. 100 Friends also supplied food, clothing, school supplies, soap, toothbrushes and many other materials for the children. After we left the monastery, we still had three more days of trekking through Melanchi. Everywhere we went people recognized Bina. On several occasions, we met extremely poor people who needed medical attention. One man only had one foot and really needed a prosthetic device. Another man needed to go to an eye hospital to save his vision. A widow with five children needed foot surgery on both of her feet- she hadn’t walked properly for fifteen years! All of these people (and more) were eventually brought to Kathmandu and all received treatments that were successful.

We also met a boy named Sanjay. Sanjay had no parents and was “looked after” by a mean, alcoholic grandfather who often beat him and worked him far too hard. After one beating, his shin was badly broken and never repaired leaving Sanjay crippled. He had never been to school or held a book. Now he is the twentieth child in Bina’s orphanage and happily going to school. His leg will have to be broken in surgery but I am assured he will be playing soccer by summer.

But we are most excited about a program that has a high chance of being funded for at least the next five years. For several years I have been endeavoring to create a program to help prevent the trafficking of young girls into sexual (and work) slavery and also to rescue and rehabilitate girls already trafficked. I have been trying to start such a program in Cambodia but I found it to be not only difficult but, as I later learned, potentially extremely dangerous.

I was stymied until I met Bina. She also wanted to start such a program, but she never had the funds or a foreign partner. I have a potential donor, connections and a certain amount of experience. Her Tamang community in Eastern Nepal has been suffering from this activity for many years. She knows where and how this problem exists and together we have determined what type of program could be developed to protect and assist hundreds if not thousands of poor young little girls at risk. I have no doubt that this program will be in operation within 6-8 months.

So all of this (and more to come!) has happened as a result of a chance meeting in a restaurant in Kathmandu last year. One can only wonder where it will all lead.

-Marc Gold

Click to read more about Marc Gold & 100 Friends

The next time Megan and I were taken to Ayutthaya, we had been told that we were going to be helping at an English camp and to pack a few days worth of clothes. The two of us sat in the back of an old, rusty pickup truck, watching the countryside go by in an endless run of green field and red soil. A few rice farmers waved at us from their fields and we waved back. Our backs to the sun, our faces to the earth, forever.

The truck finally came to a jolting halt in front of a small hotel in a small, yet busy, town. Night had long since fallen and the sky was black velvet. I wish I remembered the name of the town. I would go back there. Megan and I were put up in a small room and reminded that we would set out for the school at 6 am. The two of us showered briefly, brushed our teeth, and fell snoring onto the hotel beds. We forgot to set the alarm, however, so when the Rotarians came pounding on our door asking if we were ready to go, we shot out of bed, showered, dressed, and came running out the door in five minutes. We piled back into the truck and found ourselves once more staring at the countryside.

“They didn’t care what life threw at them…”

We eventually arrived at the English camp and proceeded to make friends with the fifty or so Thai children who were attending the camp. These children were mostly from poorer families, and through hard work in school had won the privilege of coming to this camp. I was surprised at how full of life they were, not like the little girl from before. They didn’t care what life threw at them, they’d go on living. The second we got there, Megan and I began introducing ourselves to the children, laughing and being laughed at as we tried to pronounce each others’ names. A happy shout went up as Megan and I suggested a game of hide and seek.

"I was surprised at how full of life they were, not like the little girl from before."

The two of us were designated the seekers, and everybody else went running for a hiding spot. We were supposed to act the role of teachers–not friends and the Rotarians frowned on our new found friendships. We didn’t care. These kids just wanted to have fun, without being serious. God knows they probably had enough to worry about on their plates back at home. They may have had parents who cared more about alcohol and drugs than their own children. They may have had parents who are over worked trying to make ends meet. They may have had trouble getting enough to eat. Some of them had possibly already been newspaper or jasmine-blossom sellers in the congested streets of Bangkok’s traffic.

