Rollercoaster of Emotions

Today was such an emotional rollercoaster. It was one of those days where you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This morning we arrived at Mercy around 8 am, just in time for our morning adult English classes. One of my students met me at the door as I was leaving and asked if we could cancel class today because all of the staff I teach were preparing soy beans for the children. Cancelling Fridays has been a routine for them so I already half expected this in the morning. I was invited to go with them to see how soybean is prepared. This is eaten for breakfast as a special treat. It is mixed with milk, beans, some kind of jelly looking thing, sugar and two other things I did not recognize. After a scoop of everything is added to a bowl it is stirred and everything but the jelly melts. You can either drink it or drip fried batter into it. This batter reminded me a lot of Dutch olibollen that mom makes at New Years time. It tasted a lot similar minus the icing sugar. The staff gave it to the patients in the adults AIDS hospice and then to the children from the AIDS ward. They were all outside painting. I will post some pictures as soon as I can.

I spent some time visiting with the adults AIDS patients, sharing many laughs and making a fool out of myself as usual. I guess when you cannot communicate with language, communicating with actions becomes even more important.

Next, Misty and I were off to Fat 12, our second preschool group. There were about 30 children in the room. This preschool is a little closer than the one yesterday and seems to have better facilities. I am not sure why this is this way. The children knew a little more English. They were able to recognize letters of the alphabet, colors and today we focused on shapes. We taught them a few songs in English and played Misty’s lovely CD again. That a Godsend that tape is, and also a workout. I do not know how many times we danced to the chicken dance today, but I am pretty sure it is way more than I have ever in my whole life. I don’t even want to think of the sight I looked when I arrived back at Mercy after our walk back. One days like today I love air conditioning.

Lunch was one of my favorites, and one of Misty’s least favorites. It was rice, of course, and salty fish with some other stuff and my favorite honey oranges for dessert. There is usually fruit for dessert. The fish is way better than it looks. However it does take some time to eat as you have to pick the bones out of it. It doesn’t look that appetizing to be honest.

After lunch we taught our university prep girls again. They didn’t have school today because of a holiday so we moved their class to earlier in the afternoon. We did reader’s theatre with them and it was great to see that their English has improved so much that they are able to put expression in their language. The quieter student sure took the spot light today as she was two characters and often had to converse with herself. It was quite amusing. We are really close to these girls and often chit chat before and after class about what is going on in our lives. We were telling them about our experience with the preschool children and using the cd so we decided to show them some of our dance moves. It was so funny that I had to record it so we can be reminded of it in the future.

After class we danced a little more in the office with the PR staff and then went back to visit the adults in the AIDS ward. I was talking to my good friend Bird (the one who was in the hospital a few weeks ago). He knows a few words in English, and I, a few in Thai so we can have a very simple conversation; the same simple conversation we seem to have every single day. I asked him about one of the other patients who has been in the hospital for a few days and he motioned to me that she died. His acting was so funny to describe it that I wanted to laugh so hard but the news was so sad. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a weird emotional feeling. After getting one of the other staff to translate I found out that she passed away yesterday. She was not responding to the medication. It is still so surreal to me. From the day we arrived she always seemed like one of the healthier patients. She was always up and walking around. When Bird was in the hospital she is the one who told me about it and kept me updated on his progress. Honestly, I did not realize she was a patient until a week into our stay here. Even though we have only been here a month and did not know her very well, she was one of the patients that we really connected with. She was one of the youngest patients in the adults ward and one of the liveliest. I remember the day the children had the party with the bouncy castle that wa sponsored by one of the donors. She sat outside all day and just watched the children playing and jumping. She died so suddenly. I don’t know much about her story but I don’t think she has parents that are in her life, either they chose not to care for her or they are not around. She was just taken away so suddenly, and we were not given a warning. It was a shock to hear that she was in the hospital in the first place, I never imagined that she would not come back. I knew coming here that this may be something that we will have to experience. It is just shocking that it was one of the healthiest looking patients there. Some of the other adults are so thin and look like they could pass any moment, but not her. I pray that she rests in peace.

