See the gallery Birthday, Beetles & Phu Chaisai for photos from this post.
I’m writing this from a place in the mountains north of Chiang Rai that is a piece of pure heaven, Phuchaisai Hotel, but I had to get through something like hell to get here, and I don’t mean the road up the mountain…. The months of August and September have been amongst the most challenging of my life; physically, mentally and emotionallythere were times that I felt completely broken. But I had no choice but to see it through, and now that I’m on the other side of it, I finally have some time to write about it.
When I last wrote I was in Vientiane, trying unsuccessfully to sort out a 12-month visa for Thailand. While I was there, as well as the time leading up to, and the time immediately following, forces were at work that were making my life less than easy. But who ever said life was meant to be easy? Caty, the long-time co-director at the Chiang Rai IHF Centre had left the week before I had to make a sudden trip out of the country, and Kitt, the new co-director I would be working with when I got back had clocked-on (in theory). While I was in Vientiane, Kitt started making decisions and acting on them without consulting either the co-director who was still at the Centre, Kate, or myself. These mostly involved spending money that hadn’t been budgeted for in the month’s finances, such as paying the local police 1000B a month to install a “red police box” which they supposedly “check” randomly, and apparently sends a message to outsiders to beware, as the police could turn up at any time, and as such acts as a sort of security device. Or bribe, whatever you want to call it. In five years there have never been, to my knowledge, any issues with security, so his point was lost on me. While I was in Laos, Kitt was of no help to Kate whatsoever; he never stayed at the Centre, which was part of the deal so that he would be around to perform all sorts of functions, such as doing his share of making sure the kids do as they’re supposed to, and let’s face it, when you’ve got 25 kids aged between 10 and 14, that’s a lot of making sure… He also decided that when one of the boys (aged 16 who has lived off-site for the last year for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into) got kicked out of school for fighting, that he would make a deal with the school; Kitt would move the boy back into the Centre where Kitt could keep an eye on him, if the school didn’t kick him out. The first problem with this, I have already mentioned, Kitt was never actually at the Centre. The next problem was that this boy (let’s call him Bob) goes to a different school to the other high school kids, because he got kicked out of that one, too. So this meant that our volunteer, Daniel, had to take Bob to school on a motorbike at 6:30 every morning, get back to the Centre at 7:00, then drive the other high school kids to their school in the truck, and do the same thing in reverse every afternoon. Never mind that the volunteers have about a hundred other things to do every day, but as the only driver, Daniel now had to squeeze these in around his daily school runs. The problem after that is that the influence Bob has over the other boys, who are all younger than him (and remember he’s been living on his own for a year), is very strong, and as they are mostly afraid of him, the change in their attitude and behaviour was immediate. For the worse, obviously. But I digress.
I was trying to deal with these things and many more by email while in Vientiane, a difficult task when I would get only sporadic responses to my emails, none from Kitt, so I spent the whole time I was there either in internet cafes doing the online admin work I still had to do every day for IHF, as well as trying to find out what the frick was going on in Chiang Rai, or traipsing around the town on my visa mission. I told myself it would all be sorted out once I got back there & could straighten a few things out. Ha ha! Daniel picked me up from the airport when I arrived back from my flights from Vientiane to Bangkok, and then Bangkok to Chiang Rai. As soon as he clapped eyes on me he said “I think we have to have a meeting as soon as we get back to the Centre” (it was after 10:00pm), and proceeded to give me his version of events that had taken place earlier that night. This is a really complicated & long story, so I won’t go into it except to say that a man (let’s call him Pedro), who has been involved with the Centre as a sort of volunteer for some time, except not for any of the time I’ve been there because he & Caty had fallen out, had come back on the scene over the past week, and that night had verbally abused a couple of volunteers within earshot of the kids. This opened up a can of worms that I will probably refer to as I go on, but for now will wind up by saying that the drama that this has caused is still not over. The next night Kitt & I had a meeting with Pedro to talk about what had happened, and then Kitt insisted on getting the two (female) volunteers that had copped the abuse to join our meeting (not at the Centre) so Pedro could apologise to them. This was where my problems with Kitt really began. Looking back, I know the precise moment it started. Despite my advice that the two girls would probably prefer not to hear anything from Pedro, I was instructed to phone them & tell them that they would be joining us. After the insincere & incomplete apology was delivered, we were all then forced to sit around chatting together, to prove that bygones were bygones and everyone was now going to be friends. As it turns out, it was also Kitt’s intention to let me & everyone else know that he was controlling this situation, as would be his intention with every other situation to come. This I can see clearly now.