For the next few days, Megan and I taught these kids English and learned some Thai in the process. They taught us their favourite songs, dances, clapping games, and more. We taught them ours. During this exchange we passed each other juice boxes and pieces of candy, we ate meals together, doing each other’s hair with the girls and pretendeding we were superheroes with the boys. Once, we were all piled onto a bus and driven to Ayutthaya to see the temples. On the way, we begged the bus driver to turn on the radio. He obliged cheerfully, and “Oh La Na” started blasting throughout the bus, echoing out the open windows and into the fields. As soon as the kids realized what song it was, they all jumped up and started dancing to it. We weren’t exempt from the festivities, finding ourselves yanked out of our bus seats to dance and sing along. “Oh oh la nor nong roh dee dee…” They taught us some of the dance moves, and we spent the entire song dancing on the bus. The sky was so blue and the grass was so green, that it almost hurt to look at either. It didn’t seem real. The temples were nothing like I’d imagined. They rose into the sky like enormous, brown-red beehives with steep steps. Some of the little girls took our hands and dragged us over to a little shrine. In broken English and easy Thai words, they told us “make a wish, and maybe it’ll come true.” So we knelt down, closed our eyes, and wished. One of the little girls held on to my hand as we made our wishes. Feeling that tiny, dry hand, holding mine so trustingly, I wished I could find a chance to help anybody who needed it.

“We’d come to think of all of them–every last one of them–as our little brothers and sisters.”

When the time came for Megan and I to pack up our bags, it was with heavy hearts that we said our goodbyes. Some of the little girls helped us pack up our things as the little boys piled treats in our hands. They gave us little rocks, insisting they had shapes like a dog, or a moon, or a person running. “Wing! Wing! Run!” We’d come to think of all of them–every last one of them–as our little brothers and sisters. We’d slapped mosquitoes and sung together, long after the sun had gone down and the lights had been turned off. They didn’t want us to leave. I can still see their knees, scabby from playing games and from trips and falls. I can still hear their voices stumbling over the English words we so patiently explained to them. When we got in the truck and drove off, we waved our goodbyes, waving long after we couldn’t even see them anymore.

Written by Alexis Frost

Alexis Frost is from Prince George, Canada where she attends the University of Northern British Columbia. She spent a year in Thailand when she was sixteen and went back in April 2008. Since then she has taught herself how to speak, read and write Thai. Read Part 1 of Coin In Hand: Flipping the Fate of Poverty.

———————————

When I first came to Thailand at 16, I was young and naïve. I had no concept of poverty; no concept of real fear or even real hunger. I’d never seen anybody who was actually starving–literally starving to death, nor had I myself ever gone hungry. That all changed during my stay.

“It wasn’t really anywhere. It had a sad, dejected look that made you wonder whether or not it really existed…”

One day, my Rotary Club took my friend Megan and I to a little village on the outskirts of Ayutthaya. It wasn’t really anywhere. It had a sad, dejected look that made you wonder whether or not it really existed, like a strange dream that you wake up from and you can‘t quite remember. I remember a skinny cow or two, standing and swishing their tails, staring curiously as our car pulled up to a small building. The building was small, but clean, and we were offered sweating glasses of ice water. Megan and I sat on a bench in the shade, drinking our ice water and holding ice cubes to the backs of each other’s sweaty necks. It was so hot that day. I could hear the sound of a generator somewhere behind the building, and I thought of those skinny old cows out front.

“She couldn’t have been much more than six years old, but she already looked like she wasn’t living anymore”

"I tried not to wonder what they were looking for; I didn't want to look at their eyes."

