Educated Thais

This site is about the ongoing education and development of two of Bangkok's poorer children. It has been a rewarding experience for me and thanks are due to the Thai people for their help and kindness.

It must have been early July. My first visit to Bangkok. I was staying in the Khaosan Road which was an experience in itself watching the comings and goings of the locals and holiday makers, back packers most of them.

I needed a pair of trousers taken up slightly so I had gone away from the tourist area in order to get it done at something more like the local rate.

On the way back to the hotel it started to rain. When it rains in Bangkok it rains hard.
 

I decided to pass the time in an internet cafe until the rain stopped. It was while I was there I was approached by a lady in her mid thirties who asked me to check the English in an email she was sending to a friend in Canada and of course, I was happy to help. After all one is never quite sure where these things will lead to.

I finished emailing but it was still raining. The lady was talking to a friend, a gay man although I didn't know that at the time. I asked her if I could get a drink somewhere and she told me where. I invited her to join me and after discussion with her friend she decided she would. Apparently her friend had encouraged her for which I thank him.
 

We walked about 25 meters in the pouring rain and sat down to a drink. Within minutes an angry fat lady turned up, soaking wet, on the back of a motor bike to remonstrate with my new friend. It was a sister not too happy about the liaison with a foreigner. I sort of ignored the situation and it sort of went away.
 

My new friend said that she sold food and that I would be welcome to eat at her stall.
 

I like to experience a bit of the culture anywhere I go and so two days later I went to sample my friend's food. I was made welcome. A couple of days later I returned again.
 

Now, Bangkok has a fair reputation for it's sex industry, and I tend to be a bit reserved. However, there is an area called Patpong which is rich in gogo bars and the like and I wanted to see it. I didn't fancy the hassle of going alone so I asked my friend if she would accompany me. She wasn't too keen but I explained why I wanted her to go and she agreed.
 

I could tell she was uncomfortable there and after about an hour and a half I had seen all I wanted to see. My friend suggested we go back to the Khaosan Road where her friends worked in a bar. We did this and I spent the rest of the evening speaking with them.
 

They asked me about my holiday. I explained I was in the region for a few months and planned to travel to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. They asked if my new friend was going with me. I said she could if she wanted to. She decided however that she didn't. At this point she was set upon verbally by her friends. The result was that she was more or less forced to meet me when I returned to Thailand which would be in Chiang Mai, in the north of the country.
 

I gave her the bus fare and three or four weeks later, on my return to Thailand, I emailed her. Sure enough she came to meet me. During the course of the next week or two we traveled through Thailand back to Bangkok.
 

As it happens, Thailand is a pretty good hub for traveling round South East Asia and I used it extensively over the next year, meeting my friend each time I went there.
 

Her name is Da incidentally. And just to confuse, her fat sister is called Dee.
 

Time passed and a few months later I was eating at her stall when Da mentioned she had a daughter. I asked why I had never seen her and was told she lived outside Bangkok. I assumed with her father, but this was not the case. Apparently she was living with relations but the level of care she was receiving was fairly basic. I know this to be true because she has told me since that her diet included frogs and lizards which she would catch.
 

I asked the mother why she didn't look after her daughter. She said she couldn't afford to. I asked how much it cost. The result was I got the mother to agree to look after the daughter if I gave her one pound a day. I also agreed to pay school fees which at the time were just under one hundred and thirty pounds a year.
 

I never met the daughter before I left and it would be almost a year before I would return again. For the sake of the daughter I had to trust the mother. Happily Da was good to her word. Even then it was a struggle for her. Nobody had mentioned school uniform, the cost of school meals or the cost of transport to school. Those were things I hadn't even considered.
 

I'm not sure exactly what happened that first year. I know that one of the better off neighbours donated a second hand school uniform which had been used by his daughter some years previously and I know when money is particularly tight a visit to the local temple results in a basic free meal from the monks there.
 

I first met the daughter, her name is Tananya, in about April of 2004. She was seven years old, very thin and very shy. She wanted to meet me and knew she was back with her mother because of me.
 

