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I wanted to do a little volunteering before the end of my trip. I'm not sure of this'll be the last one or not. I have absolutely loved the past week.
I started in the Akha Village Hill House which is about 20km north of Chiang Rai. It was a good experience but the village did not need a teacher and the owner had me translating my website from English to French. It was okay but not exactly what I was looking for in volunteering.
I then ventured off to Safe Haven Orphanage which is pretty much on the Thailand Myanmar (Burma) border. The orphanage was started nearly twenty years ago by Big Momma who took in a girl who was going to be murdered. Her mother had dies giving birth and in Karen tradition, the baby would be killed as well because it is a bad omen for the mother to die from child birth. Big Momma took her and slowly started taking more and more children in similar situations. Currently, there is a brother and sister in the orphanage who saw their mother being killed by their step-father. Each child has their own unique story. There are now about 40 children under her care at the orphanage and another sixty at the learning center which are children from Burma who do not have a Thai card and are not able to get public education. Instead, Nikom, a former boy from the orphanage goes and teaches the kids from the learning center for a very small salary. Big Momma (or Tessenee) is essentially the Thai version of Mother Teresa. I dot know if I've ever met a more amazing person!
What's amazing about these kids is how well they play together and how appreciative they are of everything. I lucked out and on my second day here was Christmas day. I got to witness the kids open up their presents. Most of the presents included new shirts, a couple candy bars or something with some sugar and a toy of some kind.
The kids played with these toys non-stop for the next couple days, some even playing with them so much until they had broke. One of the younger boys had his plastic toy break so one of the older boys started a fire then melted the two pieces together. It's amazing how smart these boys are. If that would have happened to me as a kid, I would have ran to mom and dad. It shows how independent these kids are. Also, these kids have prayer service twice a day, 5:30am and then some time after dinner ad they sing like crazy and read from the Bible. It's been a pretty powerful experience.
As for what I've done for volunteering, I've constructed a few things for the kids with my little to no experience in construction. Using scrap metal, an extra window frame, a sheet of concrete slab and the rim of a tire, I made them their first basketball hoop. Next, I went to town and bought a rope to make a tire swing. The kids love it and it's fun to see them enjoying it so much. I also built the best bench I've ever made to be beside their soccer field which they play nearly every night. It's awesome how little they care about who wins and just having fun. So many lessons to be learned from boys and girls from 3-17 years old. Last but not least, I made them a score board to keep track of the score and teach the young ones their numbers.
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