“Once there was a way to get back homeward…”

In the back of the truck bed on the dark ride into town, Kabut fell asleep hugging me.  And I can’t shake sitting there and asking myself all of those old Sally Struthers-esque cliches  Whose baby is this?  How could anyone leave him? How could I give him a better life? Dollar a day? International Adoption? No.  This kid has actually got it made.  He is 10 years old and from Burma, still in Kindergarten because I presume he is not yet legal here and “I have no motha” as the only historical background I have on him. He lives at Baan Dada, a children’s home in Sankhlaburi, Thailand just a few miles from the Burmese border, run by an Ananda Marga monk (wouldn’t be a trip with Amit if we weren’t being hosted by a Margi somewhere) from the Philippines.  There are 56 of the toughest, most hardcore, badass children here I have ever met.  They ride tractors and hang off the back of trucks by pieces of rubber tubbing, and eat everything no matter where it has been.  The cool thing about this place aside from the fact that I get to know something wonderful about a new kid everyday is that Dada’s mission is to make sure that the kids are not just well taken care of and going to school, but finding something that they love to do and pursuing it.  Often times they are able to make some money doing what they do. Ramesh commissions paintings for people that come to visit the home.  Harrish sews.  Prashanta and Viira are tour guides.  There is a women’s weaving cooperative making bags and ponchos (of course), and best of all Dada has assembled a bitchin’ rock band of the slickest thirteen year old boys you’ve ever seen.  They cover Beatles, Elvis and Thai Pop at the travelers guesthouses in town on Saturday nights.  (I have videos.)  The kids are every westerners dream.  They are respectful, fun, and extremely affectionate and outgoing.  They either speak thai, burmese or karen (lots of nauseating border conflict issues) so you can’t usually understand them: bitter - you can’t fully realize how hilarious they are, sweet - they can’t bug you as much.

Kabut and I became friends because I speak the international little boy language of play fighting.  Basically he beats the crap out of me and I take it.  (He is pressing his face against the window of the internet cafe right now).  I spend lots of time fighting off armies of angry young boys/ wanna be muay thai fighters. More and more in between fights he would just stop his violent freak outs and just hug me as if intending to make vital organs come out through my nose and mouth.  Now the fighting has gradually become just constant affection, and he gets upset when I play fight because he thinks “you no like me” anymore.  He is so moody and so jealous.  If another kid is in my lap when he wants to be, he either avoids me entirely or walks by and says “I no like you. I no play you.”  He is especially competitive with Sirikeow, an 8 year-old girl who eats like a horse that I sneak food to all the time, and who has now taken to hugging me and saying in her bizarrely husky voice “you motha for me.”  This freaking kills me.  These kids live in a dream world where every thing they could need is provided for them, but they crave maternal attention which at present is being given by round after round of well-intentioned tourists that leave after three weeks, myself included.  I can’t figure out what I can or should allow myself to be to this boy, especially when I want to be everything. 

In terms of mine and Amit’s contribution to Baan Dada, it can primarily be filed away under the heading “Goats.”  Amit’s mom has a bunch of goats and a little goat dairy operation working back in Asheville so he brings to the table this enormous amount of goat knowledge.  Dada has 15 goats (3 of which were born WHILE we were here and perhaps actually accidentally induced their mother’s labor) which are used for a lending program for other people in the area to start their own goat farm.  However we noticed that one of the mother’s had utters the size of two adjacent bladders of Franzia dragging on the ground that wasn’t getting milked so we decided to explore the potentialities of dairy production at Baan Dada.  We built a milking stantion out of scrap wood that worked really well for the first few days of milking until we tried to milk the mom who just gave birth and with one good buck tore the thing apart.  A sturdier one is in the works. I’ve been learning a lot about cheese making and Amit and I made a couple rounds of goat cheese that were unimpressive enough for us to stop using all the milk and just let the mother’s give it to the babies.  We have been teaching the kids how to milk the goats, how to catch them, how to pasteurize the milk etc.  Dada has decided to invest more time to the milk program and if it catches on could be a really nice thing for us to leave behind.  I’ve also been baking bread in a mud brick oven to rave reviews by the kids, the mothers and other volunteers.  I think the only other time I’ve baked bread was trying to bake Ms. Rila’s yeast rolls in Houston with dead yeast and somehow I’ve now become the resident baking expert, which is kindof a laugh even though the bread is I’m making is delicious.

This trip has kindof been characterized by being places we were eager to leave but I have absolutely no desire to leave this place.  We were planning on heading for Cambodia to go to Ankor Wat today before I have to fly back to Hong Kong but no part of me is ready or willing to leave Sanklhaburi and these kids yet. We’ve met two other volunteers here that we really love and have a great time with.  The mothers (women who cook and clean here) make the most incredible food, delicious greens and tofu dishes accompanied by slice after slice of mango, dragon fruit, sweet tamarind and dozens of other fruits I don’t know the name of.  If I thought I had more to offer than just goat farming, and didn’t have loan payments debiting my account constantly like a teenager with her first credit card I’m not sure I’d go at all.   I wish I spoke Thai.  I wish I knew more about this place.  I hope that I give more than I take from this place.  I’ve almost learned all 56 names.

Sistah

(what the kids call foreigners whose names they dont bother learning anymore)

Oh Yeah: we also went to the biggest market in the world in bangkok and ate tons of crazy street food, met an awesome British guy named Richard that we travelled with for a while, went to the beach on an island called Khosamet for a couple days and visited another tiny childrens home near the coast.  all that got dwarfed by the Baan Dada experience somehow.