I of course fell right back asleep, knowing we had a 3 hour drive ahead of us. But it was so pretty once we got out of the city! Since we are all coffee fiends and no one was as excited about the mueslei cookies and Priz and I, we pulled over at this little roadside cafe that said it had coffee. Gary wanted it too. Even the little roadside middle of nowhere place was tranquil and gorgeous, and had amazing chocolate cake.
Finally at 11ish we arrived in Fang village, and met Dr. Pimpant. We all thought we were going to an orphanage, and were excited to play with kids the way we had at Divya Disha. Instead, we followed Dr. Pimpant along winding roads through rice patties
and a rural village, to a cute little school. We were served coffee and cake, and got to watch a traditional umbrella dance!
It was sunday after all. Andrew's organization, Orphans Against Aids gives scholarship money for kids orphaned by AIDS. At this school in Fang Village the kids use their scholarship money to pay for the school, for books, clothes etc.
We talked to a few of the kids, and made them come to lunch with us! They seem really happy for the opportunity to escape what could be a viscous and dangerous cycle. Some of us had hesitations about whether or not medical treatment and safe sex education were included in the benefits of the scholarship--after bringing this up with Dr. Pimpant she was very happy to take our suggestions and work on them.
My at lunch with one of the kids who has a scholarship
Overall it was a great learning experience for us, and hopefully we helped Andrew know more about what's going on in Fang Village and the school he helped create! I am also happy to say that OAA takes donations via Google Checkout--so you can donate quickly and easily online! http://www.orphansagainstaids.org/
We did feel jipped that we didn't get to play with kids, so Dr. Pimpant offered to take us to another school closer to the city of Chiang Mai the next day. In the meantime, it was time to visit some tribal villages.
The Karen long neck tribes live in Chiang Mai province. And we felt much better about paying 500 Baht to see an actual village...at least we thought it was an actual village.
In the end, it was basically a long row of stalls selling the handi-crafts they make in the village. Still really interesting to see what they make, what they wear, and how cute their kids are! Also did some good shopping and bargaining.
After the village I started feeling a little questionable, thought it was my blood sugar, it was, so I had some OJ...but the feeling didn't go away. We piled into the car again, convinced the boys there was no need to make it to the Burma border, since we could see Burma over the mountains, and what's a border anyway...and headed back to Chiang Mai.
I won't go into the details of the sickness, but let's just say i made the outside of the car kind of dirty when i hung my head out the window as we were moving...Don't eat the massaman curry mystery meat.
Four hours later after a miserable car ride where I was half passed out, I climbed into bed while the others headed to the night market. I was so sad to miss that part of the trip, but clearly my body was telling me something.
In the morning, still feeling a little shakey, we headed to another school, saw more cute Thai kids learning enthusiastically. This was a fancy school--uniforms, dorms, really nice classrooms and facilities. 80% of the girls here are orphans, most orphaned by AIDS. Most will go on to university or some kind of career school! Pretty amazing. We got to watch a few classes and talk to them.
AIDs is a big issue in northern thailand, because right across the border are brothels. It also seems like there just isn't enough education around how to treat and prevent it. Also people don't get tested, because if they do find out they are HIV positive they are not treated the same in life. It was hard to step out of our Western minds to understand why no girls who tested positive for AIDS were allowed in the fancy schools, and why many of the kids in Fang Village whose parents died of AIDS were not even tested. For them it is about quality of life, not quantity I guess. Regarless, it was nice to see that so much was being done for these kids, and that although they lost their parents, and could have been left with nothing, they have a place to go and will be educated enough to make their way in the world.
It also made me want to move to Thailand to teach English!
The rest of the afternoon was spent nursing my tummy, and seeing more wats (temples)...there are a ton in Chiang Mai, some old, some new, some gold, some blue--actually, no, none of them are blue, i just wanted to rhyme. There was also monk chat time at one of them! The monks practice their english and the tourists get to learn about Buddhism, Chiang Mai or whatever they feel like.
Cheers!
Let's hope I make it back to Thailand soon, it was quite nice.
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