In which Amanda's AMAZING Thai life blog returns from the dead!

You know, I want to blog, I really do. I think about my blog, sitting here, lonely and silent, reaching out to all of the people who have given up hope of ever reading a new post. And I even create little blogs in my mind. But actually getting past work, past personal emails and onto this site, actually getting the blog to upload, resizing the photos, and posting the whole thing is way more work that I am interested in. I blame it on the rain. The never ceasing rain. And the server that keeps crashing at work. And the stupid internet cafes that are closed now in the evenings and on weekends because the tourists have all fled from the ridiculous amount of water pouring from the sky. Again, it comes around to the rain.

Ooops. Laura, ha ha, just kidding. No rain, all sun. Please don't cancel your plane tickets. I am sure that by mid-May we'll be back to pure sunshine and happiness!

So, do you think it is better to take bucket showers but know that there is a possibility that at any moment you will have hot water from the tap or to just give up and rent a house with cold water showers but constant water flow? You would think, with all of the rain God has provided, that my water tank would be overflowing. But it isn't. And the water from the street appears to not be flowing to my house at all. Today someone came to look at the situation and with a few turns of some knobs near the sidewalk had the water flowing once again. I SWEAR I have turned those knobs the same way every day, even while praying for water, and nothing has happened. It was definitely a conspiracy. They turned on the water at some neighborhood water factory right before coming to see me and then "oh so miraculously" turned it on at my house while mocking me. I am not amused. And then, as soon as they left, the water flow from the street went out again. Who can possibly navigate this strange, there is so much water in the streets that we could actually swim along the ditches but no water could possibly be routed to your house, system of water allottment?

Now I am actually running late to a meeting while trying to blog. And I haven't covered my trip to Cambodia (amazing), the arrival of an absolutely giant box of Easter candy from a friend in the States (yum-am trying not to eat it all since it is destined for small needy Burmese children but I can't help myself around bunny shaped marshmallows!), Jeremy's departure (torturous-I hate goodbyes), my puppy's early death at the hands of an evil driver (the week of mourning following accounts for my silence on the blog site after returning from Cambodia), my recent UNICEF workshop which has revealed to me just the level of inexperience I am dealing with on my team-but also the exciting new plans we have for the project, my addiction to Gray's Anatomy as seen on my laptop computer since someone forgot to pay my cable bill this month, or my possible job options.

Hmmm. I can't do much more than this right now. So I promise to try a bit harder to get on here in the coming days. And I have resized the Cambodia photos so prepare yourself for Amanda + Jeremy + temples temples temples. :)

Love from Bang Niang.

Puppies

To all of my dog loving friends - here are the long awaited puppy photos. If you or anyone you know want one I would be happy to arrange a delivery to the United States. It is possible, it is done regularly by many foreigners living/working here, and there is a good and safe system. Costs money but not outrageously expensive. All three are spayed and have all shots. They are lovely little dogs full of life and happiness and a lot of loyalty for what they have here. I think they will make amazing pets.

Sook (alternative spelling Suk) is the little tan one on the left.

Her name means happy.

She is about 4 months, very loving, soft fur, short hair but fluffier tail. She likes to follow people around and she can sit on command. She has sort of sad eyes because she is more passive and gets a little picked on. The other dogs around here steal her food which is why she is skinny. She is very happy on the beach, wags her tail a lot, and loves to run and play with everyone. She is an outdoor dog right now but could easily adapt to cushions and the good life inside! :) She has small paws and while her legs are getting longer I don't think she'll be a big dog. She would be a really easy dog with other pets or children. Seems low maintenence. Not a barker and have never heard her growl or whine. She is very quiet and calm.

Nok is the black one on right and at the top of the blog.

Her name means bird.

Nok is also about 4 months. She is clever and funny-sort of clowny. She showed up with a big bite/hole in her side and lots of skin parasites. Everything is fixed up now and she is turning shiny and soft. She was originally really scared of everything but now she is happy and friendly. She loves riding in the car and she loves people, she does not love water so far. She is very loyal and sits at attention in front of the office waiting for her favorite folks to arrive. She hasn't mastered sit yet but she is pretty good with stay. She also gets a little picked on about the food which is why she's thin but she is starting to assert herself. She is going to be small I think. Short hair. I think she'll be a great and fun companion. Would probably be fine with other pets-she gets along with the dogs around here, but she is a scaredy cat so it could take awhile to adjust. Definitely wants to be an indoor dog-you can see her craving the attention.

Finally, Saam. Her name means number 3. She sort of showed up a few days later and we are not sure if she is from the same litter. She's always looked fairly healthy and confident. At first she didn't want people to touch her and she would scream and cry. Was scared of men and feet. She got over that SO FAST and now she loves attention and being pet and loved. She adores Jeremy. She is very happy and active and would be so easy to teach. She listens well-knows sit, stay, etc. Good in the car. She could probably live indoors or outdoors. She likes other dogs and plays well. She does not like to share food though and growls at the other puppies if they eat near her. She wants their food. She is fine with the older and bigger dogs and never growls at them. So she would be fine with other pets-just not small weak puppies. ha ha ha. She has short hair, long legs, and a tail that curls over her back!

Real life in Thailand...

