Communal Living

There is something wonderful about living communally with large groups of people. The BTN children sleep together in dormitories, the babies downstairs, the girls upstairs and the boys across the road in a separate building.

Eating together occurs in two sittings at very low tables and sitting on the floor, 6pm for the younger ones and 7pm (or thereabouts) for the older ones. There are large vats of steamed rice every mealtime which accompany huge saucepans of different curries, vegetables, chicken, fish or pork, depending on who is on duty. Additional hot pastes and “nam prik” - chilli with fish sauce is always available for those, like me, who like to spice it up a little more.
If any of the children are late for dinner, the others have to wait for the latecomers to arrive before they can start. And then they give thanks (I think to the farmers who grew the food and those that prepared it) before they dive in on large metal segmented plates.

The dogs are often there too to pick up the pieces, although they are very clear on the heirarchy of dinner time!

All the kids wash up their own plates and cutlery before returning to their evening ablutions.

Shower time is a communal affair. The babies and littles ones literally get hosed down with cold water by the older children in the area near the washing machines. They seem to love it and turn the tiled floor into a water slide, and their naked, smiling little bodies whizz past on their tummies, before disappearing into clouds of talcum powder and getting into pyjamas!

Although I have naturally not witnessed this, the older girls apparently stand around a large tub of cold water and do a “splash and dash” prior to bedtime.

The day starts at 5.30am and kids are normally asleep by about 9pm, the babies much earlier. It is a long day of school and chores and a strict routine. You eat at the same time, sleep at the same time, wash together, go to school together, play together and there is very rarely any dispute or upset, or so it seems. Older children look after the younger children, some never far from their own siblings.

Outside every room is a huge selection of flip-flops or jandals, as everyone takes off shoes to enter a room.  My old red jandals went missing for 24 hours and, try as I might, I could not locate them.  I asked Alison the best way to go about looking for them.  She suggested putting up a reward of 10Baht.  I offered 20 Baht and we told one girl.  Within 5 minutes, the shoes had been returned to me and I paid the money to Alison who put the money into the girls' saving scheme, which she has started for all the children!

It is a very different life to the individuality of our daily lives in NZ, where our lucky kids have their own room, privacy in the bathroom, the luxury of keeping their own property safe and the closest they get to washing up is putting everything into a machine that does it for them.

Hannah and Meg, in particular, are struggling with the very early starts and being woken up by the noise of clanking pots and chattering children that starts just before dawn. We are often woken in the night with the dogs barking and howling outside our window and sometimes getting back to sleep in the heat is a challenge. Their teenage brains would much prefer to continue on sleeping in the morning and, given the increase in grumpiness levels and a certain decline in good attitude with the girls, I have sourced earplugs and will let them sleep in the mornings. Soon enough, they will be back at school with their own early starts!

The girls are also continuing with the preparations and making costumes for the kindergarten concert for the night of the 23rd. They have made rings with ribbons on for the rainbow song and are busy making netting skirts in the colours of the rainbow and cardboard teapots and hearts for the rest of the songs. Rehearsal is every day at 4pm and the little ones, who are getting very excited, were squealing with delight at the colourful props that are appearing.

I am also insisting that the girls get more exercise as that will help them sleep more soundly. Tom exhausts himself with daily soccer but the girls are really not doing much. They are not up early enough in the morning to make use of the coolest part of the day to go for a run. So, yesterday, I insisted they joined in with the daily aerobics at 4.30pm that is put on for the kitchen ladies and other staff. Jane Fonda, eat your heart out!

They took the bikes and cycled round the lake this afternoon and then we escaped briefly to the market. I thought I would give riding in the truck a go - feels very rebellious!

The Wednesday night market was lovely but Meg, why do all the clothes seem to have cherries on them?