As it was school holiday, we decided to go to the seaside and the place we chose was Hua Hin. It was brilliant. I have never had children and totally enjoyed the experience. We made sand castles and played in the sea, went to see the elephants, ate ice cream and rode the horses on the beach. She enjoyed the holiday but when we returned to Bangkok she was eager to go and play with her friends.
 

The next school holiday was in October and I made the effort to be in Thailand to enjoy it with her. We decided to go to Phuket. This time though we wanted to take one of her friends with us so she would enjoy herself even more.
 

Tananya's best friend is called Ketmanee. In fact they are cousins. Ketmanee is the daughter of Dee, the very same fat sister who came to the cafe on the back of a motorcycle in the pouring rain. She had now warmed to me a little and was generous enough and trusting enough to allow Ketmanee to come on holiday with us.
 

So we flew down to Phuket. It's unlikely the girls had ever been near an airport before never mind actually going on an airplane. The excitement level was immense. Mum, mum my heart is really banging my chest. As for Ketmanee, well she must have been a be a serious contender for world pogo champion that year. She boinged everywhere. I think her life had been somewhat restricted and when she came with us it was as if she had been released.
 

The hotel we stayed at was in the last stages of being constructed when I was previously in Phuket and I had helped with some publicity shots in return for a glass of Coke, so there I was in the brochure and promotional literature. The girls thought I was famous.
 

Taking them to a hotel threw up challenges I hadn't prepared for. Because the girls are poor they live in a room of a wooden house with no glass in the windows and outside sanitation. Mosquitoes and rats are abundant. So at the hotel they had to learn, among other things, how to use a sit down toilet, not to swing on the shower hose and that water from the hot tap hurts.
 

After booking into the hotel we went to the beach. As we didn't tell the girls where we were going, they assumed we were just going for a walk. It was strange, as we neared the shoreline I could see the sea but because they were shorter, they couldn't. Once we crossed the road which runs next to the beach though, they could. They were slightly in front of us and I could see them have a quick and excited conversation. They then ran fully clothed into the sea but when they got knee deep they suddenly stopped. Another quick conversation ensued. They decided the right thing to do was to take off their shoes and throw them back onto the beach. Then it was alright to go into the water where they stayed, fully clothed, for three hours.
 

It was just after the school holidays that I realized that Tananya was reasonably clever and doing well at school. I hadn't really thought much about it before. So long as she was getting some kind of education then that was fine. It would give her a chance in life.
 

I was invited to what I suppose must be the equivalent of school speech day. At the end of the ceremony Tananya was one of fifteen pupils who were called to the front to receive a certificate.
 

A while later, when the speech day celebration had passed, I asked why she had received the certificate. I was told it was because she was one of the best fifteen pupils in the school. Not bad that. She had missed a lot of schooling between the ages of five and seven and even then the education she had received would have been rudimentary, and now she was one of the best in the school.
 

I got to thinking that if she was that good then maybe she should be given an even better chance in life. Maybe there was a better school she could go to. I wasn't sure of the implications or how the system worked in Thailand but I was about to find out.
 

Tananya's mother had no idea. She is poor. Going to a school where you have to pay was a big step up, but going to a really good school was completely unknown territory. She knew though that the thing to do was to speak with Viengfaa. Viengfaa owns the local coffee shop come hairdressers and her daughter went to university.
 

Apparently many of the good schools are run by Catholic nuns. You have to bear in mind here that Thailand is predominantly Buddhist. There are international schools but Viengfaa thought the difference in social class between Tananya and the children there would be too great. The two schools she recommended were Santa Cruz Convent and St Francis Xavier Convent. I visited both with Da and we applied for a place at both. It's difficult to get accepted as there aren't many vacancies but I didn't know that at the time. I particularly liked the atmosphere at St Francis Xavier Convent, and I still do. Santa Cruz Convent seemed a bit more aloof.
 

I left Thailand shortly afterwards to visit India. At the turn of the year I took a flight over to Sri Lanka and it was there I received an email form Da to say that she and Tananya had been invited to an interview at St Francis Xavier Convent. What should she do? In response, I told her to go for the interview. It seemed obvious.
 

