Hi Selwyn, In case you don't see this I will email you direct also, early this week. I think the best i can reccomend is that you contact the RICD(Royal Institute For Child Development) (http://www.ricd.go.th/) close to Mae Rim. This is an excellent facility with expert Doctors , social workers and all the access and knowledge of the sort of help you ar […]
just seen your last three updates,with all the hard work done by everyone it was good to see there was also time to relax and have fun, thankyou to all who made this possible xxxx […]
Hi John My name is Selwyn Wilson a soon to 66 year old UK pensioner. I have been the only carer of 10 year old Arissa Sompamit from Omkoi since she was struck down with JEV in September 2009. She is brain damaged and has all that accompanies this Disease.I met 2 Thai ladies at the Mc Kean rehab centre where I have taken her for Occupational Therapy until Mar […]
Giving Children A Better Chance in Northern Thailand
"telling someone what they have to learn is a long and tortuous road, often ineffective; giving someone the opportunity to explore what their brain finds particularly interesting at the time opens the gateway to optimization of that individuals potential" anon
As some of you will already know we unfortunately lost House Mother Muay, on Boxing Day, after she decided to leave the job to spend more time with her own family. The stresses and strains of helping to care for 10 children can take their toll and we wish Muay all the best for the future. Whilst here she did a great job.
This has meant an extra workload for myself whilst waiting for new staff.
Thankfully, after a couple of non-starters I am pleased to introduce our new House Mother, Zangboon. Now known as Bpaa Zang. She has pitched into the job straight away since starting on Tuesday and all the signs are that we have yet another great member of staff. Floors are sparkling, children are getting lots of hugs and our stomachs are being treated to excellent quality Thai cuisine. Zang apparently had her own business in the past cooking Thai food to sell at local factories at lunch time.
Its been pretty non-stop here this week, its been so good to have the help of Anna and Tom.
With the kids back to school on Tuesday it was a chance for our two volunteers to take it easy in the day time but they wouldn’t hear of it. In the morning they accompanied me up to our land.
Now that we have had sustained dry weather it is an opportunity to get some work done, not only planning for the new build but also to utilise the land whilst we raise funds.
The first thing that needs doing is to strim the overgrowth, which is quite substantial.
As Tom and Anna can testify, even though the rains have gone we are now up against the sun and so it is a case of slowly slowly, doing an hour or so before the heat of the day makes it difficult.
We are keen to get proper plans drawn up for the proposed permanent facility so it is important that we get new measurements in metres to facilitate this. To do that we need to find the borders and land markers, now hidden by the last 3 months growth of weeds.
With Anna and Toms help we cleared the path down to the land and found the first marker on Tuesday.
In the afternoon our to busy volunteers then helped cut posts for our new Re-Cycle storage, and when the heat got too much, set to peeling and chopping sweet potatoes for storage in the freezer.
They were then on hand to greet the kids from school and spend time playing before dinner.
On Wednesday they did take a well earned day off, as Anna had a phone interview for a new job in Australia. All that good Karma they’ve been building up obviously did the trick, with the news that she was successful in her interview.
Slightly sad for us as it means they will be leaving earlier than planned. But we are happy that Anna has secured herself employment for the couples new start in Australia. And they are still with us until Monday so we will all have to make the most of that time.
Today it turned out that the Primary School children had a day off. This changed our plans a little but it was another productive day.
In the morning Anna took care of the girls, whilst Zak accompanied Tom and myself to the land where we did more strimming, with Zak busy with the rake.
We were successful in our target for the morning, clearing down to, and finding, the furthermost land marker.
After a delicious lunch, made by our new House Mother; Zangboon; Tom and Anna came with me on a Re- cycle run, picking up re-cyclables from The American Pacific School Kindergarten, Kwan Wiang Moobahn and our local Garden shop in Sarapee. It was a massive haul from the garden shop, whose friendly lady proprietor has been saving stuff for a monthly collection for the last couple of months now. She stocks a wide range of garden plants, from the simple to the exotic, as well as high quality garden soil and other accessories. She also speaks a reasonable amount of English.
Back home everyone joined in sorting all the re-cyc;ables ; paper, glass, metal and plastic; and bagging it for storage in the new tidy pens I put up on Wednesday(photos coming soon).
Then it was back to chill out and playtime for everyone before dinner.
Yesterday was Anna and Toms 4th day with us and it turned out to be a very interesting one. After a phone call the day before, from Khruu Khem of Huay Sai School, 14 kms from our Foundation home, it was arranged that we would visit the school to help the children with English vocabulary.
It turned out that the school is getting various visits this week with a view to inspecting its standards. Yesterday they were visited by the Governor of Lamphun Province, within which Huay Sai is situated.
Our day began as usual with the school run, taking the four Mattayom Students to their school in Sarapee, picking up Anna and Tom on the way. From there we went to the vegetable market in Sarapee and got the weeks supplies.
Having dropped the veg back home we then headed off to Huay Sai , arriving a little after 9am.
Shortly after our arrival we were treated to some cultural performances laid on for the Governor, including Traditional Thai Dancing, Hula Hoop Dancing and a display of Muay Thai/stick fighting by the boys.
Then it was into Khruu Khems English classroom, which had been laid out to imitate a small market, ready for the children to go “shopping” using English language.
Anna, Tom and myself spent time helping the children practice their vocabulary, both with the shopping exercise and with a performance of ” Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”.
We all had lots of fun and when it came to the children doing the exercise in front of the visiting inspectors they all did a great job.
Once again a full day here with smiles lighting the place up and the sounds of laughter filling the day.
Anna and Tom arrived around 8.30am and after grabbing some breakfast it was time for the mornings work, continuing with the prep for the new shelving in the “workshop”.
