Lost on Earth

After teaching at the public school last week I was accosted by a rainstorm and had to spend a half hour sitting in a noodle shop waiting for it to pass. The phone rang as I sat. It was Julia, our new volunteer from Austria. She told me that a Thai NGO was at our office with a woman and child and they wanted us to take them both. I told her to see if she could get them to leave.

After the rain calmed I drove to the office. The NGO workers were still there. Two men and two women. Sitting on the floor of the office, with a sleeping baby on her legs, was the most sad looking woman I had ever seen. Her face was badly sunburned, one of her eyes stared dully in the wrong direction. Slow tears dribbled from her eyes and made clean tracks on her dirty face. They told me she was 24 years old, but she looked like she was 40. The baby had thin, short hair and looked to be about 2 years old. Both the mother and the child were infected with HIV and had been living in a corner of the market in Mae Hong Son. The Thai authorities were worried for her safety because several men had been hanging around, taking an interest in her.

I tried to explain to them that we are not properly equipped to take care of so many people with HIV. They require special care and more attention than we cannot give. We simply do not have enough money or staff. I also am worried about the risk of having infected people near our otherwise mostly healthy children.

The NGO workers wouldn't leave, and the woman continued to sit by my feet crying. I knew that we couldn't take her, but I couldn't turn her away. Kham Chuen was nowhere to be found still. "What will you do?" they asked. I decided to let her stay for a night until I could talk to Kham Chuen and figure out what we should do. I stayed up most of the night worrying about them. Where will they stay? How will we ever be able to afford the cost of their medication? What measures will we have to take to contain the virus? Can we trust this woman?

Today Kham Chuen cleaned out a small hut that is just outside the shelter and moved the woman and her baby inside so they will not be around the other chidlren. He arranged a deal with the Thai NGO that brought her to us: if we house her they will pay for all the children's hospital visits and medical bills, so there is an upside to all of this...