I thought it would be a formality but didn't fully appreciate all the implications. In the event I managed to get a flight from Sri Lanka to Thailand to be at the interview. I wasn't at my best, having traveled overnight, but the school head, Sister Marie Noel Phewklieng, has one of the best personalities of anybody I have ever met. We discussed what I was trying to do and she agreed that Tananya could attend the school. We never did hear from Santa Cruz Convent.
 

Despite her low social standing, Tananya has always received equal and fair treatment from everybody at the school which is run on the basis that it is a big family. She is truly happy there.
 

I returned to my holiday in India and wasn't to see Tananya again until shortly before she started attending the new school. One of the terms of acceptance is that you have to attend summer school as a sort of initiation into how the school is run and also I suppose to determine the class in which the pupil is to be placed. We rushed round and bought some new clothes, which Tananya was particularly pleased about, and I went to school with her on the first day, which she was uncomfortable about. She didn't want to be seen with a foreigner. Thanks Tananya.
 

We went on holiday between summer school finishing and the new term beginning. This time it was to Bali, with a stop in Singapore on the way and a stop in Kuala Lumpur on the way back. Again Ketmanee came with us. She had started to become a permanent fixture. Again we had a really good time.
 

I wanted the girls to understand why they learned English. How they could travel if they did. How people in different countries used it to communicate. It took about three days for Tananya to cotton on. She's naturally very shy but every day we were in Bali I sent her to the hotel reception to pay the bill and to speak to the staff in English. At first she was reluctant but by the end of the holiday she was arguing with Ketmanee as to who's turn it was to pay. The staff at the hotel played their role well. I told them why I wanted to pay daily and they were fully compliant.
 

The school Tananya had come from would teach English for about an hour each week but at St Francis Xavier Convent lessons are much more frequent and there is a certain pride that some of the younger pupils have a reasonable level of fluency. At first Tananya was languishing. However, she had a great advantage. Me. And slowly she has become one of the better pupils at English.
 

After Tananya had been at her new school for a few months I asked Ketmanee's mother if she would like me to finance her daughter's education so she could also attend St Fran Convent as it is affectionately known. The answer was an emphatic no. I was confused. I was certain she would say yes. After all, doesn't everybody want the best education for their child? There was no question in her mind though. I was not going to sponsor Ketmanee.
 

I subsequently found out the reason was to do with pride and loss of face. Apparently discussions with her contemporaries had centered around the fact that I was a foreigner and that I would up sticks and leave. It would serve Da right that Tananya could no longer go to St Fran Convent. I knew they were wrong. I had even had my will changed so that should I die prematurely a trust fund would be set up to ensure the education of Tananya and any other child I sponsored would continue until they finished university.
 

But there was no convincing Dee. Yet.

In about October I mentioned in passing to Da that if Dee didn't want me to sponsor Ketmanee then I would look for somebody else to help. I had been looking to sponsor some children for about ten years. When I wrote to aid agencies they just wanted me to send money but I wanted more involvement. I had also traveled extensively through Africa but the culture and the political structure there means, in my view, that in all probability, any help given would only be effective in the short term.
 

Unbeknown to me, Da had gone to visit some teachers who live near her and explained to them that unless Dee relented, an opportunity for Ketmanee to improve her life would be lost. In true Thai fashion the teachers summoned Dee to their house for a discussion.
 

I was in my hotel watching sport on the television when Da arrived and asked me to go to speak with the teachers. When I arrived at their house Dee was also in attendance. The teachers asked me about my intentions. I spoke to them really slowly so they would understand perfectly. They then spoke with Dee. The upshot was we could apply for Ketmanee to go to St Fran Convent. Dee would have nothing to do with it and Da would have to do all the work. No problem. I was happy.
 

So we applied in the same way as we had for Tananya. I wrote a very nice letter to Sister Marie Noel Phewklieng and left for a cruise to the Antarctic from where I would travel through South America to the Caribbean to watch the cricket world cup, confident that Ketmanee would be a pupil at St Fran Convent the next year.
 

No such luck. She was not accepted.
 

I returned to Bangkok the next April and went to the school to find out what had happened. I was told that there was no vacancy and that I should try again the next year.
 