Uan, the young woman on the AIDS ward that made Misty and I a bracelet with our name on it, gave us a ring she made today. She makes them with very small beads. It looks a smaller version of the one Misty was looking at in the mall the other day. Some Thai’s have pretty amazing talents.

After our visit we went with SiJie to our favorite park. She showed us one of her favorite cake places where we all tired a small slice of cake, and then it was time to relax for the rest of the afternoon. The park was busy as usual; children running around, couples sitting in the shade, dancers practicing, people meditating, people performing other arts and the usual volleyball, basketball, swimmers and some kind of other sport players. We had dinner at a small Thai restaurant tucked away on one of the side streets. It was quite good. I had rice (again) and asparagus, with Chinese mushrooms and prawns.

As we were walking to the restaurant we walked by a beggar. Since we have been here we have witnessed some very sad beggars; young mothers with their children sleeping on their laps, children sitting beside their mothers begging, and older women with no life left in their eyes. However, today was the hardest one for me to witness. I was looking down on the sidewalk and saw a bowl with money in it and a man lying behind it as if he just fell. He was middle aged and looked like he had a hard go at things. I thought it was strange that he was lying like that and glanced back as we walked by to take a second look. Looking back I saw that he did not have legs. One was cut off a little below the knee and one was even shorter but the pant leg covered it. From what I could see it looked like a clean cut and it was quite healed. I just cannot imagine lying face down on the sidewalk begging for money. I still cannot get the sight out of my mind.

We came back to our home away from home around 8:30. The children are back!!! They were all just getting in to bed so we popped in for a quick second to say hello and wish them all a good night. They were so happy to see us and came running over saying “Jodie, Misty” and gave us warm hugs. Those boys make my day. I missed them so much this week. One of the boys taught me a special handshake before he left and was excited to see that I remembered it. Another one held out his hand to hold mine and clamped his other hand overtop, just holding my hand and smiling. Bird, the boy with Autism, speaks English well and he talked about how he was away at the temple for the week for meditation and that he was happy to be back. The children here are incredible, and have proven that even when life seems tough and things get you down, the smile of a child who still has some innocence left can be a major pick me up.

It is Friday night, which means that Misty and I are starting our three day weekend. We got a call from Father Joe’s secretary today asking that we do not leave Bangkok for the weekend as Father Joe wants to take us out for Easter Brunch of Sunday. This worked out conveniently as Misty and I were planning on asking Father Joe if we could go with him to attend mass at the church with the Philippine Choir that we met our first Friday here. We were reminded that Father Joe leaves around 6 am, but the choir was very good and we expect that it will be a beautiful Easter Service. Other than that we do not have any major plans for the weekend. Next weekend we plan on hitting up another beach, maybe Pattaya.

I am going to leave you with the Easter Message from Father Joe last year. I do not have his new message on the computer.

Easter Letter from Father Joe Maier - Miss Peh and the Piano Man.
Easter Letter from Father Joe Maier
Miss Peh and the Piano Man.
Everyone who meets her even once says “Wow!” What a special child! She’s precious and precocious. But with lots of catching up to do. Lots and lots. She's gone through many a bad patch.

She caught the HIV-AIDS virus from her innocent mom at birth, who got it from her not very innocent dad, And now her eyes don't work well at all. They did for a while over a year ago when she first came here. A while ago, the virus turned nasty and beat up her optic nerve. Her eyes, recently, don’t work very well even on bright sun shinny days. She’s blind.

And beautiful she is. A gift. We’re absolutely convinced that she is some former grand noble lady, born out of time and place whom you read about in ancient books of lore. This fragile precocious “just catching up” seven-year-old little girl with the virus. Still got her baby teeth, and smiles when you ask her to, and sits up now by herself and can manage her arms and hands into a beautiful Wai of greeting. Not yet totally cool on feeding herself but we’re working on that, along with her walking.