Over the next week, Kitt created more & more mess, mostly financially, but generally just making everything ten times more difficult than it needed to be. He refused to do anything according to IHF procedure, and wanted to do everything a different way. One of the things we all have to do, is to email every day the number of hours we have worked, or “donated” (as we are volunteers). One of my responsibilities is to also send in a weekly report of all the hours donated by every volunteer at the Centre, so all the volunteers cc me on their daily hours reports. Kitt refused to do this, and it turns out that the reason is because he thought I was trying to control him & check up on him, when in fact it is a requirement of the organisation, and every volunteer at every IHF Centre must comply with this rule.
The Monday signaling the start of my second week in the job, 4 of the younger kids woke up with a fever, sore throat, & a headache. At this point there was just me & 2 volunteers, & Monday is market day, so I left one of the vols at the Centre with the sick kids, while Daniel & me with Nabee & Kunu (our new “man about the house” – “house father” just doesn’t sound right…) took the high school kids to school after Daniel had already done the return trip to take Bob to school, then went to the market. At 8:00am which I reckoned was a decent time to phone Kitt, I called him to say that I needed him to go to the Centre, pick up Kim & the kids & take them to the hospital to see the doctor. Let me preface this next part by saying that trips to the hospital are not the straight-forward thing you might hope them to be. Besides not speaking or reading Thai, there are so many steps involved you’d think it was the fox trot. Add into the mix four sick 10 year olds that can’t communicate to you what’s wrong with them apart from using sign language and a few Thai words you’ve picked up, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out that you need a Thai person to help out. Oh, I know! The Thai co-director of the IHF Centre should do. Indeed Kitt did pick Kim & the kids up & take them to the hospital, and check them in at reception, but then he had to go & attend to something or other with his company, & left Kim to manage the rest on her own. I’ve described my experience with Dr Pharyngitis in a previous post, but let me re-emphasise that the doctors here are so ridiculously prescription-happy, that I can only assume that they must get an awful lot of kick-backs from the drug companies for all the pharmaceuticals they dish out. That said, Kim then had to take notes of the multitude of medications that were prescribed for these kids, one of which was confirmed as having Influenza A. They were on four types of meds each, but not all the same, so some had to be taken 2 times a day, others 3 or 4 times a day, before meals, after meals, before bed etc etc. This meant that we now had 4 kids at home for most of that week, which meant that we also had to have at least one of the 3 of me, Kim or Daniel at the Centre at all times. This isn’t easy as we all have to spend at least 4 hours online every day doing our admin tasks (away from the Centre as there’s no internet connection there), & generally made things very difficult (we usually do this during the day when the kids are at school). To alleviate this problem of having to get to the internet café to do our online work, after a week or so Daniel & I paid get ourselves hooked up to the outside world by connecting to an internet service using a mobile phone as a modem. This gave us both a lot more flexibility, & meant that we could get online at much more convenient times.
Two days later I was woken at 5:00am by Nabee with one of the girls who was very ill. She had a raging fever & wouldn’t stop crying. I put her on a mattress on the floor of my room, gave her a dose of liquid Tamiflu (after all, we had plenty…) & started covering her with wet cloths. Well, then she started vomiting, so at 6:00am I had Daniel drive us to the hospital. They sent her straight to the emergency room, woke the doctor up, & started doing Influenza tests (I mentioned previously that H1N1 had just made it to Chiang Rai, & it seemed by now to be rampant). The doctor advised admitting her, so I did, then spent the entire day in the ward with her until Nabee could come to relieve me in the late afternoon & spend the night with her. On the way home, after one week of me being in this co-director’s role (all of it being a non-stop battle with Kitt for him to follow IHF procedures, & none of it being with him sharing any of the responsibilities of running the place), Kitt phoned me to tell me he wanted to see me that afternoon, “but not for very long. Just short meeting”. So he comes to the Centre, backs his truck up to the room he never stayed in, packed his stuff into his truck, then came over to where I was sitting. He told me that I “have a lot to learn about Thai men….” That “in Thailand a woman can ask a man to do something, but whether he decides to do it or not is up to him”, and a few other gems. He then pushed a folder that he had, containing all the IHF documents across the table toward me and said “now, you work alone”. And with that he got up & drove away. To be honest I was quite relieved. I had been doing everything anyway, and now I wouldn’t have to wait for him to be available (never) to discuss anything that needed a decision, or have to clean up any more mess of his making. Kitt’s massive yet very delicate ego has caused us to fall out spectacularly, and his attitude to me has become nothing short of hostile. So then it really was just me, Kim & Daniel. And 5 kids at home sick.
