Bai Pai mai?

The experience of working with my NGO as a whole has been absolutely magnificent, but I find true joy in the small moments.

Today when I picked up a guitar and started strumming, Ahmpaa said, "Ring, ring!" I was confused for just a second before I remembered our conversation the other day about ring and sing. 

"You mean sing?"

"Oh. Sing, sing!"

Nute asking whether I wanted the black man or the white man that we met in Pai yesterday. She said the black one was probably smarter because he looks like a Thai.

Listening to Olay as she laid out the party plans for tomorrow. Small cake. Candles. Sing a song--Happy Birthday!

Being around them every day has softened me, I think, but it has also hardened me in a way. I have so much fun with them and I feel so well taken care of. I don't want to go back to America and be surrounded by people who have so much but care so little, after I've seen what life looks like here.

Yesterday we all took a day-trip via rot tu to the Lisu Village in Thailand's Pai province. 

We left at 5:00 in the morning and then drove three hours along a windy, bumpy, mountainous road. At the Lisu village, our new Australian friends who operate this NGO bought some of the village products and then we ate lunch and took a tour of the church being built and the day care center.

On the way home we stopped at a couple sight-seeing places and then made the long drive home. That was the really watered-down version, but it was a fun trip. It was good to spend time with Olay, Joe, Nute and Ahmpaa outside of our everyday work context. I love them

We have nothing to do with those hand-prints or that date. But whatev.

I've been sad lately, since I only have about three weeks left here. I want to stay forever, and that is not an exaggeration or a joke. But it's unlikely that I'll be back to Thailand in the near future, and because a number of the people that I work with have AIDS, the possibility of reuniting with them again at all is slim.

They have so much to complain about, but they don't. They have so many reasons to be selfish, but they aren't. They are the most kind, diligent, hard-working, happy people I have ever met and it breaks my heart to think about leaving them. 

The other day Olay was talking about how much they would miss us. She said (keep in mind this is a translation) that they would miss us a lot, but we wouldn't miss them. I quickly corrected her and said, "Mai chai! Kit teung kun maak!" I wish there was a better way to express to them how much they've changed my life. I still want to kick our communication barrier in the face, but what really gets to me is the fact that in three weeks, all I will be to them is a memory.