In August I had some luck. Dee, Ketmanee's mother, was reaching the stage where she couldn't afford to look after her daughter. She asked if I would lend her some money. I'm always reluctant to lend money so I made a proposal to her. I would pay Ketmanee's school fees, for her transport to school and for all school related expenses. This was accepted and we now have a system of standing order payments in place.
 

Since then, Dee has become much more relaxed about me helping with Ketmanee's education.
 

We went on holidays as before. Disneyland, Hong Kong was a favorite. We also went up into the North of Thailand and crossed over into Laos and Myanmar. We even went to Bali again. The girls were becoming more self confident.
 

In October 2007 we applied again for Ketmanee to be accepted as a pupil at St Fran Convent.
 

In November I returned to England to decide my future. I had traveled extensively, one hundred and two countries so far, and now wanted to try my hand at making documentary films. I reckoned that because of technical advances being made on the internet the time was probably right to get involved. It seemed like it could be a fun. I had already attended a course in London in June and loved every minute. There was a documentary festival in Sheffield in November and I planned to attend, learn as much as I could and then launch my new career.
 

A day after arriving in England I became seriously ill, bed ridden, incontinent and unable to travel anywhere. Even going to the bathroom was out of the question for a couple of days. My 85 year old mother came up trumps and looked after me for a month until I was able to get my life back on track. I didn't make it to Sheffield.
 

Now, I'm not particularly religious, but I think that every so often you get an indication of the direction your life is supposed to take. That's been my experience so far, and my life, since I left school, has been interesting and enjoyable.
 

So it seems my intended destiny for the next few years at least is in Bangkok helping the girls I sponsor. I now rent an apartment and Tananaya and Ketmanee come round to do their homework.
 
They stay quite a lot. The air conditioning is an attraction. The television is an attraction. The computer with internet connection and a plethora of games is an attraction. They have a ready supply of milk based drinks and usually there is fruit available.
 

In January 2008 we went to St Fran Convent to see if Ketmanee had been accepted. Again no. I asked why not. I was told there was still no vacancy. I asked what I needed to do. Dee would not allow Ketmanee to go to any other school.
 

Enter Sister Marie Noel Phewklieng again. She sat down with us and showed us the figures. They were not encouraging. Not only were there no vacancies, every class for that school year was oversubscribed by two or three pupils and there was a waiting list of over thirty.
 

The solution she proposed was that Ketmanee should enroll in the school year where the pupils were a year younger than her as there were vacancies. The sister was confident this would work out as it was unlikely Ketmanee's level of education would be as high as the other pupils, most of whom had been at the school since they were five years old. Once again, happy.
 

We spoke with Dee. The solution was acceptable to her. So we phoned the school to tell them of our decision. The next week we went to enroll with all the other new pupils. Ketmanee, Dee, Da and me. Dee was worried and Ketmanee more than a little apprehensive.
 

Step forward once again Sister Marie Noel Phewklieng.
 

Dee and Ketmanee had to go to the table where she was sitting. Quite daunting for Dee who is totally unused to dealing with anybody in authority. I watched from the other side of the room. A couple of sentences from the sister and both mother and child were fully relaxed. Brilliant. After their return from that table there has been absolutely no problem with Dee. She is fully confident that what we are doing for her daughter is absolutely right. There is no longer any doubt.
 

Ketmanee has been going to St Francis Xavier Convent since April 2008. She's happy and things appear to be going well there. Homework is a bit of an inconvenience for her but she's adapting to it.
 

After she'd been there for a couple of months one of her classmates invited her to a birthday party. I took her. The house was on the large side, in an estate surrounded with a perimeter fence with guards at the entrance checking cars going in and out. The parents were really pleasant. It didn't seem appropriate to ask them about their profession.
 

So, you would think that everything is going really well. And it is with one exception. We want to go on holiday to England for a couple of months a year for the next few years to improve the girls' level of English and to meet my mother of course.
 

The British Government has told us we cannot go. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, it will not issue visas because Tananya, Ketmanee and Da are poor.
 

After the rejection Tananya walked around for a couple of days repeating “I can't go. I'm poor”. I didn't really know what to say to her. I felt so ashamed. My country had discriminated against her because she was unfortunate enough to have been born into relative poverty.
 

