Feb 2008 - we are BUSY

The end of February was extremely busy, fun and interesting. My sister and niece rode bicycles from Nakorn Sawan, just north of Bangkok, to Chiang Mai and visited with us for a week after their arrival here. Then the week after they left we had a great 3 day visit to a special school for hill tribe children near Mae Hong Son, northwest of Chiang Mai.

While Duffie (sister) and Brook (niece) were visiting we did some fun "touristic" things such as a visit to an elephant camp, where they were able to have a ride on an elephant, a forest trek with our Red Lahu friends, a Kantoke dinner(traditional food, music and dance show) and a trip on zip lines through the jungle canopy! (Not for Bev!)

Zipping through the canopy video!


The trek (about 6 miles RT) through the jungle to a waterfall and back was fascinating and fun. The hills can be quite steep at some points and the hardest part is not sliding down the slopes. This is the dry season so the path was quite dry and at times covered with a lot of loose leaves which made it extremely slippery. The trek is run by the Red Lahu villagers and they see this as an opportunity to share their way of life. They took only a little food with them such as rice, chillies and some fish. The rest was gathered along the way and the meal was prepared using the edible greens they found. It was truly delicious. Bamboo in all it's shapes and sizes is an essential part of this process as you will see in the pictures. They also took time to show us some of their medicinal plants and some that were to be avoided, though of course I cannot for the life of me identify any of them now.

Red Lahu trekking slide show:


Ban Wanaluang
From Feb 25-27 we visited Baan Wana Luang School. Kids Ark was very helpful in the early days of this school and it is now a model school that others come to see and learn from. The principal who started it almost from scratch 14 years ago is a very dynamic woman. She had requested Kids Ark help to find a contributor for some wind instruments for the school band, so when we started asking questions about the school, Rita suggested we visit and see for ourselves. I drove the KA truck and Meow and Tu accompanied us so that they could check on some sponsored children and take some photos. It takes about 3-4 hrs to get there and the drive is spectacular with lots of steep hills and many, many, many hairpin curves!

Baan Wana Luang School trip. We stayed near the school at some nice bungalows, which are run by a German man and his Thai wife.

The school is in Soppong on the road past Pai, off Highway 1095. It was started about 14 years ago with almost no buildings and those that were there were bamboo and thatch construction. Today it is designated a "special opportunity school" for hill tribe children.

At the moment there are about 229 children at the school, mainly Lahu and some Karen and 1 Lisu. There are 9 Grades from "Anubahn" (Kindergarten/Daycare), PS 1-6, and MS 1-3. PS is our elementary and MS 1-3 is middle school in the US.

There is a boys' dormitory which can sleep 24, and a girls' dormitory which can sleep 22 for students who live too far away, or the roads are so bad that they cannot commute daily.

At the present there are over 60 children sleeping in the dormitories – sometimes the beds sleep more than one! I suspect this is because the children are lonely rather than because of lack of beds as we saw several beds that seemed unused.

Ajarn Kanya is the headmistress and there are 14 teachers. She is a real dynamo and has improved the school through finding private donations from KA, UNESCO, and other sources. She also has many Thai benefactors. Of those 229 children, 33 of them have Kids Ark sponsors who give 700 baht/month ($22 ) for each child. In some cases the sponsors will continue helping the children with further education.

On Tuesday, Feb 26^th we went to the school early in the morning to hear the school band play. They really have no instruments to speak of – they have drums, cymbals, chimes and melodicas - but they did really well, so now we have a better idea of what instruments are needed and how many.

After that we visited a Karen hill tribe village 13 kms (8 miles) from the school with BoonDii as our guide. The village is Baan Muang Paeem and it is BoonDii's home. He is 14 years old, in MS1 and boards at the school. He goes to his village on the weekend when his brother comes for him on a motorcycle. The road steep sections of the road is cement and very narrow! The landscape is very rugged and the village is quite isolated but compared to 30 years ago the cement roads make a huge difference for travel. Many of the houses in the village have been provided with solar panels for electricity; the panels charge a car battery which run lights etc in the house. The school in the village also had a very large solar array for its power. Thailand started manufacturing solar cells some years ago so as to provide basic electricity to remote villages. On our arrival back at the school we met a gentleman from the Provincial Authority who was there testing the children for drugs. The main purpose is preventative because in the past the area was well-known for drugs.

On Wednesday, Feb 27^th we headed back to Chiang Mai and on the way stopped to interview a girl sponsored by KA at School No.22, a Gov't boarding school for hill tribe children. There are 700 students at the school with 70 teachers. It goes from MS 1-6. The school is located just outside of Pai. We also stopped to visit Huai Nam Dang National Park to see the Pong Dued Geyser. The geysers are not like old faithful but do shoot boiling water 3'-5' into the air.

