There’s been a new face hanging around the restaurant for a few days. She is a tiny young girl of about twelve, who looks like a puff of wind would sweep her away. She has a beautiful face and smiles huge crinkly-eyed smiles whenever I pass her. Being used to the ebb and flow of people around here I don’t think to question who she is for several days. Until it becomes clear she’s sleeping here, at which point Crab explains she is Ooh and Bo’s daughter and she swam here from Burma.

“She what?” I ask, complete incredulity written across my face. Crab re-iterates, “yes she swam here”. Ooh and Bo couldn’t afford to pay the people traffickers who smuggle people over the border from Burma, so she went illegally in a boat with 14 other people. Crossing the foul straits between Ranong and Thailand, they were chased by the Burmese police, the boat overturned and she had to swim for it. Five people died. This little slip of a girl swam to Thailand, and then presumably with no money, certainly with no Thai language, managed to make her way across the country to the island.

A few weeks later, I am actually in Ranong, Burma, doing the annoying three-monthly visa crossing required on most long term visas. I arrive at the port having mini bussed across the country, spent hours on the ferry and finally arrived at the hell hole of a port. The place stinks. The smells of rotten fish, rancid sewage and gasoline hang in the air and choke everyone, along with the sweltering heat. On the dock, hundreds of boats are crammed along the edges of the water, packed in like starving kittens, bobbing at their mother’s teat.

When we clamber into the boat, the clean highway from Thailand cushions us on one side of the river, and on the other side the smoggy jungle hills of Burma, with all their secrets and their deathly struggles rise into the distance. I look down at the water, which is black, putrid, oily foulness. The stench is almost unbearable, and I have literally never seen water that looks like straight oil. It’s disconcerting.

In our wooden longtail boat we chug our way out into the wide water stream that divides the two countries. Belching gasoline, as we pick up speed the air clears a little bit. I cannot believe that this little girl was in this water. Cannot imagine her cheerful eyes and sweet smile racing under cover of darkness across this waterway with the Burmese police on her tail. I cannot begin to contemplate the fear as she lands in the filthy water, or the strength she must have had to swim across the miles of water, and haul herself oil coverd and exhausted from the obnoxious river.

I dread to imagine the life she has come from. Something in her demeanour, something in her eyes speaks to me that she is a victim. Unfortunately in a place like Burma, with no protection, no women’s rights, a war torn, bloody land, just a beautiful little slip of a girl making her way is unlikely not to have encountered hardships. I wonder what she has seen, what those intelligent gentle eyes have borne witness to. What she thinks behind that luminous smile. Of course she just gets on with it: is happy, smiles, enjoys being with her family, is glad to be alive, is glad of the moment she is living and the opportunity to enjoy it.

A few weeks later the girl gathers her things in a plastic bag and swinging it against her leg waves goodbye. She is off to another beach to work in a resort. I hope she is well treated, I hope they are good to her, that someone there will be protecting her, that she wont be abused, violated, exploited or hurt in anyway. She is perfectly happy as she gets on the bike to go, this is her chance, a shot at Thailand, a shot at a good life, work, food, some comfort. She is glad to take it and I pray with all my heart it works out for her as the bike speeds out of the village and up the dusty dirt road.

Related posts:

1. Joe and Egger get a photo from Burma
2. Joe and Egger’s Little Boy….

Today is a day of wonderful people beginning their journeys.

My cousin is flying from London to take over as head chef, and help me open our new cafe venture. In what couldn’t be a starker contrast, Joe and Egger’s oldest son sets off today to join us from Burma.

Joe just got the call to say everything is confirmed, the people traffickers are paid, and he should be crossing the border, crammed in the back of an illegal van, to make his way across Thailand to us.

Wishing them both God’s speed.

Related posts:

1. Swimming From Burma
2. Joe and Egger get a photo from Burma

{Just reading back on my life before Joe and Egger arrived. I had been so scared to hire anyone to help, for so long because of cost. But actually it was a false economy, I was working non-stop and getting NOTHING done to forward our business.}

High Speed Trains Crash Faster

The main problem is there are not ten of me – I am full time mother, chef, manager, accountant, landscaper, cleaner, launderer, graphic designer, and marketing department all rolled into one neat (or actually a bit flabby and scruffy) package.

At any one time in the day I am doing one task for one of my roles, and simultaneously thinking about all the tasks that desperately need doing for all the other roles. The result is that I am effective at nothing, inadequately efficient, and thorough rarely. I am also usually moving a warp speed and am a danger to myself and others, case in point the kettle incident yesterday.

Today the day began with the kitchen flooding due to my not putting the pipe for the washing machine out into the drain. Because I was busy feeding and changing the baby while simultaneously hanging the laundry I didn’t notice this until it had gone through its whole cycle.

Result: entire kitchen under three inches of water, me with the baby on one hip, squeegee thing in one hand trying to swoosh water out the door while talking into the phone jammed between my ear and my shoulder about something else entirely. This is not an unusual scenario in this madhouse. Clear Sky will probably grow up thinking that’s how you wash a kitchen floor in fact.

Later on when the baby went to sleep I leapt into action with the aim of completing at least ten tasks during her short nap. First on the list was finishing painting the large banners to advertise our monthly full moon lunacy party next week. Ro had already made a start on the lettering so all I had to do was fill in with blue and orange paints. This I did in record time, brilliant, all good to go, then I picked up the first banner to discover I had painted through onto the floor of the restaurant and the banner was still wet on both sides.

This meant that maneuvering it was a bit tricky but needless to say I didn’t really have time to wait for it to dry. I think the moment when I became wrapped in five metres of cotton and wet paint, which I then had to wrestle with to free myself, daubing pretty much my only paint free clothes in orange paint at the same time, was about the same moment I realized that maybe my step mum was right my time management is poor.

Shrimp came over to see what all the kerfuffle was about and as usual looked at me in exasperation for rushing another job and creating more work by doing so. What winds me up is that he, the master of patience and carefulness seems to think that I rush everything by choice or personal preference.

In my defense my time management skills are poor because there isn’t enough time to go around, or enough of me, or enough resources to buy another me. I am making it my goal to work on delegating effectively this month, and also organizing in advance to reduce my rushing. Will let you know how it goes.

No related posts.