Jessica’s experience
After some months of contact via email, the day had finally arrived. After almost one day of travelling, I eventually touched down in Bangkok on the morning of the 4th December, from here I travelled to Debbie’s house. Despite feeling very tired after my long journey I was also feeling very happy and way too excited to take a much needed nap. My first night in Thailand was spent at Debbies house. Here I relaxed after the long flight, got introduced to Thai food, learned about CTM, and got to know Debbie and her lovely view of the world.
The next day I went to the Emergency Home, where I would spend the following 10 days. I did not need to start work until the following day, but I was too excited so I just couldn’t wait. My first impressions of the orphanage were a little confused; a lot of kids, a language I didn’t understand, and a very high noise level compared to the Swedish kindergartens I was used to back home! But soon I got used to this new situation and the noisy group of children was quickly transformed into many unique and wonderful little personalities.
Most of the days I worked from 9am until six or seven in the evening. They had a schedule in place to structure the day; wake up time, breakfast, lunch, nap, shower and so on. In the evening, they watched TV and drank soy milk. It was one of my favourite times of the day, to just get some time to relax and cuddle with the children. As soon as I sat down, I quickly had 2 or 3 kids on me.
Most of the kids were around 2-5 years old. However, there were four girls who were a little bit older than the rest. They were between the ages of 7 and 9 years old. When they weren’t in school, these four girls helped out a lot in the orphanage. Cleaning, changing diapers, and so on. I got the feeling that they often missed out on the chance to be the young children that they still were. Therefore, I made an extra effort to hug and play with them. I think it was good idea, because soon they came and hugged me and wanted to play with me, as soon as they saw me.
Many of the kids were really interested in learning English. When I would teach them, the table soon got full with everyone’s paper and pencils. I even taught the two oldest ones the ”Head, shoulders, knee and toes”-song, which we could then sing together before I left.
There were two really nice women who worked there every second day. One of them couldn’t speak English, in the same way I wasn’t able to speak Thai. So on those days we managed to communicate using google translate on our phones. I also communicated using google translate with Apple, a 13 year old girl. I felt really happy to have another way to communicate with her, which helped a lot when body language and smiles weren’t enough to express ourselves and understand each other .
While the kids had their afternoon nap, I went to the babies home, a place where babies aged up to one and a half years lived. To meet and interact with such small babies was a new experience for me, which I, even if I found it a little hard to know exactly what to do, enjoyed a lot. The atmosphere was really relaxed there and the women who worked there were , as with Baan Dek, lovely.
I was also given a challenge from Debbie, which was to teach the kids the Swedish maypole dance ”Räven raskar över isen” before the Christmas party. I was really impressed by how quickly they learned the dance and remembered the steps. And when they then were performing the dance during the show, I felt really proud of them!
I left Baan Dek one day before the Christmas party to help Debbie wash windows and specially wrap a lot of presents. And also cuddle with their cute dogs. To leave Baan Dek and all beautiful kids behind was made easier due to the fact I knew I would be able to see them all again during the Christmas party. The Christmas party went really well, and it seemed that both kids and adults enjoyed it alike. I also really enjoyed it!! There were fun games, zumba-dance, tasty food, shows, and presents!
When the party was finished, it was time for me to move to the Thanksgiving Home! In the TGH, we were 2 volunteers, both of us named Jessica. TGH was a family style home, and you really could see that! They were like a really big family. Here the kids were accepted for who they were, and at the same time, they were given the help they needed to continue improving themselves and their skills. This made me really happy to see. I was also impressed by how well they could deal with their lives today, despite their tough pasts.
I also ate soo much delicious Thai food at TGH!! Khun Maetim cooked a lot of different Thai food, many of the dishes I hadn’t even known existed before… It was really exciting to see what the next meal would be. She also taught us volunteers how to cook some Thai food, which I now look forward to letting my family try here in Sweden.
Khun Maetim and Khun Wanchai did very important work not only with the girls at Thanksgiving home but they also helped people who lived at the governments home, and a lot of other people with disabilities. They also spent a lot of time in their own van, because they were often busy and going somewhere! The kids were doing a great magic show, which they performed in a lot of different places, especially at Christmas parties. I Also got the fantastic opportunity to follow them to the north east of Thailand, where they were spending one week on winter vacation. It was a once in a lifetime-experience (like so much else during these weeks) to spend some days there, sleeping on the floor and eating more great Thai food, in amazing company.
It was very sad to leave Thanksgiving Home. On the final day we had a great good bye-dinner, where in the end many people were crying. But even though I felt sad, I also felt confident and optimistic, because I knew these young people were in really good hands!
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