Baan Wana Luang Video

Baan Wana Luang Slide Show

Jan - Feb 2008

It is hard to believe how fast time is going as we have become more active at Kids Ark. It is a very good place to "volunteer" as there are many tasks that are in need of being done. The focus of KA is to help children complete their education, as a way out of poverty and towards a better life. Of course "helping" means many things, and the money is not unlimited so compromises need to be found. My excuse for not writing the blog more often is that when I get home from KA in the evening I am just too tired to think! It is a positive kind of fatigue in that each day we get closer to finishing a project, or perhaps just able to complete a simple task like going to the market to buy 40 plates, forks, spoons and cups to send to the school in the village. I also went with a former school superintendent to buy text-books for the same school.

Many of the projects have grown out of requests from some very committed teachers in the schools, along with input from the KA staff who visit with the sponsored children, their teachers and caregivers four times a year. We say caregivers as many of the children's primary parents have died of AIDs so they are being cared for by grandparents or relatives. One of the primary objectives of Kids Ark is to keep the children in their villages with the people they have grown up with as they continue with school. It is hard enough to lose one's parents but then to have to go to an orphanage is particularly difficult for the children.

Basically, 5 Kids Ark Thai staff members visit almost 300 children 4 times a year which is 1200 visits per year! Visits are not driving up the street to the local school either. There are a few students in Chiang Mai but most of the students are anywhere from 10 miles to 4 hours away. Since Rita and Allan who started Kids Ark are from Sweden most of the sponsors are from Sweden, and twice a year the staff translates the 2 page student reports which they complete in Thai into English, and then Rita does a handwritten Swedish summary to every sponsor! One of the long term projects in our view, is to expand the fund raising to other countries such as the US.

Ron Witzke who lives in Harrisville and who told us about Kids Ark left at the beginning of February to help his sick mother. Ron has moved the accounting from a Swedish accounting system that no one but Allan could use to Quickbooks, which at times seems just as foreign! We call it Slowbooks as the program is not a shining example of efficient programming! Ed Kelly, Ron's friend, who has a heart of gold came to Thailand to help Ron setup the books in November 2007, and the two of them spent all their waking hours entering data from 2007 and making the numbers match. Anyway by the time Ron left the reports were submitted to the auditors and the switch over had succeeded. Switching accounting systems is always "ugly" no matter what system, but doing it in Thai, Swedish and English adds several levels of complexity!

So much is going on and we have jumped into so many projects that we are almost working harder than when we were in the States. Especially Bev who used to come into Compucare a few hours a day now works from 9-5 or later! Still we both are challenged by the work, enjoy the staff and really admire the "philosophy" of the organization.

One day we might be in a meeting at a village near the Burmese border discussing fixing up a school, ordering text books, organizing transportation for the village children to the district school, setting a budget for additional money for lunches, and at the next meeting discussing the possible donation of water buffaloes and the advantages of a female buffalo to a male buffalo for the villagers.

Here is a list of our projects that are on-going:

• Rewrite and print the KA brochure in English and Thai
• Improve the website and add additional information on new projects
• Change the website so handicrafts can be ordered on-line
• Open an on-line account for credit card donations and add to website
  
• Setup a database of the sponsors and students so the info can be merged to reports
• Enter the 300 sponsors and students in English/Swedish/Thai into the database
• Create a new website for the trekking business that the villagers started
• Rewrite and print a new Trekking brochure
• Redefine the pricing of the trekking packages
• Organize the 1000s of pictures spread across 5 computers in the office
• Setup some backup systems to protect data
• rearrange the products showroom - Tom stays away from this one!
  
• put a big sign on the showroom window to attract more customers; this one is completed with a home-made temporary sign!
  
• look at putting advertisements for the show room in magazines
• make sure all products are priced
• fix network wiring - Completed!
  
• Cooperation guidelines for KA with other people and agencies - Completed!
  

Many of these projects are close to being completed, but it takes time to get consensus for example on the language in the brochure or a decision on trekking prices.

But enough about "work"; there was the Flower Festival at the beginning of this month, and as to be expected the floats were absolutely gorgeous. Bev drooled over the orchids, but there were displays of many other brilliantly beautiful flowers as well.

Following are some photographs and videos of some fun events.
The first one is of the Flower Festival, and the second one is of the Valentine's Day Party at the House of Hope, which is a KA Project.
The last one is of buskers at the markets
Enjoy!

January 2008 Chiang Mai Flower Festival


(Click here to see it larger - recommended )

Feb 14 Valentines Party at Kids Ark "House of Hope" after school program

Chiang Mai buskers at the markets