Life did not start well for Miss Peh. Her dad met the virus in some unmade bed on a booze filled night. Mom never knew till almost two years later when pregnant with baby Peh, when her routine hospital pregnancy blood test showed her HIV positive. Dad died first, mom later, just a few weeks after she gave birth to her first and only daughter Miss Peh. That was seven years ago.

Granny cared for Baby Peh as long as she could, living in a rented shack room about the size of a mosquito net. Then baby Peh moved in with her Auntie, a street sweeper with three children and a motorcycle taxi driver husband. Peh was almost five and couldn’t/wouldn’t walk or talk. By that time, Auntie knew about the Virus, and her Auntie did not dare tell her husband.

During the day, there was no one to care for Peh. Auntie sweeping streets, Uncle, long hours as motorcycle taxi driver and their 3 children in school. Do what you can! They put her on the floor next to some freshly cooked rice, locked the door and came back in the evening.

Auntie was afraid her husband would find out, get angry, and leave her and her three children, plus she didn’t like keeping secrets from him. She never had. A neighbor told her about a day care centre - an eight to five p.m. affair.
The staff asked.

Auntie said ‘yes."

‘They frowned, hemmed and hawed, politely gave Auntie our phone number. That’s how Miss Peh came to us

Auntie visited once. That was a year ago. She promised to come often. How does that expression go? “Don’t hold your breath!”

Miss Peh cries when the older children touch her unexpectedly. Surprising her. Frightening her. When they don’t talk to her first so she can recognize their voices, their smell. She’s timid like a fawn.

This piano guy – he stopped by to play a song or two. Fianc? of a nice lady who comes to visit. They listened politely to bits of the Alleluia Chorus of Handel’s Messiah, but five year olds, even six and seven year olds tire easily with unfamiliar classics. Miss Peh was in the back. Sitting in the lap of Momma Gung. Crippled beat up Momma Gung, off the streets, who wandered into Klong Toey, then walked, hobbled really, to our door step. Said she had no one, nowhere to go. We said, you can stay three days to catch your breath - a clean bed and some food. That was four years ago. Now, she loves Miss Peh for all the children she, momma Gung, will never have.

When the Piano guy came, Miss Peh had had a bad morning. Some of the children had teased her. And tears and whimpers are her only defense. We thought the music might sooth her. We believe in the magic of music. The children know how to sing scales. So we asked the Piano guy, could he play some scales. And when he played them, we heard a new voice – most tiny…a “Tinker Bell “ sound. Miss Peh was singing! We’d never heard her sing before.

As far as we know, her first time singing, sitting there on Aunty Gung’s lap. So I picked her up gently, whispering “it’s okay.” and I sat her on top of the piano. I held her so she wouldn’t fall and she put both hands on the top of the piano and sitting there – feeling the vibrations of the music. She sat there totally awe struck by the music and the vibrations from the piano. When he stopped playing, and the vibrations and music stopped, she frowned.

Then we asked the Piano man could he play some ragtime … and when he did, Miss Peh smiled, grinned, doing her best to clap her hands to the music and for the first time, moving her feet. Later that day, she took two steps and tears. Now, a week it’s ten steps hanging on the a railing, and then ‘ker-plunk” and giggles.

It’s Easter. The Holiest of all Feasts. Our holiest time of the year. It’s Passover. It’s Thai New Year – the full moon of the sixth month – the beginning of the Monsoons – the beginning of the Rice Planting Season. Soon it will be Miss Peh’s eighth birthday. She marches to a rhythm of a different drumbeat and her path is not one that most of us would choose, but celebrate life she does. She celebrates with a beauty all her own.

And if you want, next time you hear, perhaps Handel’s Messiah or a bit of ragtime – think of us, here at Mercy Centre, think of Miss Peh, this precious and precocious child with lots of catching up to do. But then again, don’t we all.