Day 30: Tuesday 17 November 2009 – Exploring one of the Mondul 3 villages

Back to where I began, shell-shocked, and exhausted.

This morning Janet, Graeme and I joined Kerry for a tour of the village of squatters situated on a reserve road behind the Kantha Bopha hospitals.  The village comprised some 25 families who I can only describe as living the most squalid, filthy and unhealthy environment I could have imagined. 

This village of stilt houses and makeshift shacks have only recently become accessible to outsiders such as us, previously flooded out by the rains and typhoon fallout which happened the week before I arrived.  What’s now left is a bright green sludge or goo – a mix of putrid water and human feces that are literally deposited straight into the bonds from the back of the houses.  Kids play in these ‘ponds’, catching frogs, snails, fish and whatever which they survive on or the more enterprising ones sell to the families lining up in the sun out the front of the Khanta Bopha hospital.  

Plastic detritus, sugar cane refuse and everything else but food litter the village giving off the most foul stench in the morning sun.  Contributing to this is the dead man left to decompose in one of the houses.  He had no family and no one can afford to pay the US $50 to transport his body for cremation.    Meanwhile the bugs most likely feast on his body before moving on to infect the dozens of children who hang around playing with each other in their makeshift houses, or entertain themselves as you can see in one of the pictures of the little boy holding the syringe filled with fetid pond water.  Prior to this shot he’d been chasing his little sister around squirting her. 

Apparently this land is being re-zoned and these 25 villagers being pushed off their property some time soon.  These people are absolutely destitute and yet they still manage a smile.  Many have or have lost family members to HIV and or Tuberculosis, they can’t afford to send their children to public school, unable to find employment to fund the uniforms and books, let alone the bikes to get to school.  This excludes the vendors selling the cane sugar, snails or frogs to unsuspecting locals at the hospital or in town. 

New Hope is currently conducting a thorough investigation of these families with a view to finding them sponsorship, which will include rice, sleeping mats, mosquito nets and bikes.  From there, the mission is to get the kids into school and new accommodation for the families.  This is in addition to the 200 families that New Hope currently supports.  It’s a mammoth job.  Janet and Graeme have generously decided to sponsor on of the families from this village. 

Back at school this afternoon I seriously wonder how I ever considered complaining about the exhaustion following a fashion week.  Four and almost half weeks of teaching at New Hope is the equivalent of five back-to-back fashion weeks in Sydney, without a break! Janet, a seasoned primary teacher with ‘difficult’ children assures me that she’s never, ever worked so hard in her life.  That’s some compensation. 

Today I saw two snakes, a bag containing a sheet covered with nits (combed from one child’s hair in class by a brave teacher) and dry retched over some suspicious deposits on the floor of my classroom.  I applied first aid to a little elbow, was covered in snot, hugs, and had my face coughed into at least ten times by a very sick little girl.  I rescued a distraught toddler who had lost her mother and had no friends to play with, and laughed hysterically at the wonderful sense of humour of one of the girls.  (See the picture of her with two balls forming breasts in her dress – completely unprompted, I promise!).  I could go on and on but am exhausted even thinking about it.   Until tomorrow ...