Yet again Tai excelled at organising the team and by the end of the hours session the majority of the bamboo needed was cut and prepped to slot together in true DIY furniture kit style.
With the kids back to school tomorrow I asked Tai to draw out how he planned the shelves to be so that Anna, Tom and myself can put it all together whilst the kids are at school. Not surprisingly I was handed a very clear drawing later in the day detailing position and lay out for the shelves. Look out Ikea!!
After the work it was chill out time with a variety of activities going.
After lunch, prepared once again by Anna and the girls, our two volunteers accompanied me and the boys on a run into Sarapee for a few things we were in need of and for the boys to have their school haircuts.
Back at the house it was more fun and games with jigsaw making, Patong, bike riding and other games going on. Everywhere I looked was a beaming smile and the sounds of happy laughter rang out all day long.
Even the car washing session was full of laughter.
Look out for May2 on keyboard, under helpful instruction from Anna.
Another full day with so much done. Thanks to help from Anna and Tom it wasn’t just productive and fun but also quite relaxing for me.
The day started off Anna and Tom arriving shortly after breakfast.
They came bearing gifts of some great card model kits, including Tower Bridge and Big Ben.
After a short period helping the kids get started on the models it was time for work hour. We are at the moment having a serious overhaul of our store room, previously treated more like a dumping ground.
We had already emptied the room, swept and cleaned and now the kids are getting to test their practical skills yet again, building new shelves from bamboo.
With Tai showing the most interest in practical exercises and the plan being to create an ordered workshop, he has once again taken charge and got to work designing the shelf units and passing on instruction for measuring out the bamboo needed.
Todays session finished, Anna and Tom then joined some May 2 , Jor and Nu in the kitchen to help prepare a very tasty sweet potato curry for lunch.
After lunch there was more model making before our 2 helpful Volunteers ran an hours English based around an introduction to their 2 home countries, Australia and England.
That finsished it was back to the kitchen to help prepare Salmon fish cakes and more curry for dinner.
With everything ready there was also time for a fun game of Patong .
Its a popular time of year for Volunteers it seems as we have now been joined by Anna and Tom who will be helping out for 2 weeks.
Once again they have fitted in quickly with the children and having arrived on Friday evening have already had one busy day helping with the days trip out on Saturday for Childrens Day.
They have come armed with some great activity ideas and buckets of enthusiasm. We look forward to lots of fun during the next fortnight.
Childrens Day threatened to be a wash out with heavy rain first thing.
Thankfully this eneded at around 10.30am and , with Anna and Tom , we boarded the truck and headed first to the local celebrations at Chompoo.
It has to be said that we appeared to have missed the main fun and games but there was still a few things going on in the well organised village affair.
Gu managed to win himself a big money box and all the kids tucked in to the free food on offer.
From there we headed into Airport Plaza where everyone enjoyed watching a magic show. We actually decided that it was a tad noisey and also difficult for supervision of the whole group here and after the magic show we moved on to Central Plaza , Huay Kaeow where the children enjoyed the rest of the afternoon at the show and Playground set up in the centre of the Mall.
A lot of running around and as Anna and Tom can confirm , a tiring day for the adults, but the important thing was that the kids had a great time
A direct antidote to mild exhaustion is overseeing a fun filled day for the kids. Seeing so many smiles and so much laughter blows all the cobwebs away, and today has been such a day.
After all the kids had done their bit with the mornings work project of building a shade for the fish pond most of them then set to having fun on their recently serviced bicycles.
Proving their ever growing senses of responsibility I was most pleased to receive several offers of help in the kitchen preparing the midday meal.
However, as I had a simple lunch planned I was happy to hand the kids over to our volunteers Angela and Alexi, who arrived mid-morning.
Shortly after this we were treated to a visit from Li Li Tan and our latest friend Blue.
A friend of LiLi’s , and fellow artist, singer, poet, Blue is a lovely bubbly lady who throws out warmth and was an instant hit with the kids as she and Li Li soon had them all crafting shapes and animals out of special balloons.
It gives me much delight that Blue has expressed a great interest in helping out here on a regular basis and I look forward to meeting up again very soon to discuss this further.
Li Li and Blue left as we had lunch.
After lunch, and a democratic vote with choice between Huay Tung Tao, Huay Kaow Waterfall or San Kampaeng Hot Springs we set off for an afternoon at San Kampaeng.
It was very busy there today but the kids all had a great time; boiling eggs with Angela and Alexi, dipping their feet in the hot springs stream; playing in the playground and doing a “Draw What You See” English language session.
It was an energy boosting day for me with “Small World” magic going on. Whilst enjoying the bustling atmosphere we bumped into other friends doing the same. First there was Ray and Tak with their little lad Mik, who we first met sometime ago at Huay Tung Tao. They very kindly bought Ice-cream for our whole party and also donated extra funds that helped cover the days expenses. They have also extended a generous offer of lunch at their home sometime soon and we look forward to that very much.
We also bumped into Boons friend , Bap, who painted the Winnie The Pooh Wall art at Stratton House.
Wanting to ensure plenty of chill time for the children to make the trip worthwhile we decided to give them the rare treat of dinner out at at around 5pm we popped into the onsite Thai restaurant, finally heading home once everyone was happily fed.
In between all the Xmas/ New Year merriment there has still been some work going on and I am happy to report that the dog houses are now complete and proving an instant hit with the dogs
As some of you will already know we unfortunately lost House Mother Muay, on Boxing Day, after she decided to leave the job to spend more time with her own family. The stresses and strains of helping to care for 10 children can take their toll and we wish Muay all the best for the future. Whilst here she did a great job.
