A tiger of a day - pt II

After the strange walk with the tiger we went to a sort of arena with around 10 tigers, 3 were still quite young. Then we went around with a worker to pet them and take pictures with them. They had just ate so they were taking a nap. So at the end of the day I touched more than 6 tigers. Very strange concept. The kids seemed to enjoy it. Some preferred to watch from a distance. Me and the other volunteers discussed how our families would react to the pictures. I'm pretty sure I'll never show them to my grandmother...

"Someone touched my thingy!!!"

"A little more to the right... yeah, that's it!"

"eeew, water again?!"...

After the tigers it took us a while to gather all the kids together and go back to the car. But we had promised them food and swimming in the hot springs.

Getting the food in the restaurant was chaotic but somehow it worked. It was already 17h30 so we thought swimming was off. The girl that visited her parents had not called us and she was not at the pick up place. Of course. We had to drive to her village. It was a tiny but nice place.

Due to lack of communication with the other car we ended up really going to the hot springs. We entered around 18h30. 10Bth each. Basically there is a hot spring (very hot) next to the river so we skip from one to the other. It was fine in the beginning. It was so hot it took us a while. After everyone was wet the splashing around and getting others in the hot water began. I am still waiting for the other volunteers to show me their pictures, I think one camera caught the moment when 3 students and 1 volunteer tried to get me in the water but I would not let go of the wall.. 4 people and I was still in dry land. Those kung fu sessions really made me stronger.

The redness is due to the heat. I never had thought I'd sweat in water...

We stayed until it was dark.

While we were getting ready to leave 3 girls told me that the girl that had been car sick was sick again. It was strange since we weren't moving or even in the car. 5 minutes later when I got to the car she was moaning in pain and barely standing up. I let her in the car and noticed she was pressing her stomach. I touched where her appendix was and it hurt. For a second I really thought it was appendicitis. But she didn't have a fever. We tried to get everyone in the car fast so we could get her to a doctor. In those few seconds her pain seemed to get worse, she started punching herself in order to relief the pain. We decided to get her to a hospital. The problem was we didn't really know the way. The girl was laying on my lap when I noticed her temperature was going up so I started putting a wet cold t-shirt to cool her off a bit. And then she passed out and I couldn't wake her up. For about 20 seconds I was really worried. After some running around, some illegal turns, some screaming we found the hospital. Then there was the language issue, the doctor spoke some English but was too busy to let us know what was happening. After a bit she explained it was a sort of disepsia and ulcer wound. We were so relieved. I could've hugged her right there.

Then there was the issue of 26 kids running around the hospital, seeing things they really shouldn't. We sent most of them back, and realized that since she was a refugee and had no documents she would be given farang (foreigner) price. We barely had any money left. I offered to look for a bank. A few minutes after the car left with most kids we were told she could go, she would have some medication and a new diet but would be ok. Her sister still looked very frightened. I really wanted to go home. Being the adult sucked a bit.

So at 21h30 we were going home. It was pitch dark and Valentina, the driver, was getting tired. I talked my life out. Even I was tired of hearing my voice but as the kids fell asleep and Valentina started yawning I knew I had to just keep her talking back to me. During the last hour, out of sheer desperation we started singing. I don't remember how or who started it. We were too tired to know all the lyrics or even tunes properly. We both had bad voices. But we sung out loud anyways. It was our "ruin music history" moment. We started with the Beatles and ended up in gospel.

The last gospel (that ended in our driveway) included lyrics like "Oh happy day... when we get home... and this stupid road... makes my ass hurt..."