The trunk of the car was opened, and Megan and I lifted out box after box of milk, carrying them inside and placing them on a bench. I could feel the dry dust of the soil being kicked up onto my feet, settling in between my toes. There were a few children running around and playing, but their hearts didn’t really seem to be in it. Some of them were gazing down the empty stretch of road. I tried not to wonder what they were looking for; I didn’t want to look at their eyes. They looked as if their hopes had been dashed to the ground once too often. As I carried a box of milk into the building, I noticed a small child, a little girl, just near the door. She wore cartoon shorts that fell past her bony knees and a faded orange t-shirt that was far too big for her. She was such a thin little girl, quite scrawny. Her eyes were big and dark. She wore no shoes, and when I looked closer at her feet, I could see that the skin between her toes was cracked. It looked painful. She had a look on her small face that was so sad, so solemn, appearing to belong to someone ten times her age. It didn’t belong on her. Her hair had faded as well, looking not quite black anymore. She looked like all the life was being drained out of her; like she was giving up.

She couldn’t have been much more than six years old, but she already looked like she wasn’t living anymore. Just existing.

Written by Alexis Frost

Alexis Frost is from Prince George, Canada where she attends the University of Northern British Columbia. She spent a year in Thailand when she was sixteen and went back in April 2008. Since then, she has taught herself how to speak, read and write Thai. Come back to read her next installment of Coin In Hand: Flipping the Fate of Poverty.

"A place where their lives are at stake..."

When I ask the refugees I meet if they miss their home country, everyone has said yes. A place where their lives were at stake, where the government destroyed their homes, where they lost their family and friends everyday, they miss that place. They want to return home.

When I ask if they like Thailand, the most common reply is no. They don’t like the food, the weather, how expensive everything is. But this is a place where they are free from persecution, from death, from tyranny. But they don’t like it. They want to return home.

When I ask where they are going next their eyes get a little brighter. Maybe Norway, I have a sister who lives there now. Or maybe Canada because Cantonese is the third most common spoken language. Or California. I have an uncle who works at McDonald’s, and he really enjoys it.

But if you had the chance would you rather go home? Yes.

"They want to return home."

A man from the Congo told me how at home they have perfect weather, not too hot or cold, which is ideal for exploring the huge forests and open areas he misses. Everyone has free electricity and water. I still don’t understand how that works but it is something to do with the government giving electricity and water away to other countries. There are diamonds everywhere. One morning you could find one, take it to someone and get $10,000. He had so many opportunities. He kept repeating, so many opportunities. He misses his family and friends who are still there. Will you ever go back? I hope so, but I don’t know. Where will you go next? I don’t know. I don’t know. I miss home.

To never be able to go home again to your favorite places. To see your favorite people. I don’t really miss America most of the time. But to envision never ever returning again. To never see anyone from my past life. I can’t imagine it.

“The refugees could care less about the Grand Palace, about having their first taste of real pad thai, about riding an elephant. “

"my words never seem to be enough..."

I’m sure if the refugees came here on their own they would love this place. It is not the place that they don’t like, but it is their situation. Forced to flee a place they never wanted to leave to go somewhere they care nothing about. What a different perspective from people who travel here from all over the world just to see Bangkok. The refugees could care less about the Grand Palace, about having their first taste of real pad thai, about riding an elephant. They want to be home eating their food around their families table even while war rages outside their window. It is amazing how being forced to be somewhere and being there out of your own volition changes your perspective on the place. Wow.

I have been going to the refugee center for the past months and always want

to write something about it, but my words never seem to be enough and I can never get out my ideas of what I really feel and what I really want to say. So I have decided to just write and say something, which is better than saying nothing at all.

I hope this helps someone understand a little more of what I will never understand.

“I hope this helps someone understand a little more of what I will never understand.”

Written by Sherri Jane Phengchard.

Sherri Phengchard is a teacher in Thailand who volunteers regularly at the BRC. She was recently married and has lived in Thailand for a year and a half. She is proud to call Thailand home. Her second home is in Waxhaw, North Carolina.

The artwork used above will be featured in a special ISOS exhibition. See Picture From My Mind for details.

See Waiting: A Glimpse of Refugees (Part 1)