Maybe one at a time puts you on the path...

I really am just a sucker for kids and puppies. And both are abundant here. Abundant numbers and abundant needs. I think it is easy for people to just look away because you feel really helpless. If you help one, what happens to the rest?

Last Thursday I went "to the field." In development speak this is when we get off our butts, drive endless hours to a remote location, and get the face to face research done. This is a much idealized moment when you are sitting behind a desk in the US. In reality it is never ever easy or comfortable. I have done field work in several countries now and it is sort of a love hate relationship. Inevitably you will have to eat strange and possibly unidentifiable food that is offered. Inevitably the bathroom options will be worse than just using the great outdoors. Inevitably the drive will be windy and never ending. And inevitably you will only get a quarter of what you set out to accomplish accomplished. (The love part comes later when you feel so proud that you are actually DOING something instead of writing or reading about it!)

So Thursday I drove with my Burmese liaison and another Burmese researcher up north of here to an area called Kuraburi. It was a very long drive since I didn't know where I was going. I never realized this before but when you are the driver and you know the destination it is not a problem. But having to rely on my passengers for directions I just constantly felt like asking "are we there yet?" We arrived at noon at a learning center, which is an informal school for Burmese children set up by a local NGO. We compared the list of kids we were looking for with the list of kids in their classes. We identified a few of our kids but were told that many had moved away when certain local fisheries closed and their caregivers needed to find work. We ate fish and rice with the teachers. We were given a tour of the nursery with dozens of adorable little kids snoozing on the floor for nap time. And all in all located and spoke to 3 out of the 11 we were hoping to find.

I try not to be discouraged but it was eye opening and made me realize several things. First, just how hard it is going to be to find the children on our list in a migrant community that moves a lot, is here illegally, and is scared to be found. Second, how tough it is going to be to do case management with the ones we do find when their families are SO poor and there are very few community resources for them. I mean, I am not a miracle worker just because I am from the United States. Sometimes I think my being there gives really false hope. And third, HOW MANY children are in need. Our list is just the beginning. For some reason we were given a list of all children without parental care in the province and this came down to 140. How is that possible? There are so many more!! The teachers at that learning center alone gave us a list of 12 more we need to look into and when we got back to the office I found out about 23 supposedly orphaned Burmese children to add to the list.

Thursday night I wanted to just sort of lay down and give up. How can you sort it all out? How to help everyone? How to even help ANY one?

When I got back to the office that evening there were 3 puppies laying in front, hiding in the flowerpots. They were bags of skin and bones, covered in sores and ticks, missing hair, two missing chunks of skin and one with a big hole in her side. I was so low. I previously promised myself that while I am here I will not get involved with any pets. So I left them. I actually hoped they would just walk into the street and get run over because I felt like I couldn't help every sad puppy here in southern Thailand. I had nightmares all night.

Friday dawned and I came and they were still here and I realized that it is just not in my nature to ignore something that I CAN do something about. So I took a trip to the vet (45 minutes away) and got the ball rolling to fix them up. And that ball is still rolling. With my encouragement our office is sort of adopting them and people have stopped hoping they will disappear so they don't have to deal with how sad they look.

I know that puppies are not children. But I do think that many people react the same way when they see something sad. Better to look away from one if you can't help them all. But I think that just being able to help something in a tangible way has given me hope and the reminder I needed that if our team can help even one child, improve even one life, it will be worth it. You just cannot focus on the tremendous number of need or you'll lose all hope. But one at a time puts you on the path.

With hope from Bang Niang.