The next day I emailed IHF’s CEO to tell her the news about Kitt, and went about the business of a 20-hour day that was to become the norm for me for the next couple of weeks. The day after that (Friday) I had to take the two 14 year old boys with chronic ear problems to their regular doctor’s appointment before school. They both refused to put on their school uniforms, and after about an hour of telling them to get dressed for school, they then decided that they weren’t going to the doctor either and wouldn’t get in the truck. It was imperative that I get them to this appointment, so eventually, exasperated, I said they didn’t have to go to school, but they absolutely had to go to the doctor. Half an hour more of shouting at them, and bribing them with a computer game, they got in the truck & off we went. Once we got home, they wanted to watch DVD’s with all the sick kids that were home (by now it was up to ten) & I told them there was no way. There was nothing wrong with them & they should be at school, so they were definitely not watching movies. One of the boys was enraged, and had already raised his fist to me twice that morning in the battle to try to get them into their school uniforms, and stormed off. As it was Friday, all the kids were getting ready to watch a movie that night, including the two that wouldn’t go to school. Again, I told them there was no way, and again they stormed off. I had tried unsuccessfully to get them to take their medications for their ear infections (oh yes, just a few more meds to keep track of & administer…) so I sent Daniel down to their bedroom to try to give one of them his ear drops. Fail. Next thing we know, this boy comes storming out of his room down to the TV area, & starts throwing all his things (& I mean everything that’s his – drawers, mattress, school bag, everything) on the floor. This takes a few trips, & the last time he came out he charged over to where Daniel & I were sitting. We both stood up & the next thing I know he’s got me by the throat & raises his other hand, which at first I think is to punch me. I accepted that that was what was going to happen, until I noticed that he had a knife in his hand. Luckily Daniel was standing right beside him & grabbed the hand with the knife in it, while I somehow managed to get his hand off my throat, & was able to walk away. Not an ideal way to spend a Friday night…..
And relief was not going to be coming on Monday…. The primary school was to be closed until Thursday because there were students there who had been confirmed with H1N1, so the best thing to do was to keep everyone home! Unreal! When was this going to end?? Thursday I sent some of our had-been-sick kids to school, but then on Friday we had more at home.
Next day, next problem. Bob and one of the girls, Wanpen, told me they both wanted to go away for the weekend; Bob to see his father in Chiang Rai, & Wanpen to her village to get some papers signed for school. The CEO had made it pretty clear in the weeks previous that for now, until she “knew” me better, I wasn’t to make any decisions without consulting her. She lives in California, so all communications with her are by email. So I emailed her & asked her if Bob & Wanpen could go. She said no. Too dangerous for both of them (not safe home environments). So of course I’m the one to deliver this news to them, & so am the evil enforcer. It proceeded to rain torrentially for the whole weekend, so after having kids home from school all week, we now had all the kids inside the house for the whole weekend. It was getting a bit much. Late on the Sunday afternoon, Kitt came to the Centre, because he was picking one of the kids up to take him to his village to speak with the Chief, in preparation for an interview at the Government Office the next morning, so the kid could apply for his Thai ID card. While he was there, an incident occurred that I won’t go into, but the very short version is that Kitt undermined me in front of a group of the boys, which sent them a message loud & clear – that they don’t have to listen to anything I say. Any leverage that I had, any authority, was taken away, & I was left with anarchy. The next day (do you see a pattern emerging…? It really was a new problem every day), I had to go with Kitt and this boy to the Government Office, and spend the whole day there while they had meetings with the officers there. I wasn’t actually doing anything, but the power that Kitt had been given previously in dealing with things like this, meant that I had to do as he said, or risk jeopardizing this boy getting his ID card. So another day where I would just have to do all the other hundreds of things I had to do that day, after the kids had gone to bed, & rack up another 20 hours…. But that wasn’t all that happened that day. Seeing as Kitt had taken away any authority I had over the boys, Bob decided that he was going to Chiang Mai anyway, so before Daniel drove him to school, Bob made one of the other boys give him his allowance money, then when he got to school he borrowed someone’s motorbike to come back to the house to get something (Daniel busted him), & took off for Chiang Mai. Great. So now I have to tell the CEO that we’ve got a runaway. All week the children were vile, not doing anything they’re supposed to, plenty of things they’re not, & generally being very unpleasant. Thanks Kitt. There were days that the only thing that got me through were endless cups of tea, courtesy of the lovely miss Julie, who had posted a massive supply to me a couple of months ago….
