Ceremony Wat Sribunluang

Update on Darumon:
We went to the hospital and her blindness is treatable! It is a serious chronicle lack of vitamins. Not something from eating unhealthy for a year but since she was not even born. She has to take some eye drops and vitamin pills for one month and than we go with her to another hospital for an operation. It is going to be an issue for her to get enough vegetables every day because the parents are very poor and a bit simple.
I asked Aer why children like Darumon and Darrin are not having enough food and most families are doing ok. She explained that Darrin of course has only an older lady Nappa to take care of her and she is simply too old to work enough. The parents of Darumon don't speak Thai like many other parents what makes it really hard to find work. They already only get work if a farmer in the area need them and then he picks out the people he wants. So is you can't speak Thai you can't put yourself forward and make a good impression. They eat dry rice with some dried chillies every day, if there is rice. Vegetables they hardly ever eat because if there is some money the mother will buy some meat. This is a problem for her health because she can't have her operation if she doesn't get healthier.
It's no solution to support those families myself with either money or food. I will plan a meeting with the school to discuss a possibility to let the really poor kids grow some vegetables to bring back home. It's better I think to let the kids have that responsibility. Because it's on the school ground the teacher can help a bit and they have time enough during the day to attend. I don't see a future in a small project in the village because the parents are not that adequate that they think of themselves to find a solution for feeding their kids. It's good for the kids to learn to be responsible for themselves because really no one else will be.
For now I will bring some vegetables to Darumons family but I keep you up dated about the new idea.

Friday we went to the temple Wat Sibunluang because there was a special ceremony to give merit to the parents from the abbot Dr. Apisit and to his mentor/ previous abbot. The monks, novices and people from the area came to give merit in the temple. Afterwards there was a lot of food, drinks and ice cream.


On the picture above you can see all (bamboo) sticks leaning against an old tree. This is what people do to make sure they have a long and healthy life. Some were big long sticks because than you have more chance! Also people bring a sort of bamboo ladder to the tree for a good life and a good passing to the afterlife.

The place is also the spot to bring broken Buddha statues. To keep them in the house is bad luck.

Further you find there smaller bamboo sticks in a bundle. If people are sick you bundle as many sticks as how old the person is and than place it under the tree to get better.


We had to pose because it was a special day...

















Students sheets to keep track of their progress on the computer.


I just ordered the follow up cd-rom so once some students are finished with the current level they can learn more.



Thursday we drove to Chiang Rai to apply for our visa (again...) but the letter from a certain ministry hadn't arrived yet so we could drive back to Fang. Because we had the ceremony we couldn't stay in Chiang Rai so Friday we drove back to C.R. again! Just on time the letter came by fax and we drove with full speed to Mae Sai where the immigration is. We were told that (if we were lucky) that we would get a visa for a year. If you would see the piles in paperwork; copies of everything and more, both the same copies for me and Ben and then everything in two-fold for some weird reason,,,, you would think we are applying for residency!

The officer scared us big time when he said we only got 2 months... We couldn't mannage to keep smiling as you supposed to do in Thailand and started waving that letter we just got from Bangkok in front of him. Finally we heard that we first get 2 more months so all together that will be 3 since we just had one. Than we have to come back with the new piles of paperwork to get the remaining months of the year! WOW it's a miracle,,,,,,, And the 3 months we got in Vientiane don't even count so we have permission to stay another 11 months!!!!!