The City of Angels: Let's start today with the intention of peace, harmony, laughter and love for all. -Deepak Chopra

After a 10-day hiatus, due to “the biking mishap”, I am back to the concrete jungle. Yesterday I went for a two hour run and it was just what my body and soul needed. Geared with my iPod on shuffle, my brain jumped from one memory to another, taking me back, the way only good music can. All the clutter in my brain seemed to dissipate and I felt a renewed sense of clarity.

My girl friends continue to remind me that this is my “pray”; a time for self-reflection, processing, being in the moment and being honest with myself. Your emails keep me focused and on track.

My schedule has shifted recently, as my students are back in school. My days start with a run, followed by time in the executive office and they end with homework help. I’ve been extremely busy of late, helping Khun Usanee prepare for her trip and oral presentation in Korea next week. She’ll be speaking at The International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. However, in the midst of researching Busan’s markets yesterday, Khun Usanee turned to me:

“We’re going on a home visit soon, would you like to come along?”

To be clear, this is when two or three staff members from Mercy go out into the community to visit with families, sit in their homes, hear their grievances and ask, “What can we do to help?” To be invited by the executive director – there are no words. An enthused nod sufficed.

Yesterday’s outing took me back across the river to the fateful jungle where I had plunged into the murky waters only 10 days prior. To be honest, even walking on the concrete catwalks makes me nervous now. It was a maze of zigzagged planks and the staff effortlessly made their way from one home to the next. Small, dark rooms built on pilings lined the walk and the children called “falang” as I passed. It looked like Slumdog Millionaire in the jungle. Everything is built a solid 10 feet above the ground, however, I later learned that when the rains come (and they do) the water level rises so rapidly that many of the homes become flooded, which leads to other dangers.

The first home we entered was off the concrete path. Slabs of wood lay across the soft, sewage-laden earth and I was careful to not miss a step. The main room was no larger than mosts kitchen table. The concrete base of the house was then laid with a few planks of wood, which were then covered by a thin plastic material, much like the sticky plastic sheets I once used to cover my textbooks in high school. Six of us huddled in the room that doubled as a living room and the grandmother’s bedroom. This frail looking woman sat, chewing on maak, a plant that is thinly sliced and a reddish hue, to strengthen her jaw. The moment she spoke it was clear that the maak was now home to where he teeth once were, which muffled her speech. She kept a rag in her right hand, occasionally wiping the red deposit from her lips. Her golden skin hung loosely from her skeleton, and her eyes were soft and kind.

In every home we visited, the grandmothers were raising their grandchildren, with no mention of the children’s parents, except that they were gone and some occasionally sent money home.

This family was living on less than $30 a month; the grandmother was looking after three children and had to pay rent and feed the children with less than $1/day. When asked what she needed, besides money for the children, she replied, rice. Mosquito nets hung from the tin roof and loose pictures of the royal family hung haphazardly from the walls.

The next house we visited was what most would consider a small split-level bungalow; there were 18 people living there. First concern: the family was running out of space for the children to sleep. The grandmother conveyed that she collected plastic bottles to sell and that her husband had just lost his job as a boat driver, so they were completely dependent on her youngest daughter for income. She lived away from home, but was able to send $100/mo to her family. Eighteen family members and $100/ month- you do the math.

The last home was a small dark room with a single bed in the corner. It was situated along the side of a canal off of the river. The grandmother and grandfather lived in this cramped space with their three grandchildren. Most nights the grandparents slept in the bed with the youngest child, while the other two slept on the floor, but when the rains came and the water levels rose, the apartment would become flooded.

In the middle of the night, when the waters come, the grandmother and father must wake the other two children and put them in bed. Then they move to the two plastic chairs, which sit outside the entrance of room, along the concrete walk. The grandmother continued to explain that they must stay up all night, fighting off the water snakes; to be sure they don’t get into the room. (For those of you that don’t know, nearly every snake in Thailand is deadly poisonous.) And so she stays up, sitting in the rain, to protect her family. Mercy is going to try and help her find a new home, but you can see from the staff’s faces that these visits, no matter how often they do them, never get any easier.

“When I first started this work, no one warned me about how emotional this work would be. I’m not God and at times I feel stuck, like, what can I do? It’s not right that people have to live this way,” Khun Usanee said as we made our way back to Mercy.

I racked my brain for anything to say, I searched for Ken Williams’ words of wisdom and I came up with nothing.

“I don’t know.”

All I could think was, at least the children are in school. This has the potential to break the cycle of poverty, right?

The sky turned black and the rains came down in heavy sheets. I thought of the families we had just left behind. What can we do?

Every day it’s something new. Today I’m searching for motivational quotes for people living with HIV/AIDS to write on condoms, that the Mercy staff will hand out at the conference in Korea next week.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring…