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Not Even A Sort of Blog
A friend of mine who is doing doctoral research on internet communication quoted a definition that claims blogs have two key features:
1) They are updated at least every three months;
2) Postings appear in reverse chronological order.
12/6/2007
Sam
Back in the beginning of 2005, when we had finished our week in Thailand in the wake of the tsunami, we started thinking about longer-term projects. We had raised some money, and we also had our own resources. Yet it was hard to know what kinds of help we could best bring. We did not have sufficient funds for major projects such as housebuilding or boatbuilding, and we did not want to carry out the kind of fundraising that would be necessary for such work. Nor for that matter did we have the expertise. What's more, in the months following the tsunami, both major and minor aid organizations established a big presence in Thailand. Volunteers were everywhere. There may even have been too many houses and boats built in the end.
So it was that we decided upon Neung and her family as our long-term project. It was big enough that it would need some resources, but small-scale enough for us to manage it, and to make a significant difference. I often think of it as a decision to make our help narrow and deep, instead of wide and shallow. Instead of delivering rice cookers or toys to a large number of families, making a small difference to a large number of people, we would instead try to make a big difference to one family. Of course, at the time we made that decision, we had no idea at all just how deep our involvement would be.
On our various trips to Khao Lak in the last couple of years, we have given in other small ways. We have tried to help the Johnsons (our non-missionary missionary friends) do their work, by providing them with toys and books for the children that they help. Jill did some academic research on the nature of post-tsunami aid, and discovered that the teenagers of Ban Nam Khem had been badly served: adults had received new possessions for their homes; young children had received toys; buy adolescents had been given little or nothing. Based on this discovery, we have brought some gifts to these adolescents. Neung gave some gifts to some kids in the village using money that she received for her birthday. We have overtipped consistently in hotels and restaurants.
Now, though, we are embarking upon a new project; another attempt to help in a narrow deep way. Sam is a young man, just turned 15, who lives in Neung's village. He is bright, diligent, and ambitious. (At one time his ambition was to be the Thai ambassador to New Zealand, although I am not sure if he still has quite such specific dreams. Why New Zealand? I think because he had watched Lord of the Rings.) We have decided to help him finish his schooling at an international school in Singapore, where he can perfect his English and also study to earn the International Baccalaureat. He will attend Neung's school, and we will be his sponsors. He he will not live with us, though; he will live in a boarding house near the school. We will spend time with him on weekends and at other times, so he can act as kind of a big brother to Neung.
Sam's family lost its home in the tsunami, but our reason for choosing to do this with Sam is not so much because of how he and his family suffered -- others certainly suffered more -- but because we think he has such great potential. What we are doing with Sam is more akin to a scholarship than to tsunami relief. Scholarship opportunities are thin on the ground, and he has applied for, but just missed, a couple of different scholarships in his province. (Sam also entered and won an essay competition sponsored by an unnamed company that had promised a trip to Switzerland to the winner. However, when the time came to claim his prize they just gave him a book instead.)
Being the navel-gazing academics that we are, we spent quite a bit of time thinking about whether this was a good form of charity to choose. It's never easy to decide where to give. The economist in me says that resources should be sent to where the need is greatest, and that logic would have us not worrying about Thailand at all. As many organizations reminded us all -- quite correctly -- there is the equivalent of a tsunami every few months in Africa. But we now have this connection to Thailand, and to Ban Nam Khem in particular. This means that we can see and assess the needs there in person. We can, if we wish, monitor the impact of any aid we give. And, quite frankly, seeing the people still in need of help leads us to help more. It's not an abstraction to us -- it is not poor people somewhere on the other side of the world. It is people whom we see, eat with, look in the eye.
And so Sam will be moving to Singapore in the fall, and meanwhile we have embarked on another project as well. But I will save that for another posting.
12/6/2007
Life in the Tropics
Last month Neung was ill for ten days or so. This was new for us; she is normally very very healthy. In fact it was the first time she has been really sick in all the time we have known her. And she wasn't that unwell: just running a high(ish) fever for several days, and coughing. Still, when the fever persisted for more than a couple of days, we thought we should take her to the pediatrician, just in case.
Thus we were reminded, once again, that living in the tropics is different. "Well," said Dr Belinda, "It's almost certainly not malaria, and I doubt if it's dengue fever, but we'd better do the blood tests just to be sure."
12/6/2007
The Motorcycle Diary
— Mama! I'm on a motorcycle and I'm wearing my helmet!
Everyone in Thailand rides a motorcycle. No-one except the foreigners wears a helmet. It's not uncommon to see whole families on motorbikes; I have more than once seen five people on one bike: mother, father, two children and the baby. Neung's grandmother Sanam goes everywhere on her motorcycle, and on every visit to Thailand we have had to live with the knowledge that Neung was being transported on the bike with her. It is one of the most concrete manifestations of the fact that, though we are Neung's guardians in Singapore law, and her parents in terms of day-to-day reality, there are still times when we have to relinquish that parental control. We bought Neung a helmet, and made her promise to wear it; we asked Sanam to take her on the bike as little as possible; but there was not much else that we felt we could do. And so, each trip to Thailand, we would take Neung to her grandmother's, then go back to our hotel and worry.
But recently, all that changed. When we telephoned Sanam a few weeks ago, we learned that she had had a motorcycle accident. She was not badly hurt, although she did have to spend a couple of days in the hospital. For us, it was the moment that finally told us that we could no longer stick with the status quo, and at the same time we knew it was a time when Sanam might be more open to persuasion. So we asked one of our Thai friends to speak to her, and she told us that she would no longer take Neung on the motorcycle. We told her in turn that we could drive her anywhere that she needed to go.
Still, even though we had extracted that commitment, we were concerned on our next visit to Thailand. The accident was a few weeks in the past, and we knew that Sanam was back riding her bike again. We were worried that the temptation to put Neung on her bike for a quick trip to the market would be too great. So we decided that we had to involve Neung in this as well, even though it was a tough burden to lay upon her. We told her that she was not allowed to get on any motorcycles even if Sanam said that she should. We gave Neung a mobile phone, as we always do when she is in Thailand, and told her that she should telephone us if Sanam told her they were going to get on the bike. We told her she would be in big trouble if we learned she was on a motorbike.
This was a three day trip, and for the first couple of days everything seemed fine. We learned that, after her first night there, she woke at 4:30 in the morning, and insisted that her grandmother take her to the market for breakfast. And she insisted that they go on foot. Oh, and she insisted that they both should run, because that would be good for Sanam's injured leg. Other than that, they stayed close to Sanam's house. We went by on the second evening, and got dragged to a big party at a neighbor's house, celebrating the ordination of two young men as monks. Parties in Ban Nam Khem are all pretty much the same: overamplified bad pop music, food, and beer (and more, to judge by some of the vacant expressions). I'm losing count of the number of times we have been pulled in to dance with extremely drunk Thais.
We reached the last morning of our trip, and were beginning to breathe easier again. Until we decided to call, mid-morning, to see how Neung was doing.
— Mama! I'm on a motorcycle and I'm wearing my helmet!
— You're what? Where are you?
But conversation was impossible. There was loud music nearby and the sound of traffic, and we couldn't figure out where she was or what she was doing. We asked her if she could move away from the music, but she said she couldn't because she was on the road. We knew that they were supposed to be going to the temple for another part of the ceremonies for the new young monks, but the temple is just across the street from where Sanam lives, so it didn't make sense that they would be taking a motorcycle to go there. We asked someone from the hotel to call Sanam -- and learned that they were on their way to a different temple, in Bang Muang.
So we got in the car and drove up to Nam Khem. All the way there we debated Neung's punishment. We knew that it would have been hard for her to say no to her grandmother, but at the same time we had extracted a very serious promise from her. She knew that she had been absolutely forbidden from getting on the motorbike. This was the most she had ever defied us, and she was going to be in big trouble.
We got to the Bang Muang temple. There were people there waiting, but Sanam and Neung were not there. One of the waiting people recognized Jill. Sanam and Neung were coming, we were told. So we got back in the car and headed down the road to Nam Khem. And then we heard the (bad, overamplified) music. We pulled over.
And there was the parade. People walking, dancing, drinking (in fact, I think they had not stopped drinking from the previous night). As we were, once again, pulled into the crowd of drunk singing dancing Thais, we saw the source of the music: a keyboard, amplifier, and speakers were mounted on a very large sidecar --almost a small truck -- attached to a motorcycle. At the back sat Norng Neung. Finally, it all made sense. Yes, she was technically on a kind of motorbike. Yes, she was on the road -- but going at a slow walking pace. And, no, she couldn't get away from the music.
Later that day, when Neung was back with us in the hotel, we asked her:
— But, sweetie, why did you say you were on a motorbike?
— Well, I didn't know what else to call it.
There really was no argument with that. I don't know what else to call it either.
12/6/2007