Giving Back: Pulse: The Price of Rice at a Burmese Orphanage

The Price of Rice at a Burmese Orphanage

From Tiffany Schauer, July 9, 2008

Yesterday I spent the day with Jong, owner of the Field Village resort (www.thefieldvillage.com), in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We spent the afternoon at the local wholesale markets haggling for supplies to take to the Ban Mae Maeh Orphanage, a Thailand based, Burmese orphanage. The orphanage is located in the remote hill country of the Chiang Dao district, about a two hours drive from Chiang Mai. Chiang Dao has some of the most striking mountain formations in northern Thailand. Extensive caves lie at the foot of the east side. The uplands north and west of the mountain are popular trekking areas.

Our trip team was comprised of Jong, myself and one of her assistants, Pon. In less the two hours, the highway turned to road, then to concrete path, then to dirt, then to serpentine slides and finally a river crossing—with no bridge. Scaling the mountains with a heavily weighted truck in the jungle during the rainy season is NOT for the faint of heart. Jong drove through the gauntlet of slippery narrow mud paths inches from steep drop offs into the jungle as if it were an interesting walk in the park. It took everything I had to continue breathing. Jong did mention to me later she lived in the Burmese jungle for a couple of years building roads explaining her taste for challenging driving. She also mentioned she had been a real estate broker, fashion designer, and furniture store owner. She’s my hero.

We arrive at the orphanage. The headmaster and teachers are in disbelief. Apparently, no one comes to the orphanage during the five-month rainy season. The difficult driving conditions render the camp with almost no visitors or donations for months at a time.

There are 120 kids in the camp. They age from two years old to maybe sixteen or seventeen. The majority are around eight to ten years old. Their homelessness is a result of the Thai government crack down on the drug trade in Thailand. Their parents were executed, killed in drug wars, imprisoned or impoverished. The children were deposited at this camp with no other options. They are mostly from the Karen tribe in Burma. The teachers estimate maybe forty percent of the children have no parents while the remainder have, perhaps, one parent or a cousin missing, too poor or unable to take care of them.

The camp is maintained by the headmaster, a couple of teachers, and a woman who prepares food. There is orderliness to this place that challenged my paradigm. The entire group, including, three-, four-, and five-year-olds wait in line for food, sit patiently until every child is sitting down, listen to a teacher’s announcements, say a prayer out loud together, and only then eat a meal of cabbage and rice—quietly—body against body at long wooden tables. When they finish eating, I watch as they each wash their plate, stack them and go out to play before bed.

I quickly became aware that the children maintain the camp. There are children cooking, cleaning, and older kids taking care of younger kids. Anything you would imagine an adult doing to maintain a household I see a child doing here.

Their sleeping quarters are similarly ordered. There is one sleeping room for girls and one sleeping room for boys. There are long wood platforms lined with a blanket or sheet for long lines of body lying next to body. Clothes are hung from lines above the sleeping platforms. The smallest girls sleep in crawlspaces under the platforms—a dark box-like space with a mat and a pillow. I have problems absorbing the image of a young child sleeping in a box—it’s dark….and impossible. There are a couple of outhouses down the hill from their sleeping structure.

Somehow, the atmosphere is not austere. Where there are children there is love. There are moments where I see smile after smile. At times, they play, they run, they hug each other and form packs to organize games. It is a delight mixed with a sense of disbelief that these light-filled pixies can jump and sparkle in the shadow of challenged subsistence survival.

Jong, Pon and I cook dinner for the camp. The kitchen/mess hall area is an open-air cement structure blackened by wood smoke with room sections delineated by chain link. I have no frame of reference for what I see. The food preparation area contains two cement cylinders for wood burning cooking. There are no appliances or fixtures that would identify the area as a kitchen as I know it—other than the food we brought, a couple of very large metal pots and a small beleaguered irrelevant refrigerator. I can only see maybe two or three large utentils—a metal ladle and a metal spatula. The kids surround us as we heat up large amounts of vegetables and meatballs over the fire. Through massive heat and smoke, the kids adeptly feed the fire with wood and intervene with calm assistance when the smoke overwhelms us. It is a spectacle for them as well as for us.

The Thai government provides one meal of rice and cabbage a day—starving rations for these children. When meeting with the headmaster, I ask, “What is the one thing you need?” He answered, “Food. We don’t have enough food.” Currently, they have seven days worth of rice left. It costs about 1000 baht ($30) for 45 kg of rice per day to feed 120 kids. Jong and I ask the children what they need. Their requests are hard for me to grasp given the ocean of need I witness. They request: scissors to cut hair; toothbrushes and toothpaste; notebooks and pencils; a guitar and bicycles. The kids are constantly assaulted by gnats and skin rashes. They need calamine lotion; shampoo; and powder. There seems to be no established program to contribute to the orphanage. Right now, you can contact Jong at the Field Village to help. Jong has committed to delivering supplies once a month. www.thefieldvillage.com. We have stopped wondering how this could happen—it doesn’t matter. Helping matters.

That night we sleep close to the orphanage at the Long Stay guest camp. It is run by a well-known naturalist and preservationist in the area. He says his goal is to provide travelers with an authentic nature experience. Our hut is high in the trees overlooking the river. It feels like a treehouse. There are bamboo huts below by the river available when it’s not the rainy season. Our accommodations are primitive, but we yelp with excitement when we see the working toilet and hot water shower! Our night becomes dream-like when the camp women arrive to give us a massage and steamed herbal press treatment. We are exhausted and now limp. We drift off to sleep off while listening to the music of the jungle wildlife and rain hitting our tin roof. When I finish writing this I cry.

Read a postcard from the director of the orphanage following the response to Schauer’s dispatch.