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Wherever you go, there you are.

26/6/2011

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Another blessing day it was.

25/6/2011

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On a lovely rainy day we made a nice sightseeing trip with 3 stopovers: the dam, the zoo and the cake-shop.
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A real family I have...
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Paweena and Narky, who I adore.
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Narky, Paweena and me.
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Smart reusage of flat tyres
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A superstone back of a chair :)
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Another flat-tyre application. Though it looks to me like a cooking pot it is a fairy-talish bin :)
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The pretty luxurious so-called "cake shop" in the middle of nowhere and the generous Steve, who orginized this wonderful day for me and the kids.
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What a stylish flower, isn't it?
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За Васил и Юнуз :)

20/6/2011

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Give Kids Hope. Thailand

16/6/2011

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At first the word "hilltribes" provoked in me curiosity and interest. They have colourful clothes and distinctive jewlery, their own language and culture and are attractive to most of the tourists in Northern Thailand. What I didn't know, however, is that most of them are extremely poor, with no vision about their future and have a lot of uneducated children they are not able to cope with. Many of them are alchohol addicted and their villages are turned into Thai borderline slums. Their life is anything but fairytale.

Let me give you some facts:

Most of the hilltribe families live in remote upland areas where the nearest school is 10 km away. They dont' have the time or the means of transport to deliver their children at school. As a result, their kids work with them in the steep mountains to gather some food or stay at home alone with no meals all day long until their parents come back home in the late afternoon. Every day children in Northern Thailand are being orphaned by AIDS, disease, accident, abandoment or suicide. Many of them choose drugs and alchool as their best friends. Many children are being sold to the pirates - people who would give you money for your 7 year-old daugther to "take charge of her" and "give her an education". What really happens is that these girls are driven to some big city, put alone in a locked room with no windows for two years, serving 10 to12 customers a day. The men do NOT wear condoms because the competition is too great between the brothels and the friction wears sores on the girls. They will eventually get HIV and are beaten if they protest. After 2 years they are allowed to work alongside other sex slaves in the brothels and are watched very carefully. This is however the worst scenario.
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A house in a hilltribe village.
If, anyway, a hilltribe daughter is lucky enough to escape such a horrid destiny she will be married at the age of 13-14 continuing the same chain of a life in poverty, misery, illiteracy and hard labor.  
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Stephen is an Australian guy, married to a hilltribe Lahu/Thai wife Sammy. They live and minister in Mae Suai, a village between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and are the founders of Give Kids Hope NGO. They live in a lovely children's home, which they built by themselves solely relying on donations. Currently they live together with 22 children from hilltribe familes (including their own son, Mathew).

The organisation does not take children away from the families by force. They are just aware of orpahned or abandoned children as well those in need of immediate care and usually the parents themselves approach them. They provide the children education, loving home environment in well-maintained facilities, warm home-cooked meals, everyday care to drive them to and from school, home activities, guidiance and assistance and most importantly - a vision of life that they can achieve whatever goal or dream they may have. For a European person it is hard to imagine that someone should be taught to have dreams in his life but this is what these children lack the most at their homes. Talking with Steve every evening about each child's case I start realizing how their personalities are blossoming out in this home full of love, care, play, security, faith and friends.
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Give Kids Hope Home
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Bible study after dinner.
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Studying, drawing, talking, playing.
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Eating together home-cooked meals in a nice spacious canteen.
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Steve, building up a new children's dorm.
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Mango time!
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Preparing homework after dinner.
Living already half of month with all of them proves my initial intuition - the organisation doesn't try to replace their uniqness with Western identification. On the contrary - they preserve their own hilltribe culture maybe even stronger than they would preserve it at home - sewing their traditional clothes, learning how to read and write their tribe language, celebrating their holidays. What Stephen and Sammy are daily doing is simply to give children faith - in God, in themselves, in the good, in life. 
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Nardor, Chanita and Orawan in their folk costumes,sawn by the skillful Mo, one of the house mothers.
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My humble and extremely cosy room.
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A place of a constant play.
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Random Facts

10/6/2011

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  • Noone speaks English. Randomly met person in the street or a cab driver cannot even recognize words as train, city center, downtown, shop.
  • They unpack as less as possible.
  • At one meal they mix everything – pork, chicken, fish, seafood, sweet, salty and chilly. Similar to Middle East, usually they eat in the floor from communal dishes. The Arabic bread is replaced here by a bowl of boiled rice or so-called sticky rice, which one takes it into his hand, presses it into one-bite ball with fingers and uses it as a “sponge” into the other dishes.
  • They would eat even the fruit with a mixture of chili and sugar.
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  • No pubs, no bars, no coffee shops out of the big cities. Actually nothing like a place to sit inside, to look at a menu and order. Food carts along the streets. Fruit carts along the street. Coffee carts along the streets. Ice-cream carts along the streets.

