Home Hug Orphanage - my journey comes to an end...for now.

It is hard to describe what happened for the rest of the day and the emotions it aroused in us all.  It was the culmination of 8 days of challenge, laughter, pain and elation. The ride has challenged me on a physical level, a mental level and now the emotions were bubbling up to the surface.

The anticipation of meeting the children at Ban Home Hug had been the main driving force for most of us on the ride. For those of us that had not been there before and probably never encountered children affected by HIV, we simply did not know what to expect.

We knew that Mae Thiew was a courageous and inspiring woman, who was overcoming her own personal challenges to care for these orphans.  We knew that before Hands Across the Water had got involved a few years ago, children were developing and dying from AIDS at an alarming rate.  Peter's description of when he had first seen the orphanage a few years ago was that is was a very sad place.  Apparently there had been the donation of a library building from the Thai royal family.  We joked that Maslow would have had something to say about that - books are wonderful but not when basic needs like running water and sanitary conditions were not being met and children were dying.

In 2011, Mae Thiew was the Reader's Digest Winner of Asian of the Year and I have just read a very informative and poignant article about her and her work.  With a degree in psychology, she moved to Yasathon to help the children of poor migrant workers.  The children either lose parents to HIV, are born with it or in some cases, contract it through abuse by a family member with the disease. Mae Thiew has fought hard to get the children to be accepted into the local community and be able to attend school, as there is a lot of stigma attached to HIV.

Although fewer children are now dying, she describes death as a natural truth and tells the children all about suffering and death. In the early days, some of the older children would have to dig graves and help each other make a coffin as the undertakers would not get involved, due to fear of the disease. 

Mae Thiew never complains.  On some days on the bike ride, we could see she was tired and in pain.  At the orphanage, if she is exhausted, she simply tells the children that she needs to rest and that when she has regained strength, she will attend to their needs again. The kids then come and rub her head, and tickle her feet and that is when they open up and tell her their stories.  

So as we rode up to the garlands of flowers and friends and families of the riders, we were greeted by older children, who took us by the hands and led us in and gave us a cool coconut or iced water.  

We sat down in a huge open sided building, where tables had been arranged in a U shape, ready for some performances by the children.  The Catholic Sister who lives and works there welcomed us on the microphone in good English and we were invited to eat the beautiful food that had been prepared.

I sat with the Kiwis, Andrew and his wife Sue and Chris.  Sue and Andrew had not been back since they spent ten weeks here two years ago painting rooms and installing the water tank with other volunteers.

The performances were opened by the older children and Mae Thiew's daughter who sang.  She also sounds incredible and is heavily involved in the community helping people as well as at the orphanage.

An older boy is a singer/song-writer played guitar and sang for us.  He has composed a lot of his own songs and apparently wrote a song every time a child died.  His job had also been to dig the graves.  One of his dreams was to perform in front of people.  He not only achieved that but on a trip to sydney was given the opportunity to record some of his songs and make a cd.

The little kids have been learning to break dance and put on a gorgeous show for us as you can imagine.

Once we had eaten, we were to play a game to buddy up.  A photo of a child had been hung around our necks and each child had a lanyard with a photo of a rider.  The game was to find your child.  There was a bit of confusion as the photos did not seem to match up but we all found our children!  To my amazement, the child that I had been allocated was PP, the very one that 2 years ago was too sick to meet the riders and whom they thought would die, the one we had been told to think of on the harder stretches of the last days of the ride.

So off I went in search of PP who was to show me around the orphanage.  He had already found Peter, whom he recognised.  A big thing for the kids is that they need to see a familiar face.  It is fine to waltz in for the afternoon and connect with the kids but, although we would see them again tonight, we would be gone too soon.  PP led me to a table where we were given gifts with a t-shirt and a sticky rice basket with hand-written messages on hearts like " Thank you for your concern" and " We love Mummy and Daddy".

He kept checking my picture on the badge and then looking at my face as if to impress it on his memory.  Then he grabbed my hand and off we went.  He showed me the veggie garden and there is a very hot mushroom growing tent.

 They make a very big effort to be sustainable and there is a farm stall with gorgeous water buffalo.  