I wrote to the British embassy in Bangkok which is where the visa applications were rejected. The response was that there were no grounds for appeal and that they would not enter into correspondence. It seemed as though I was dealing not with Britain, but with a dictatorship.
  

I did in fact appeal to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in England even though it's only a holiday we're interested in. I also wrote to Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, who I knew had expressed his desire to eliminate world poverty.
 

The response from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal was that they could do nothing. They actually wrote quite a nice letter and after all, they were just doing their job.
 

Gordon Brown was too busy to answer my letter. One of his staff dealt with it. He passed the letter on to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Nothing further happened so I wrote to the Prime Minister's member of staff. He apologized and sent a letter to the UK Border Agency asking for urgent treatment. The UK Border Agency then wrote to me referring to the responses I had received from the British embassy in Bangkok. The very same responses which had prompted me to write to the Prime Minister in the first place. It had taken three months and ten days to complete the circle.
 

I wrote to Frank Field. He's involved in the current immigration issue and I agree with much of what he says. Maybe he would help as this case showed government policy as not quite being up to scratch but from a different perspective. He wasn't particularly interested though. No complaints from me. He was honest, uncomplicated and didn't patronize.
 

In the mean time I had also written letters to others I hoped would be interested and influential. Ruth Kelly, self professed Christian and member of Opus Dei, seemed a good choice. No reply. I wrote again. Again, no reply. Maybe she's having problems.
 

George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, said he couldn't help unless the people seeking visas were personally known to him. He said that really mattered. I suggested that as he was a member of the House of Lords and therefore part of the government and also as he was a senior member of the Church of England and a Christian he was in a very good position to help. He complained about the unpleasant and truculent tone of my letter.
 

Next on my list was Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury. I wrote to him three times. He replied once, saying that he was unable to assist me. I admit my last letter to him was somewhat angry. In July 2008 the man had lead Anglican bishops on a march through London against world poverty. This had been hailed by none other than Gordon Brown as one of the greatest public demonstrations of faith the city had ever seen.
 

Rowan Williams' attitude was difficult to accept. It seemed as if he had paraded for PR purposes but was unwilling to substantiate his concern with meaningful action.
 

Gordon Brown's father had been a minister of the Church of Scotland and Gordon claims to be strongly influenced by him. He had addressed their General Assembly in May 2008 where he set out his vision for a global society governed by a shared moral sense. He called for people everywhere to discover their shared values, communicate with each other and join together with people in other countries in a single moral universe to bring about change. He spoke about being the first generation in the history of mankind to give every child the right to education.
 

Encouraged, I wrote to the Moderator of the church. He's the top man. A deputy clerk replied. She said it would be inappropriate to intervene and particularly inappropriate to make representation to the Prime Minister. I wrote back to ask why, after all the church is supposed to help the poor and God created everybody equal, even the Prime Minister. There was no response to my second letter, nor my third.
 

There was nothing more I could do except wait. If, after the next general election, there was a change of government there would be different people to deal with. The only person in parliament I had contacted who had been supportive was John Gummer, a member of the main opposition party.
 

In the mean time I decided to apply to the Australian Embassy for visas. Maybe they would be more reasonable. Unfortunately loss of face came into play. Da needed to get some documents from the local government offices before an application could be submitted and she wasn't keen. Every week for six months I asked her if she had them and every week she hadn't. Until just before Christmas 2009, that is.
 

I completed the visa applications and in early January 2010 went to the Australian Embassy. It was a real pleasure to deal with them, especially after my experience with the British. They told me exactly what they needed for the application to be considered favourably and this I was able to provide. They also asked to see Ketmanee's mother.
 

Two days later I returned with Dee who completed the necessary documentation. Within three days the Thais had been granted visas.
 

We visited Australia for about three weeks in March. It was a good introduction to a different culture for Tananya and Ket who adapted well. Their English improved as did their confidence. We flew to Perth, stayed for just over a week before hiring a car and visiting the Margaret River area.
 

On our return to Bangkok I applied again for British visas. Again, unsuccessfully. The reasons given were different this time. Subsequently we successfully applied for Australian visas and intend to visit again next October.