Hey everyone! I’m back in Chiang Mai now and just finished up with another stay at the Forgotten Foundation. I was able to spend over two weeks at the foundation this time, so we were able to get a lot accomplished. The main thing that we worked on during my stay was getting the bathroom facilities for the families that live at Forgotten Land constructed, so in this post I am going to share with you some stories that took place during the time spent working on this project.
I would like to start by giving a big thanks to our friend Soc! Soc has been a good friend to Forgotten for many years now. In the past he worked as a self-contractor and when asked if he could help out with the construction of the bathroom facilities he agreed immediately. He volunteered a lot of his time and was a huge help in both the designing and actual construction of the facilities. He would come by on a daily basis to make sure that the construction was going as planned and that all of the workers were following his instructions and doing everything right. He was a tremendous help and the quality of the bathrooms would not have been the same without him. So please send out a big thanks to Soc!
The day that Manat and I went to pick up the majority of the bathroom materials, I was a little concerned about how we were going to get all of the stuff to the land. Because there is no road that leads directly to where the bathrooms were to be constructed, we had no other alternative then to park the truck at the community house and carry in all of the materials on foot. The actual site was about 300 meters from the house, so I imagined that getting the 700 plus center blocks and 10 plus bags of cement to the land was not going to be an easy task. Manat on the other hand didn’t seem concerned about the matter at all.
As soon as we pulled up to the house I grabbed two of the heavy blocks and started making my first, and what I had predicted to be my first of many, walk out to the construction site. As I was walking Manat then yelled out, “Wii-Pah, go to the school and get the children.” As I walked with the two blocks in hand Wii-Pah ran passed headed for the school and before I even had the chance to reached the bathroom site the Forgotten School children had begun to run past me headed towards the house. At this point it occurred to me what Manat was doing and that he was going to have the children help carry this stuff. This kind of worried me a bit because many of the children were very small and the blocks are so heavy, but by the time that I made it back to the house nearly all of the children had already picked up a block and had begun to waddle their way to the toilets. Many of the children were barefoot and it looked very difficult for them to carry the blocks, but they were all doing it with a smile on their face and treating the activity as if it were some kind of fun game that they were playing. I then looked over at Manat and he said, “Not to worry, we’ll have this done in no time.”
It was a really cool experience to see all of these children carrying the blocks and working together. It was a good reminder for me on the power of unity, and how if we all join hands and work together that we can make the difficult or the impossible seem not so difficult and not so impossible. It also reminded me of why it is so important to try and get more people involved in the situation in Burma. Similar to the overwhelming feeling that I felt when looking into that truck bed trying to figure out how we are going to get all of these materials to the land, so to does it feel that the situation in Burma will not get better until we all come together to help bring about the necessary change. So I hope that this story is a reminder of how important it is that we all work together in this life if we desire for the world to be a better place.
The second story that I would like to share with you is about an elderly man that also helped out with the carrying of the materials from the house to the land. I swear that the man must have been at least 75 years old. And I mean 75 hard years old that have been filled with physical labor in the hot sun. If you were to take into account his physical appearance alone you would say that he is in no position to help out with carrying such heavy objects, but this didn’t stop him. The elderly man picked up two of the blocks and started the 300 meter trek over to the construction site. As he walked he moved very slowly and was forced to take little breaks here and there along the way. At times I thought that he might even give up and ask for some of the children to help him, but he didn’t. He simply continued to walk slowly, and in the end, he finally made it.
I probably carried about 30 bricks by the time that this man arrived to the site with only the two in his hands, so what the man did was not really significant in helping get the work accomplished. I, however, don’t think that this was the man’s motivation for getting involved and providing what little help he could in the first place. I believe that this man was trying to show to Forgotten that he appreciated the work that Forgotten was doing and that he was thankful for us being there. And even though he knew that he could be of little help in getting the construction of the facilities done, he still wanted to do all in his power to find a way to tell us thanks. On a physical level what the man did was very minimal, but on a spiritual level his actions had a very powerful effect. It was a very touching and moving display of a man trying to show his gratitude to a people that he knew he could not properly communicate trying to use words alone. He therefore made his words speak through his actions.
Once again I want everybody to give a big thanks to James’ dad David Gregory for providing Forgotten with the money to make the construction of the bathrooms a reality. Many of the families at Forgotten have lived without a proper toilet for the majority, if not their entire, lives, and now for the first time they have a restroom to call their own. The families now have much more privacy and are also much better equipped to keep their land clean and safe for the children. They are very thankful for all that Forgotten is doing, and with regards to this particular project, all of their thanks and gratitude goes out to Mr. Gregory.
Much Love.. Jon
