The Volunteer

My Dear GVI Vols

My journey began volunteering in the Healthcare Program with GVI (Global Vision International) in a tiny village called Baan Nam Khem is a small Thai fishing village about 25 km north of KhaoLak. This village resides on the beach Andaman Sea and in 2004 the hurricane struck and this poverty stricken village lost more than half of its population; 8500 people minimum, this doesn’t include the Burmese people, whose population isn’t recorded due to these sea gypsies being illegal immigrants. GVI stepped in shortly after and it’s one of the two long term organizations that remained at Baan Nam Khem after the other humanitarian organizations pulled out.

There are three programs located at this base: Education, Conservation and Healthcare. I’m not sure what exactly drove me to work in the Healthcare section, the appealingly diverse and different work, the idea I wouldn’t have to teach English (wrong, Kirstin) the thought that these children who struggled with ‘real life’ children may have something in common with myself. I know what you’re thinking right, but she doesn’t do children, and I don’t, but what the hey, let’s give it a shot.

A day in a life of volunteering with GVI meant basic but clean dorm style living and shared kitchen. The volunteers were as unique and interesting as they come. When I got there one of the HealthcareGirls was leaving, so it was merely myself and another newbie, and we were shortly dubbed the Healthcare Hero’s, due to our attempts at putting in 150% effort in program/class preparations and our desire to run regularly on the beach.

Typically, we taught three classes a day. It was immensely challenging and spectacularly rewarding work:

We played with children ages 3-7 who lived at the foster homes. These little monkeys were full of energy and as cute as they come. They resided at the residences (created after the Tsunami by an Australian Company) because their parents had their own demons to battle, due to addiction, illness or poverty, or their parents died because of the Tsunami. The state of the playground was pretty insane. I joked that if they could survive the violent teeter totter and dire hard monkey bars, they’ll make it through life just fine.

We also taught a healthcare class, which was more than daunting as fifteen 12-14-year old’s kept bellowing these odd and foreign words Teacher, Teacher to me and I thought to myself, shit, I hardly know how to spell. Alas, we finally had a breakthrough after a particular class when we taught the English terms and then the relevance of the Sun and how to protect ourselves from it. I finally got my hand gestures in control (needed while teaching a foreign language) and we came up with some pretty wicked games regarding sun protection. The day ended with a high-five and some instant coffee.

#5 was me when I was little, eh Mum?

My favorite class was with Chamillians. We interacted and spent two hours a day with 5-8 children of various ages who had disabilities, mostly autism and down syndrome. God, I loved those kids. It was really about understanding sensory play (Other Girl, if you’re reading this, I really could have used your help), utilizing education with touch, sound, smell, taste and sight. I pulled out every nursery rhyme, song and action play I could think of and oh the crafts we did! Duck, Duck, GOOSE will never be the same.  It was my physiotherapist who told me to keep an eye on these children, with physical disabilities and see how their body types different to such extremes. Some were flexible as hell, touching head to floor and suddenly I was envious of children who had outbursts because they couldn’t get their point across.

I can’t stress the importance of this program. All of these children deserve such different and better lives. As Thailand number one source of income is tourism, teaching Thai/Burmese kids English is dire to them being able to make a decent living.

In all honestly, I feel my time there was left unfinished, and I suppose the excellent part about flying solo is perhaps, they’ll see me again.

 

Nobody ever became poor by giving.

Kindly,

Kirstin