Posts Tagged ‘rainy season’

Card Sharks

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

It is rainy season here, so a steady downpour comes for a few hours each day.  If it falls after school, the kids go straight home.  But last week, as the sky darkened and threatened a rainfall, three girls made it to the Resource Center after just as drops began to fall outside.

It was Deirdre’s day off and Mike was in bed with a fever, so I (Heather) taught the girls how to play UNO with Tom, a local Thai volunteer.  Someone had donated a “My First UNO” set with Winnie the Pooh characters on the cards.  With hours of Twister under their belt, the kids are very proficient in their primary colors, plus English numbers.  So, after a few minutes of translation through Tom, the kids picked up the game pretty quickly.  They struggled at first with the concept of shouting “Uno!” when they had one card left, and their confused faces were priceless when we told them the word “uno” was the number one in the Spanish language.  One language at a time, methinks.

Well, we’ve created a monster.  Every day after school now, the kids bike down our road and march right to the table with only a moment’s pause to remove their rain jackets, sandals, and bookbags.  God forbid you’re the kid who misses shouting UNO or doesn’t Draw Two when a card demands it, because they don’t let you get away with anything like that.  Public shame is the order of the day for someone who is careless enough to put a blue 2 on a yellow 4.

After a dozen rounds one afternoon, we dared switch out the card deck for Go Fish with some kid-friendly cards that have pictures of fish species on them.  We explained “seahorse” and “octopus,” and they indulged us in a round or two.  In fact, they seemed to be actually enjoying it, so we got up the courage to let them make the decision for themselves:

“Yaak len UNO ru Go Fish mai kah?”  Do you want to play UNO or Go Fish?

The roar of “UNO!” in our general direction was heard throughout the village, and rumor has it that the aftershocks were felt as far south as Bangkok.

On Saturdays, there may be almost a decade between the oldest and youngest players, but no one seems to mind.  Deirdre taught them how to shuffle after being dealt several hands of all-blue cards, and one of the girls now deals the cards with alarming professionalism.  Those same three girls come rain or shine after school, and they beg for “iik nung” (one more!) when it is time to go home.  Some things are universal, I guess.

"Card Sharks"

Posted by: collettostories Category: Thailand Tags: , , , , , , ,

Chiang Mai

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

We’re in Chiang Mai for a few days, Thailand’s second largest city, which is about three hours southwest from our home in Chiang Rai.  The streets are wide and the ancient city walls and moat frame the old city’s bustle, which is known for arts and crafts.

Driving into town after three hours in the back of an old pick-up truck–an adventure  itself–I realized I had forgotten about the worst of Thailand.  But here we are:  the sex tourists and the bars with open fronts and women in short dresses and the lady boys on street corners. I rolled my eyes at the foreigners, but we all chowed down at a local burger and fries joint, and I felt like I’d sold out to the city’s Western appeal, no matter how innocent my strawberry milkshake tasted.

The rainy season is drawing to an end here in northern Thailand, and an hour of steady rain comes through at least every other day.  Yesterday, we were stuck in traffic in the back of a truck and got soaked through the bone during a sudden downpour.  Our teeth chattered as we laughed at the ridiculousness of it all, the water in the bottom of the truck sloshing back and forth as we inched through stand-still traffic.  Some kids in a song-tao (group taxi) teased us, so Michael Manes grabbed one of our half-full water bottles and tossed the water at this with surprisingly good aim.  Saving face, indeed.

Chiang Mai is the location of VCDF, one of our partner organizations who has a drop-in center for kids who live on the streets.  Some have families, thought most of them are drug addicts that send their kids out to work.  Others are on their own entirely.  VCDF reaches them through art therapy, classes on being a kid, and educating the kids–kids–on contraceptives, STI’s, etc.

When we arrived to visit yesterday, the kids had just finished a group art therapy session, so paper and crayons were everywhere.  I laid on the linoleum floor with a young boy, orange pastel crayons in our hands.  He drew a penis.  I drew a fish.

“Nee ari?”  I asked, pointing to the best Nemo I could muster.  What’s this?

“Blah,” he said.  Fish.

I pointed to his drawing and said “Ghang mak.”  Good job. We drew a crocodile next, and he was cheered when I drew large, vicious teeth in its gaping mouth.

The Girl in Orange from this past January was still there.  She wore the same dress.  I was delighted to see her, thinking, She’s still here! Then the reality of her, still sitting on the floor in that same dress six months later hit me.  Oh God.  Why is she still here?

Michael Manes wrote a beautiful post about the afternoon, his first at the drop-in center.  I, for one, have chosen to focus my emotions on the kittens outside of our hotel.   They are so skinny and skittish, but I won them over and now they come when I call them.  One in particular is a tie-dye dark grey and orange and white.  Their ears are full of mites and two of them have broken tails, probably from the local kids picking on them.  They are so, so skinny.  We moved to a new hotel today that was a bit cheaper, so I had to say good-bye.  I keep thinking about them and wonder if they are okay.

Last night was a good-bye dinner for Rachel Sparks-Graeser, SOLD’s founder, who is moving home after a year here in Thailand with her husband, who returned to the States a month ago.  The tears were flowing as we raised our glasses and thanked Rachel for changing our lives.  We may never forgive her.

Posted by: collettostories Category: Thailand Tags: , , ,