I say real life because honestly it is amazing what is going on in the lives of people living right next door to the tourist resorts here. It is not that I blame the tourists at all. If it weren't for them the whole area would be in crisis still. But I want people to know that behind every fancy swimming pool and expensive restaurant real life is playing out and it is not pretty.

Almost a week and a half ago now my team located 2 of our cases in Kuraburi. A 7 year old girl and her 2 year old sister. They found the 22 (!) year old mother and her newborn baby with tuberculosis. The baby couldn't breath, couldn't open her eyes, without coughing and coughing. The family couldn't get much help at their local hospital because they are Burmese and don't speak any Thai. This is a huge problem here and prevents many Burmese people from getting medical attention. They also fall into the category of illegal migrants and so are generally scared of formal institutions like hospitals for fear of deportation. (It is not supposed to happen but sometimes hospitals will call the police and have people deported when they can't pay a medical bill.)

Anyway, being the good Samaritans that they are, my team found transportation for the woman and her children to a hospital closer to our office where MSF (Doctors without borders) has Burmese translators working. They could not drive the family in our team car because there are checkpoints in Thailand and if you are found to be driving someone without legal documentation you can be arrested for human trafficking. Good to know, good to know. I would have surely popped them all in my car and driven off so thankfully I was not with the team that day!

I was there the day that they checked into the hospital here in Takuapa and let me say that it was a sad sight. If I could have transferred my Thai Gold Standard insurance coverage over to them and taken them to the Phuket hospital I would have. Instead we shuffled around the Takuapa public hospital for no less than 8 hours before they were finally given a room. The mother with TB, coughing and coughing into a rag. The baby (turns out has pneumonia also) choking and choking barely able to breath being carried by the mother. No offer of a wheelchair at all. Mother so weak she can hardly stand trying to also watch her other girls. It was a pathetic standard of care. The hospital staff just kept demanding to know who would pay the bill. And that is ridiculous since Thai law mandates that TB patients receive free treatment since it is a public health risk. Of course, absolutely no one seemed to be in charge at the hospital to discuss this with. After hours and hours of the same-moving from the lab, to the x-rays, to the chairs, to the exam room, to the interpreters, and back again you just get in the zone and go with it. It is so difficult to fight any system here and get anything done quickly or efficiently. I had to demand that the hospital test the 2 older children for TB-they weren't going to do it! And it turns out they have it!

Finally we left the little family in the most disgusting room imagineable. Tiny-2 wooden beds with thin plastic mattresses. Broken fan. Dirty walls. The nurses dropped the baby on the bed and she was laying in a pool of her own urine until I had to point it out to them. It is as if being Burmese makes them animals in some people's eyes.

The story does not end there. The family is HIV positive. The hospital called later in the week to tell us they wanted them all out because they didn't want the TB to spread to other patients. It was a long week of looking for options, rounding up some money, and trying to convince the hospital to at least keep the baby until she is well. They agreed but only if we could find a woman to come and take care of her-they refuse to feed or change her. Can you BELIEVE that?!
Father has shown up and they are all living in a temporary shelter for Burmese migrants run by a local NGO now. It is grim but not as bad as the hospital.

In a side story to demonstrate the severity of the problems between the Thai and Burmese here, we literally ran into a woman sitting outside the baby rooms on a bench as we were dealing with this other case. She was hand expressing milk into a cup for her baby and crying and crying. My Burmese translator stopped to talk to her and her story is heartbreaking. She and her husband brought their sick newborn to the hospital all the way from Kuraburi (2 hours north) because they knew there were Burmese translators here. The father got stopped at a checkpoint near the hospital and was deported back to Burma for being illegal! The mother has no money, the hospital staff wouldn't tell her how her baby was doing or when she could leave, they were demanding money or they would deport her. Meanwhile the other children in the family were living with a neighbor back in Kuraburi. If both parents were deported the children would all be abandoned and never know what happened. It was such a sad story and the woman obviously felt so hopeless. End of story is that we are helping to sort things out-despite the fact that the case is not in our records. Just considering it preventive care...

I had to ask Save the Children for an emergency response fund to help with situations like these. You cannot just turn your back and what happens when we don't have money is that my staff start paying out of their pockets. They cannot afford this and it isn't ideal case management. We needs funding to actually DO things. It is so frustrating at times.

In a final note, yesterday we met some friends from California here and spent the day at their hotel which is the nicest in the whole area. I couldn't help myself and on the way into town for dinner I took them by the Burmese temporary shelter to drop off some things for the family there. They stayed in the car so they certainly didn't see much but I know that what they did see was a shock. I don't think they imagined that just a few kilometers down the road from their hotel the same sunset passes over rows of concrete shacks filled with HIV and TB patients and others in desperate need of a safe place. I feel a little guilty because I could have run that errand at a different time but I wanted them to see. They were really quiet afterwards.

Restrictions on the Burmese tighten daily. Now in Phuket province they are not allowed to congregate in groups of 5 or more, they cannot use cell phones or drive cars, and they must be indoors after 8pm. It is becoming a human rights violation. These people escaped the military regime of Burma, many of them are heroes (like my staff members) who put their lives at risk to stand up against the government. But they find themselves being forced to run and hide like animals here.

From Bang Niang.