On the next Saturday afternoon, Bob came back, & the effect on the other boys was once again, immediate. They all started acting tough & being especially hideous for the rest of the weekend. I was looking forward to Monday, when all the sick kids would be back at school, but that was wishful thinking. Inspired by Bob’s bad-ness, 3 of the boys decided that they would wag school that day. One (Chuchart) pretended he was sick, the other 2 went, but then came home. Of course this can’t go unpunished, so no allowance & no TV the next weekend for any of them. That night, the 3 delinquents and Bob tell me that they all want to leave IHF & go back to live in their villages. A long meeting later, with the help of our eldest boy translating, & we’ve managed to convince all of them except Bob that they are better off staying with IHF, and reminded them that this means that they have to follow the rules, including going to school. But Bob’s mind was made up, he was going. So the next day (there it is again…) I took one of the ear boys to the doctor, Daniel took Bob to the bus station, & the rest of the kids went to school. Oh, except for 2 of the older boys (one of which was Chuchart) who went to school (because Daniel drove them there) but then left & got busted by a teacher at the shopping centre. So I get a phone call from Kitt telling me that the school had phoned him, & I had to go meet with the head teacher. So I go to the high school & have a long meeting with the head teacher & the two waggers, during which they agree that they should not be bunking off school & won’t do it again.
The next day, the primary school was closed. Again!! For a teacher conference. Would someone give me a break???? So, 18 kids at home. Again. “Someone” must have been listening, because the day after that, was actually a good day. No phone calls from Kitt, no kids home from school, no disasters or medical emergencies or doctor appointments. Just a day that went like it was supposed to. But that was never going to last. The next day, Friday, Chuchart ditched school again, & I got yet another call from Kitt because the school had called him (even after I gave them my number & told them to call me), & said there would be a meeting that afternoon where the school would discuss Chuchart’s future, or lack thereof, at the school. In a meeting with the head teacher and school director, I managed to appeal to something within them, compassion I guess, and explained that Chuchart has had a difficult background & has had a lot to deal with in his young life. It emerged that he can barely understand written or spoken Thai, so isn’t understanding anything in any of his classes, which explains his lack of interest in going to school. So we came up with a plan – the school will buddy him up with a friend of his who gets good grades, to help him in class. They’ll also enlist the help of his teachers & ask them to give him extra help. I’ve also looked into getting him extra tuition outside of school, and we have asked one of his sponsors if they’re willing to fund this. Chuchart says he’s willing to do the extra work & will commit to it, so we will see.
At the beginning of the next week, 2 new volunteers arrived, & I was feeling very aware of the shitfight they were walking into. Kim took them out to show them around town the night before she left, so at least there was something positive about their introduction to IHF Thailand. The next day Kim left, so then it was down to me & Daniel, & 2 new people who were no doubt wondering what the hell was going on. Might I just add that none of this was being helped at all by the fact that the body wash refill I’d bought thinking, “hmmm, peppermint, that could be invigorating…” actually smells like Old Spice or some such other horrendous ‘70’s throwback men’s eau de pong, which I forget about every day, until I take a shower and am coated in its malodorous perfume….
Eventually it came to be a Friday which was the day before my birthday. Things still weren’t going well. All the boys were now on a slingshot craze, & despite having been told many times in the past that slingshots aren’t allowed, they had all been harbouring secret machetes and knives, busily making slingshots that we were just as busily confiscating. Along with the machetes & knives, of course. Anyway, Friday afternoon meant my English chat session with Kwan & the other kids, so off I went for an hour of nice chatting & no shouting. I forgot that they had asked me on a previous visit the date of my birthday, & when I turned up that day they all had presents for me.
