At this writing, three of your cousins are temporary residents of Ashland, Oregon, home of the World Famous Shakespearean festival, awaiting transit to a god-forsaken landscape on the far side of the Pacific that a group of Burmese refugees call home.
Their home is a garbage dump.
The futbols should have been there by now, but there's a holdup. This is the story of how this came to be, along with a compelling example of charity, love and perserverence.
It was Donna Boehm who first told me about Mae Sot, and about Fred Stockwell, a photographer who got sidetracked on his plan to retire to Thailand. His retirement is now a full-time career in a refuse dump, which is both a settlement and workplace for Burmese refugees. Fred was visiting from Mae Sot to attend a fund raiser at the Dana Campbell Vineyard in Ashland, she explained, and the school at Mae Sot could probably use some One World Futbols.
Maybe I should explain who Donna is. I met her online some time ago on one of those dating sites. After you've done this for a while, you learn how to evaluate people from their photos, and Donna turned out to be the real thing -- gentle, bright, cheerful and socially well adapted, with an emphasis on the last quality. Until recently, Donna lived in Talent Oregon, right next to Ashland where the Shakespearean festival is held. Her avocation was being the wardrobe goddess for local theaters.
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Wardrobe goddess Donna Boehm with some greeting cards. |
Along the way, Donna developed a modest business selling greeting cards she fashioned using fabric from costumes that were created for the plays. She made one for me, similar to the "jacket" card in the photo above.
Anyway, Fred Stockwell had lived in Ashland, and he was coming back for a visit and the fund raiser. He is a hero to a local charity, Eyes to Burma, which has supported Fred's efforts for seven years. You can find its page on Facebook.
The benefit and celebration, set for Sept. 27, also marked the kickoff for a global fundraising campaign in coordination with ETB's supporters from around the world. I found it pretty impressive that a group in Oregon had worldwide support.
Donna, who knew about the Wilson campaign to raise One World Futbols for impoverished communities, thought that, if anyone could use indestructible futbols, it would be the young people of Mae Sot.
Fred arrived in Ashland. The fund raiser, occurred. I ordered the futbols from One World Play Project and shipped three off to Kara Lewis, an Ashland-area resident who had actually visited the Mae Sot community. The balls arrived on time and Fred flew back to Thailand -- but without the balls! The fund raiser had been too successful, and donated computers had displaced the balls in Fred's limited luggage space.
But all is not lost, as Kara explained in a Nov. 7 e-mail. She says,
My boyfriend recently shipped a light-weight box to a friend in Thailand and it was $20 for a long shipping plan and $60 for arrival within a week. I'm planning to do the less expensive option. So, the balls are still on their way, just delayed longer than originally planned.
Saya Joe, our head teacher, is really good about taking photos on his phone and sending them to me on Facebook, so when the balls arrive he can take images for us, which I will for sure share with you as well as any details about their use. With the computer donations, I received photos of their use and news about students who were using them. The donors really appreciated seeing and hearing about the students their laptops went to. I want to do the same for you.
Students with computers at the school at Mae Sot
I'm hoping the delay with the balls being sent is a blessing in disguise. When Fred went back, it was still the rainy season, with some flooding. Then when I talked to him three days ago, they were in the middle of a heat wave and dehydration was an issue. Hopefully, when the balls arrive it'll be ideal playing weather.
Just so you readers understand the environment these three balls will arrive at, I'm posting below excerpts and photos from Eyes to Burma's Facebook page. They present a truly touching sense of the plight millions face, as well as the resilience of the human spirit.
The mission of Eyes to Burma is "assisting the vibrant community of Burmese migrant workers and economic refugees who live and work at and around a rubbish dump in Mae Sot, Thailand." As stated on their Facebook page,
ETB's founding belief is that water, food, health, shelter, safety, and education are human rights.
Our volunteers, teachers and translators work hard to help this community acquire these basics when they do not have access to them or when their incomes fall short. ETB projects provide a safety net so individuals and families can work to improve their own lives and also to help each other. The philosophy behind what we do is to give a hand up, not hand-outs; to offer access and tools that people need to do things for themselves.
Foreign, domestic supporters
Aussie Friends of Eyes to Burma and supporters in Canada and the US are working on fundraising campaigns and grant applications to raise money for student sponsorship in 2016 so ETB can help more students from the community attend Children's Development Centre - CDC. Currently ETB assists 20 students and some of their families in order for the students to attend the nearby migrant learning center while still living at home. Helping keep families together is a vital part of ETB.
Gloves, masks, glowing toothbrushes, a toilet!
Today we walked around the rubbish dump giving every family Gloves, Face Masks and Toothbrushes. The children received toothbrushes that light up when they clean their teeth. Everyone was very happy with the gloves and at first they didn't wear the masks but after a while we found more & more people wearing them. Tomorrow night we have the Buddhist Monks coming to the new land so everyone can pay their respect to the Monks and make offering to the Monks.
Some big news, we will soon be building a toilet on the new land. This will be the first of it's kind and is sponsored by the people from Australia. The new land we now have has been named Buddha Land.
Grannie's House
Fred took two community members to select wood for a house being built on ETB's new land for a grandmother and her three grandchildren in need. ETB provides the funds for the materials and the labor.
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Grannie's "house" |
We are adding new buildings to Buddha Land, the property we rent next to but off the garbage dump. There are already 12 families living there in a safe, family-friendly environment. ETB asks everyone who lives there to look after the land and each other as well as make decisions about its growth.
Children's Development Centre
In the morning, we helped re-enroll 11 students into Children’s Development Centre (CDC), a migrant learning center run by Mae Tao Clinic that is close to the dump and provides primary and secondary level education to Burmese migrant children.
Getting clean water
At the start of the evening, Fred did Day four of delivering water to a part of the community that has been cut off from access to clean water. This situation could have been a major crisis, but Fred had a plan in action immediately.
At the end of April, garbage trucks dumped trash in front of one of ETB's water tanks over multiple days, so Fred devised a direct delivery system with people filling their water jugs from the tank on his truck. A week later, the garbage continued getting dumped onto the road in front of the houses and then spread onto the road leading to the whole neighborhood, making it impassible by truck and extremely difficult for community members to carry their water jugs over it.
Fred Stockwell delivers clean drinking water
The large machine which scoops the garbage onto the landfill was broken and couldn't move the trash.
What do you think, Wilson? Is Mae Sot a proper destination for the One World Futbol? There likely will be more to share about Mae Sot when your kin arrive. In my next letter, I'll tell you about cooking for refugees in Rome.
Love,
Robert
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Home sweet home: The Mae Sot refuse dump. |
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