Baby face

Last night I met the youngest student at the Well(http://servantworks.org/well), who was working at the bars as a prostitute. She is now 13.

I have met quite a few baby faces like her. They are just girls. They are 13-15. They love to chat, laugh, pretty things. When I saw them, it's hard to imagine that they used to be selling their bodies, and it turns my stomach to think that some men would want to pay to rob their innocence. These men's daughters or granddaughters would have been older than them, and they would have been cat-fighting with their peers over some freckle faced boy in school.

These girls look just like normal girls, though compare to Caucasian girls, they are much smaller in stature and thinner. They mostly come from the very poor region of north-east Isan, with parents died young or being abandoned, or sold to be working in Bangkok to send money home. They all have too much life story for their age.

My heart was broken the first time I visited the Well, when I met Bo, a skinny bright faced happy girl of 14. She was very talkative, and of course I couldn't understand much. She was showing off the English words she learned that day, and she was also learning math. Her aunt was also there. I had thought her aunt was a prostitute and came to the Well, and brought her along. But later I found the contrary - Bo was working in the bars as a prostitute, and got rescued by the Well, and her aunt lost her husband and was devastated, and Bo brought the aunt to the Well.

I have visited the Well a couple of times now, and as my Thai is improving, I can hold a couple of minutes longer conversation with the girls. The girls are rough girls, I learned. They were street kids, and have to carry edges around them. Sometimes they would fight. At the Well, they learn English, math, and more importantly, God's love. They are not worthless as they have learned from their society and culture, but are absolutely loved by a father they never had. They start to learn to respect themselves and others.

Jim and Judy who have started the Well are amazing people. They have poured out their lives on it. It's definitely hard and heart-breaking work. Some girls would go back to their old life, as money does come much easier, and they have to feed their drug addictions which they acquired during their prostitution. They said they have learned that they can't change people, but all they learned is to love them, and love them more.

The Well's website is http://servantworks.org/well. And Jim's blog tells a lot more about what's going on.

The girls are learning a few crafts. The ones I've come to know more are all making jewelries. They have excellent workmanship, and the pieces are beautiful. Some of their work can be seen and purchased at http://narimon.org/.

Green trip

I think the French call field trips Green Trip.

Some classmates at our Thai school took a day trip to Kao Yai National Park, and then the wineries, two hours north of Bangkok. It was a fun trip.

The wineries area looked like Napa Valley, but looking closely, I saw the signs in Thai and knew I was still in Thailand.

Working hard in Bangkok

February has been and will be a hectic month. We didn't have visitors for three months, and then everyone decides to come in February. We have visitors every week, and I am busy entertaining, washing sheets, in between studying Thai and teaching Chinese.

After all this is third world. As much as my friends envy our "luxury" living, I wonder if they can be as creative as me to dry bed sheet on dining table. Dryer is non-existent, neither is coin laundry in this hood.

My hand hurts when I stay on the computer for more than 10 minutes. And I really can't answer everyone's email. My blogging is the only way to answer everyone's questions, such as where we are, what we are doing.

So I am working hard to try out another career. I've been teaching Chinese since November. I'm teaching in a Chinese language school. I applied at several schools and this one is the only one that is in shortage of teachers. But they only have two classes a week for me, which is sufficient for me to tell if I like it, but not sufficient to pay our utility bills.

I like teaching students who are eager to learn or disciplined. For students who have 1 second attention span, it's very challenging. My favorite was an 11-year-old French girl who is a student of another teacher. I taught her when her teacher went back to China for a month. She was like a sponge, and she studied in between classes. She speaks French, English, a little Thai and a little Chinese now. For siblings who study together, it's always a problem. I had two Korean brothers and have had two Thai sisters. The younger one is always the "lazy" one. The older ones would learn and know their stuff, but the younger ones would just tag along and be clueless, and then the older ones would despise the younger and call them "stupid". I still have the Thai sisters and they are really sweet girls. I have to find creative ways to have the younger one learn a little bit more without boring the older one. Somehow some parents have the notion that their kids are better learning together, maybe they get a discount. I don't know. Our landlord have twins, and they purposely separate them in school.

I always love teaching adults, except at my last job to someone who didn't really care to learn. I have an adult Thai student now who is really eager to learn. He is Chinese decent, and had lived in Singapore when he was young and learned some Chinese. Now he wants to pick up where he left off so he doesn't waste such a beautiful language.

Learning Thai has become more challenging. Keeping up the discipline to memorize the vocabulary and sentence patterns everyday is difficult. Strangely, finding someone to practice is also difficult in this Japanese neighborhood. We live in an inconvenient location that in order to reach the public transport, we have to take a taxi, or a long sweaty walk.

Brent is working hard on his trading project. He's currently busy writing an article for IBM that he needs to submit by mid Feb.

We will be back in New York in June. All good things have to end. We can only live on our savings for so long. I have to find a job that pays the bills.