  • No fresh salad, vegetables are fried or just a several leaves of something green is served as addition to the dishes.
  • Apples are expensive and tasteless. Mango, pineapple and banana are the cheapest and most common fruits.
  • They would have for breakfast grilled chicken, rice, fish meal at 6.30 AM. No difference with lunch or dinner meals.
  • A lot of street dogs everywhere - not friendly at all. No cat seen till now.
  • There is no hot water. One tap, through which it is running cool water. You don’t need it warmer throughout the year.
  • The traffic is right-directed.
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  • Students wear uniforms and those up to 15 years old have unique hair cut. School day starts with a flag ceremony and a half an hour lecture by a teacher what good behavior is. The same teacher will give a close-up speech at the end of the school day as well. Pupils give salute to the teacher for good morning and goodbye in the classroom.
  • In the sentence “Where did you spend your holiday?” the new words are: where, spend and holiday. Students at the age of 15 find great difficulties to introduce themselves with My name is….., I am 15 years old, I am from Thailand. Students at the age of 18 cannot understand the question How old are you. Generally, sad but true, no matter how polite and discipline they are the education level is terribly low. They lack general knowledge the most. Unaware of the major religions in the world or which countries include the Arab world (they failed to name even 2 without my help). I threw out of the window everything I have prepared and start with the numbers, the colours, the clock, the question words and basic pieces of information about the world in general.

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  • Shoes off inside – no matter temple, home, classroom. I am barefoot almost everywhere except in the streets.

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  • Motorcycle world.

  • You will find karaoke cabins in the bigger trade centers.
  • TV movies are duplicated and naked scenes are censored, as well as the action of drinking and smoking.
  • Everyone is sweeping.
  • Children are undemanding, quiet and independent in their activities.
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  • There are a lot of ladyboys everywhere. Not only in the big cities, but in small, remoted villages as well. What is even more curious, there is usually one lady boy in each class at school, who will keep his nails long, put a lip gloss and move with the girls around. And noone seems to take this derisively.

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  • Everyone uses talc. Usually their face and neck is richly powdered.
  • Any facial cosmetic product contains whitening agent. Girls want to be white and like curly hair.

  • The colours are different – golden-coloured temples, pink and red dressed people, exceedingly green landscape. Pupils will colour the lemon in green. Because they have lime :)
  • There is an evening market in every village starting at 5 PM full of food, second-hand clothes and cheerful din.
  •  Thai people are extremely polite, quiet and attentive. They will try their best to make you feel good and provide you whatever you may need.
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Ubon Ratchathani

2/6/2011

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I came on 5th of May and I am leaving on 5th June. I landed in this country with half mind and heart still in the desert and Thai charm escaped me at the beginning. Thanks to the lovely family I stayed with, to the welcoming schools and the great passion and love of the students I am now full of happiness and deeply thankful I lived within their small society and was part of them for a month. I am heading for the Thai Northest province.
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Sawang Weerawong School, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand
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My students
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Sometimes I was wondering if I can really reach them.
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Sometimes they were trying their best.
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Bulgarian folklore lesson ended with a dancing workshop.
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Welcome to the jungle :)
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With a bunch of students on a walk during the weekend.
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The sweetest girls in a primary school.
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Rehearsal after classes.
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The same girls on the rocket festival around a temple. The festival is an interesting street parade at the beginning of the rainy season, which is held to celebrate and encourage the coming of the rains. It includes dancers, musicians, chili smoke, rocket firings, drunk people and a lot of models of penis and vagina.
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In Mr. Parwit farm
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    A world is a book, which I am writing travelling and discovering that anything goes in a path full of miracles. Beast or an angel - it is up to you. My greatest life affair is just to keep on walking with respect.

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