My birthday was much like any other day, although there were a few concessions. I can remember having 2 less-than-great birthdays before. The first was when I woke up on my 19th with chronic tonsillitis that was so bad I was delirious; and the other was my 29th, when my ex-husband had left me the week before. My 39th wasn’t quite as bad as either of those, but it definitely wasn’t among the better ones I’ve had. (I don't remember my 9th birthday, but I'm not sure what to expect for my 49th... luckily now that I've seen this pattern emerging, I've got plenty of time to prepare for my 49th). Of course there were all the usual demands & general bad behaviour from a lot of the children, but I managed to sneak 90 minutes out of the afternoon to cycle into town for a massage, which was fabulous. When I got back to the Centre it was dark & the kids were fixing to watch a movie. I had put a ban on all TV for everyone until all boys had returned all slingshots to me, & so far I had received none. There had been no TV for a couple of weeks. As I got out of the tuk tuk, a couple of the boys ran over to me & gave me a box. I thought it was going to have a spider, snake, scorpion or something else horrendous in it, so I refused to take it. They were very insistent, and Maddie & Marisa (the new voli’s) encouraged me to take it. Then I knew what was going to be inside. When I opened the box it had about 10 slingshots individually wrapped, & they had written on each of them “happy birthday Fiona”. So I said they could watch TV & everyone was very happy. A big thank you to the lovely people who remembered my birthday, & sent care packages or messages, which were very much needed in my time of woe. The new girls had bought chocolate cake from McLovin so we ate that, then Maddie & I went off to a new discovery which we were calling “the Lounge” because it has a lounge, but turns out that it’s actually called Sa-bun-nga. We were treated to plenty of karaoke from the other patrons, and an especially long Elvis routine consisting of about 10 songs from the owner.
Once the calendar hit September I began a couple of mental countdowns. The first would be until the 9th when Daniel would be going, leaving just me with two new volunteers, and the second was until the 24th, when Caty would be returning to Chiang Rai, and in light of the current situation, would now be coming back to the Centre to co-direct with me. I was dreading Daniel leaving, as he had been there for only a few weeks less than I had, and he had really stepped up during the past weeks of crisis. But I needn’t have worried – the two new volunteers were a pair of very capable women, who understood my ever-decreasing ability to string a sentence together and just got on with things. Those last two weeks before Caty came back went by in a blur of overtiredness and over-everythingness, mostly characterized by the boys’ latest craze, which is catching giant rhinoceros beetles. These they tie up by the horn with a piece of string, attaching them to sticks of sugar cane that have had the “bark” hacked off (more knives…. There are no more machetes – they all live locked up in my contraband drawer in the filing cabinet). The beetles gnaw away at the sugar cane, chomping through vast amounts & reducing the stick to sawdust, & if you stroke their back they make a terrific hissing noise. The real appeal though, lies in their potential money-making ability. Thai men love to gamble on the fights of two male beetles, who will engage in some serious wrestling in order to win the right to the amorous affections of a lady rhinoceros beetle. The things you do when you don’t have TV. So the boys have become entrepreneurs, (a good beetle can fetch about 70 baht) and have an ever-growing collection of beetle-inhabited sugar cane dangling all around the place like some kind of whacky wind chimes… The other major feature of this time was that we were blessed with something akin to a miracle, when out of nowhere a Thai woman named Nisarat (Sara) appeared wanting to become a local volunteer with us. Not only can she freely communicate with the children, she has helped me to translate documents, has been incredibly generous with her time, and more often than not turns up with something for the Centre, whether it be sweets for the children, shovels for the garden, or bags of food for the kitchen. She helps with homework, demands proper behaviour from the children, holds tutoring classes on the weekends, and is generally a wonderful human being.
Something I must mention is the wonderful generosity of my uncle Philip, who was inspired to make a financial contribution to the limited resources of the Centre. Because of his philanthropy I was able to establish the funding of a hygiene program which covers the cost of things like cleaning products and equipment, wall hand-soap dispensers, laundry soaker so the kids don’t have to go to school with stained uniforms, and other basic things that we take for granted to reduce the spread of germs and diseases. Also my mum and dad, who (for my birthday present) have taken on for six months, the medical sponsorship of one of the boys with chronic ear infections.
