Adventure Time with Keri!

Thursday, March 28, 2013

I woke up this feeling better (thanks for the prayers!) and set off early to get to the center since I had to be there half an hour earlier than usual. Such a fail b/c we didn’t leave till an hour later. Haha!

I have always wondered when the kids arrived in the morning since every time I arrive they’re already dressed and doing so sort of activity. Well, I found out. I got there and there were kids and parents everywhere! Apparently the center makes the parents come in with their child to help them eat breakfast, help them change into their uniform, (those blue things we’re forever having to wash and fold) and help them prepare for the day. I also found out they make the parents pay a small fee depending on how much they make. The maximum they make them pay is 30 Baht, which is roughly around $1, which is about 30% of what it actually costs the center per day for one child (it takes about 100 Baht per child/day to cover the costs of food, etc). For some of the parents that don’t make a lot, it’s free for them. 

 Also, I forgot to post these pictures from Day 17 or was it 15? I can't remember!

Anyway, I set off with Pi Naam to do community visits. This entailed driving to a few slums to visit the day care centers that are actually in the slums. The center that I have been working at does training classes and teaches people how to properly take care of children for healthy development and then gives them a certificate of completion. I believe, then, that they are allowed to start their own small daycare, mirrored after ours, in the slums. They are not necessarily attached to our center, but they are closely monitored and are updated when there is new information about health and such things available. There are about 15-20 of these community day cares that Pi Naam visits each month (if I remember correctly). The first location we visited had three separate houses (or rooms if you want to call them that) that had about 15-20 kids in two of the houses and then about 5-8 babies in the third one. Pi Naam did a basic health assessment for the kids, checking for properly cut nails, tooth decay, and any signs of abuse, open abrasions, or sickness.  Because these kids are from the slums they are at risk since many parents are drug addicts, neglectful, or separated.  And yes, there are a few kids that are not actually taken care of by their parents because they were unwanted, which I will get to a certain case, in a moment. After the assessment on the kids, Pi Naam talked for a while with the caregivers taking note of how many kids they’ve had at the daycare, how many have been sick/abused/open abrasions, etc., and a few other things that I’m forgetting right now – basically the overall wellbeing of the kids and daycare in general. While this was happening the kids started yelling and pointing to the window and I saw what appeared to be rain coming down at a good rate. It’s almost the rainy season and has been extremely hot and humid here so I wasn’t surprised. What surprised me more was the fact that it was not actually rain, but just a sprinkler on the tin roof of the house. They put it there to cool off the area as well as a fire safety precaution. Pretty cool stuff!

The second daycare we went was little bit bigger and Pi Naam only talked to the caregiver since the kids were having nap time. There were older kids running around in the front of the building sucking on ice pops from the local stand. Apparently these kids have grown up going to this daycare and this particular caregiver, who is also a leader in the community, asked the kids to come and learn more stuff during their summer break (apparently it’s the school’s summer break now). 

After we were done with that we went in search of food for lunch and then had more coconut milk ice cream with sticky rice from a roadside stand for dessert. So yummy! This whole trip I had been helping Pi Naam with her English. Her English is surprisingly good (since most Thais actually don’t speak or understand English) and she is very eager to learn more and improve what she already knows. 

We went to the third and last location and talked to the caregiver there because the kids were either still sleeping or just waking up. There was one little girl (this was her second day at the daycare) who would cry if she wasn’t sitting in someone’s lap. Apparently she had been taken care of her aunt (?) who worked at a salon and since there are many untouchables for babies there, she was always being held by someone or another and got very used to it. Now, back to my story of unwanted children. They were discussing the dynamics of each child and came to a particular little boy whose parents didn’t want him and so an older couple (old enough to be his grandparents) with no relation to the child but only a lot of compassion for him decided to take care of him. Not sure if it’s an actual adoption or not. He also has a history of asthma and we could see that he was breathing shallowly and very rapidly. The caregiver said that his “grandfather” couldn’t pick him up till 6pm but Pi Naam said he needed to get to the doctor right away. Ok, for some reason or another (neither of us figured it out), his “grandmother” was available but the caregiver didn’t think she was able to take him to the clinic or something? I’m not sure the logistics of it all, but she was called and came over about 10 mins later. We took both the “grandmother” and kid to a nearby clinic where he hopefully was able to get help. (I thought I had taken a picture of him, but I guess I didn't....sorry!)

We got back to the center and the kids were playing on the playground waiting for their parents to pick them up. I played with them for a little bit and then helped the staff fold the laundry. I mentioned earlier, ever so briefly, that we are forever washing and folding their little outfits or uniforms…whatever you want call them. This is mainly because they go through two outfits every day since they always get really dirty mid-day and take a shower before their naptime. There are roughly about 60 kids at the center on any given day so…yeah, that’s a lot of laundry each day.

I stayed later than usual helping them fold laundry and letting them download all my pictures. I finally left the back way and was waiting for a motorcycle taxi to come by. After about 10 mins I got impatient and walked a little ways down the road to an intersection. While I was walking there, I saw one of the kids (the adorable one with huge cheeks) coming out of one of the shacks. That’s when it really hit me that all these kids come from similar places. It’s easy to forget that when they’re all tidy and in their matching outfits and just being kids. He followed me a little ways before going inside one of the open stores and in a few moments I was able to hail a motorcycle taxi. It took forever and a day for my bus to finally appear and it was jam packed with people. I think that’s the most crowded and longest bus ride back that I’ve had to endure. We were all crammed in there, no room for personal space, and either the traffic was so bad that people were cutting in front of the bus a lot, or he was just a really bad driver, but he did so many sudden stops that lurched us forward and propelled us into the person in front of us. My arm hurt from trying to hang on to the rail on the roof (ceiling?) of the bus. I would vow to never leave that late again…but I only have one more day left. I’m not going to dwell on that fact yet. I’ll get to that in a few days in due time.