 Touch is very important and very soon, PP wanted a piggy back ride and I was happy to oblige, until he got told off and instructed to get down.  We carried on past the dog kennels. They seem to take in all the local strays who then live there with the kids.  The many dogs had been put away for the day for our arrival! 

PP then turned his attention to my camera and all the buttons.  He wanted to learn how to take a photo.  This is one he took of me!

Once we had exhausted the opportunities that my camera presented, he stopped to have a drink, and we skipped back in unison to the general area where everyone was congregating for a photo with the children.

It was then time to say goodbye.  I found PP and gave him a high five and clambered on the old bus.  I felt emotionally drained, sad to be leaving, very honoured to have been so welcomed into Ban Home Hug but in desperate need of a shower! We were to see them later in the evening for a dinner and show. 

The evening dinner with the kids was amazing.  Mae Thiew, with the kids, put on a performance of Thai Boxing, Thai Dancing and we watched very moving slide shows of images from Home Hug and previous rides.  It had all begun to sink in and my heart strings were being yanked, not tugged, and I was doing my best to hold it all together!

Then the dancing started, the kids keen to compare their latest moves with ours.  Our aches and pains, numbed by the Chang Beer, quickly turned into a demonstration of exotic steps and hand moves.  I love dancing with kids.  Unable to communicate with much fluency, this became our new language. They copied us and we them.

I soon found PP and went to take his hand.  He stopped to look at me very closely, clearly not sure if the sweaty lycra-clad woman he had met this afternoon was the same one standing before him, wearing a dress and make-up. Satisfied that I was indeed his buddy from earlier on, he proceeded to lead me around the dance floor, stopping to occasionally look back at me and then show me to people.  The children clearly loved making these connections but I was already sad at how short-lived it would be.  

Earlier the kids had tied white and yellow friendship bracelets around our wrists, which we are not to take off apparently but keep them on until they fall off.  

Everyone had a different experience with their children.  Emma had made an effort to go round the edge of the room and try to connect with some of the children that were not interacting.  She found a little boy who was just sitting there, his face blank and, try as she might, she could not get a smile, let alone an acknowledgement.  She sat alongside him and tapped in time to the music on their legs, not saying a word.  Then, all of a sudden, he caught sight of one of our Thai team, Magcup, with a child riding up on his shoulders.  The little boy's face lit up and Emma went to see if Magcup would give the child a ride as well.  The transformation was remarkable and her photo of him clearly reflects this.

The evening ended with a large circle of adults on the dance floor, encircling a smaller circle of the children.  They were to move from one to the next and give us a hug as a way of saying thank you and goodbye.  I was very conscious that most came up to about  waist or chest height and I tried to bend down to hug.  Sometimes it felt as though they wanted to be be pressed into a chest or bosom and not be released.  I did this until they themselves pulled away and moved to the next person.  

However, my jagged emotions were soon to be sorely tested when a boy in yellow held on very tightly.  He was hugging me very hard around my waist and reached about chest height.  I put my other hand on his shortly-cropped hair and that is when his sobbing started.  We stood there holding each other and I also started to cry.  His little body shook with grief and then he looked up at my face, clearly embarrassed. When he saw i was crying too, he sobbed some more and would not let go.  Someone had seen what was happening and came to release me from his grip.  They explained that he had lost his mother and he probably had memories coming up for him.  Tears rolled down my face as my efforts to control myself were meaningless.  At the time of writing, the memory of this moment still makes me cry.

The highs and the lows of the ride had culminated in this last day, this last evening.  It was these children we had ridden for, challenged ourselves over physically and mentally, through the fundraising, through the ride.  And now it was over.  We would go back to our privileged lives, our easy lives.  It was time to go back to our own families whom I was missing a lot.  However, I know that a lot of us, including myself, would never be the same again. 

In the words of Mae Thiew:  "While we are alive, we should love others as much as we can.  Don't wait until they are gone and then weep for nothing. Death is the conclusive chapter of the love you mutually share with someone."

What is so clear is what a difference people like Mae Thiew and Peter Baines make in the world. The great thing about Hands Across The Water is that 100% of funds goes directly to the commitment of saving lives and giving children options in life that do not involve disease, trafficking and prostitution.

I have resolved to continue fundraising and to do the southern ride in 2015 and invite anyone who has enjoyed this blog to join me!