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| "Hold me!" |
Cock-a-doodle-doo! Went the alarm off on my ancient Nokia phone. I use that old faithful for two reasons: the speaker is loud enough to wake me up and the cock-a-doodle-doo -alarm wakes up Milla, she hates it so much! We were super tired, it was 7am and we had a bit of a party last night. For that reason Make desided to skip the trip to Viengping.
Just before 8am our taxi with Mr. Lucky, the same driver we had at the first Viengping trip, was waiting for us. We had asked the reception to call him the day before, so we wouldn't be late again.
Because the clock wasn't even 8am, the hotel chef wasn't working, so we had to stop by 7eleven to get our delicious and nutricious breakfast. The selection at 7eleven won't dazzle you, but we still managed to find coco-drinks, juice, sandwiches (they had even cut the crust out for us, yey!) and some apple- and cornpies.
We ate en route to Viengping, because there was no time to waste. At Viengping we went straight to the office and signed our volunteer rosters. We was there at 9am, so we would do 2 hour shift, ending at 11am when the kids go for lunch. After signing the rosters we were guided to a building that had a small pond in front of it, in the pond we could see big, almost a meter long carps.
Soon they brought couple of the girls (sorry, can't remember their names) to us. One of the girls was almost 3 years old, and the other one had just had her 4th birthday. The caretakers gave the girls a big plastic box full of dublos and other building blocks and a bamboo mat to play on. They pointed us to this cute little bamboo hut, that would be our playhouse.
When we got to the hut, girls had already rolled down the mat and were pouring on the blocks. The girls weren't a bit shy, you could tell they're used to play with strange people who do charity work there, some only for few hours, some for months. You could also tell that it was nice change for them, in the middle of their routines to get some one-on-one attention.
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| Here would be a picture of us playing with the girls, but we wanted to respect the moment by concentrating on them only. But here's a nice pic of a fish tank, made in an old TV, we came across this in one small grocery store. |
The girls started to play, Milla and I were more confused, but there was no other choice but to dive in and start building! The plays went well, even tho we had a massive language barrier, they were too young to know English and we were to farang to know any Thai. At some point the dublos flew around and we felt silly when we tried to tell them "No!". All you got back was this rascally grin like "I can't understand you". Yeah right, Milla stopped for a minute and stared one of the girls deep in the eyes. Slowly the grin faded when they realised that we're not the ones to dance for them.
At some point the dublos were old news, when they found brooms. That play lasted a long time when they made sure the hut was clean of all the sand. Also sitting in the toybox when I lift it up like an airplane was much fun for them. But like for every evolutions creature (well mammals at least) the time came when the girls had to go to pee. We escorted them at the building door, where a caretaker came to take them to toilet. There's pretty strict rules of outsiders going in to these houses.
When the pitstop was over Räikkönen.... I mean we, went to the playground. Milla took the older girl on her lap and told me it felt like a little koala bear had took a grip on her, making sure she wouldn't let go. The younger girl saw this so I had no other choice than to take her clinging to me. At the playground we went through different swings and racks. At the end they seemed too dull for the girls, compared to being held in our laps.
We started walking around the yard holding the girls, it was over 10am and already +30 degrees and no signs of clouds. We must've swet liters holding the girls. They wanted to touch every wind chimes and tree as we walked. Funny thing was that when we asked water for the girls (it was hot, like really hot) the caretakers told us that the kids aren't allowed to drink in between breakfast and lunch. Don't know why and we didn't want to ask, so we wouldn't come across like we questioned their ways.
Well we did but you know what I mean.
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| Milla with the girls. They just had to had these flowers from the bushes. |
The time was nearing it's end when the girls had to go to lunch at 11am. The time with the girls felt shorter than it was and it felt like we just couldn't help enough. But when we saw the girls with the big red flowers in their hair we realise that they're happy just for us holding them and answering to their smiles.
It was 11 o'clock and we said our wistful goodbyes when the girls disappeared inside the dining room. Tired from all the playing and the heat, we head back to the office. At the office we asked again about the donations and if we could see the girls we had collected money for. They were just outside the office at a small cafeteria, ran after school by these two promising girls.
They seemed a bit shy but obviously grateful after we handed them each 250TBH from our friend Jonna. Thank you so much, we wish you could've been there to see their faces when a complete stranger from the other side of the world, gave them money. We also asked the names of the girls to make a bank transaction to Viengping's account, but direct that money straight to these two girls' school fees. Big thanks also to my mother Seija for giving a 2000TBH donation to these young ladies!
Either one of these girls couldn't speak English, but the office worked told us that if we write email to them, the office will help to answer back to us, until the girls learn enough to reply us them selves.
If you would like to help, go to Viengping Children's Home's webpage and find out more:
http://www.baanviengping.go.th/en/help.html
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| The girls we gave the sponsor money. The cafeteria they run in the backround. |
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