We also had a recent surge of interest in English lessons from locals wanting to capitalise on the presence of native English speakers, and have been holding regular community English classes on the weekends. On Wednesdays and Thursdays we have volunteers teaching at the local school. This is a rather rollercoaster experience due to the patchy nature of Thai schools’ English curriculum, where beginners are taught phrases like ‘Stop and smell the roses’ but are unable to string together the sentence ‘I come from Thailand’. Indeed, from the moment my workmate asked a class to name a country beginning with R, and a boy shouted out ‘Rondon!’, we knew it would be an uphill struggle. However, our weekly presence has developed a good relationship with the school and the community in general, and COSA is all about working with communities, so onwards and upwards (aaaand, only four weeks until the end of term, not that anyone’s counting).
While on the topic of communities, last week we made our second MOSAIC trip up to the hilltribe village we work with. For those of you with poor memories or who didn't read the December post, MOSAIC stands for Medical Outreach and Social Aid in Communities, and aims to provide free primary healthcare and health education to remote hilltribe villages. The project not only improves the quality of life for the villagers, but also allows us to monitor any children at potential risk of being trafficked.
So our first stop was at the local primary school, where I defy even the most child-unfriendly among you not to come away a bit besotted; they were potentially the cutest kids I've ever seen. In the morning we carried out follow up checks on all the festy ears we saw in December, most of which had completely cleared up; the three year old with infectious sores that we saw on our last trip was also transformed into a bubbly, impetigo-free bundle of cuteness. So we were feeling very smug and pleased at how well the treatment had gone, until we registered new children and found, surprise surprise, more festy ears. We taught one of the teachers how to treat the ear infections in case of future outbreaks; this will hopefully minimise dependence on us, as we only have the resources to make five or six trips up a year. It turns out that household substances like vinegar and sodium bicarbonate mixed with water clear up minor ear problems very well (vinegar is really a wonder substance; aside from being highly delicious and clearing ear issues up, it has also caused the number of women who die of cervical cancer in developing countries to drop massively. Read this and you will fast become a vinegar-lover too: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27cancer.html).
The second and third days of the trip were dedicated to follow up checks as well as registering new people. All those we had advised to come back for follow ups did so, which is encouraging as it means we aren't viewed as a one-off, but a regular, trustworthy presence. This did lead to serious discussions about the sustainability of the project; this time round we had an extra nurse on board, Lindsay, who pointed out the potential problem of the villagers becoming totally dependent on us for all their medical care; which, if we are prepared to do it, would need to be able to run for at least the next fifteen years, as the problem with so many NGO projects is that they start something up, only to shut down a couple of years later once they run out of funds and resources, and leaving the very people they had come to help in the lurch. At the moment we are in the process of working out whether to focus more on health education rather than health care, which would keep up our relationship with the village and potentially be a far more sustainable project for the long-term. We also have two ongoing projects that would contribute to this sustainability; on the last trip it was evident that many of the health problems seen were likely linked to the chemical spray that the villagers use on their crops, so we are currently carrying out a controlled experiment on a group of farmers to see if using protective masks reduces the symptoms, namely nausea, headaches and breathing problems. On our next trip we will go over the findings and if they prove that there is a definite link between these health issues and the spray, we will provide protective masks to all the farmers in the village. We are also in the process of getting a new water pump installed, which would provide drinking water for the whole village. These two projects will go a long way to reducing health problems in the village without us having to spend loads on drugs, and will keep the villagers more self-sufficient.
So all in all the week was eventful, though in more ways than one. To refresh your memories, back in October, we intercepted a group of children who were being smuggled through the village to be sent down south to work. At the moment they're living with families in the village, and going to a local school. While we were up there last week, we were told that these children were being continually questioned by the authorities about how they had come to be in that village in the first place. This is an intimidating procedure for the children, so much so that one girl has been taken out of the village by a member of her family altogether, and her whereabouts are now unknown. Considering that she had previously been trafficked, we're pretty concerned about her future. This prompted us to make a decision about the remaining children; we are unable to take in the boys as we only run a girls' shelter, so will have to think of another way to help them out, but the girls will be coming to live with us in April, once the school year is over (provided that their parents give their consent). There are eight of them, so it's a big number to introduce into the shelter; but we don't want a repeat disappearance, so will just have to hope Teenage Clique Syndrome won't set in with the girls already living here. As I've said before, they live in remarkable harmony despite being at the age where a bad haircut equals the end of the world, so hopefully the transition will be relatively smooth. Oh and I forgot to mention that we are now on a time limit to construct a new building before they arrive and have to sleep five to a bed. No pressure then.
So there we go, into 2012 at full throttle! It will be interesting to see what the rest of the year brings...
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