And so now, to now. Finally Caty arrived, & not a moment too soon, as my fried brain, exhausted body, and frayed nerves limped over the finish line. I promptly got a migraine and after two days of helping myself to a pharmaceutical buffet, I awoke to Sunday 27th September – and my first day off since I was in Chiang Mai nine longs weeks ago. Marisa’s four weeks volunteering had been prefaced by two nights at a mountainside retreat, and it sounded like just what I needed. No one to talk to, nothing to look at except mountains, no one to say my name 10 000 times a day, not even a TV in my room. Sold! I found a decent rate through an online booking agency, and my four nights at Phuchaisai were booked. http://www.phu-chaisai.com/ This place is amazing. The photos on the website don’t do it justice, so I’ve taken about a hundred myself, but I suspect that a lot of it has to do with the serenity (the dad from The Castle would be in overdrive!). After 3 nights here I can feel my eyes becoming less heavy and squinty, and hope that the black rings that mock my eyes and have been my most striking facial feature for many weeks now, are slowly fading. From the infinity pool to the array of tiny orchids in the gardens, to the silence and beauty of the natural surroundings, this is a very special place. Words, at least my limited vocabulary, cannot describe. The rooms, in fact almost the entire resort, is bedecked in bamboo, the bathrooms and balcony molded in terracotta-stained concrete, every fitting has been painstakingly selected, and the staff are as 5-star as you could hope for in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. The only TV in the place is a 50-inch plasma screen in the Library – yes, Library, located next to the bar, which is fitted out like a cosy log cabin. Except there are no external walls, this being Thailand after all. I’ve spent long periods of time on the day bed on my balcony, just being. I have many favourite times of the day here, and one of them is at dusk when the bells of the monastery in the valley below are rung, their beautiful melody echoing through the mountains. I have to pause here because I’m off on an excursion with the owner, a wonderful man named Amnuay, who I met this morning, & after chatting a while he offered to take me out for lunch.
My lunchtime excursion with Khun Amnuay was great. We drove in his fully-refurbished white 1979 Mercedes down to the local town & chatted over a lunch of steamed chicken and rice, at the best steamed-chicken-and-rice place in town. Khun Amnuay went to university in England, and continued the tradition with his two sons, so his spoken English is unfaultable. Then it was back to Phuchaisai for me to debate whether a swim, some writing from my secluded balcony, or a massage was to be next on the afternoon’s agenda…. Had I been a gardening enthusiast, I was welcome to spend some time with the 600-strong delivery of flowers in pots that had just arrived, however my very generous friend Lisa had been chatting online with me earlier in the morning, and at the same time had deposited some money into my bank account to treat me to a massage in the incredibly beautiful spa….. so a massage it was, followed by some voracious reading of a novel I’d borrowed from the library. In fact the novel was set over a period of 24 hours, and I followed suit by starting and finishing it in the same time frame. Quite the luxury, I thought.
On my last morning I awoke to the sound of rain falling softly on the leaves outside my window, and as I contemplated the surrounding mountains, put my final few hours here into order: breakfast, an hour online (free wifi from my balcony), swim, shower (and oh, what a shower! Possibly the best in memory…. Complete with what could be the fluffiest towels in existence…) not to mention hot water…., check out at 12:00, a quick lunch then the 45 minute drive back to Chiang Rai. I’d say it was just what I needed.
Now my 6 months in Chiang Rai are coming to an end. I’ll be here for another 4 weeks, until my visa expires and then plan to go to Luang Prabang in Laos for about a week. Then I’ll come back to Chiang Rai while I wait for mum and my aunty Rusty to arrive, and then will head off for some R&R on Koh Kood, a Thai island near the border with Cambodia. At the beginning of December I’ll have to take another trip out of the country to apply for another 90 day visa, and then will head to Sangklaburi to start a new chapter at Baan Unrak Children’s Home. It feels almost like being on holiday at the Centre now, with 2 co-directors and 5 new volunteers, and as of Friday a lot of the kids will go back to their villages for a couple of weeks, as they are on their mid-term break until the beginning of November. And now I’m off to plan my trip to Laos!
