The man on a scooter

Not much happened Tuesday. I taught for an hour which basically translated to playing games. We taught them clapping games and the human knot. They loved the human knot.
We went back to the supermarket after dinner to pick up anything we might need for bible study or the trip to Chaing Mai Thursday. I was going to use the ATM until I found out that the credit card I planned to use primarily requires a PIN at ATMs.... to bad I had no idea what the PIN was. So I went home and struggled to call BoA's collect number until I finally gave up and called the real number. Probably the most expensive phone call ever but it was do or die. Once I got someone on the phone I told them I needed to do this quickly because I was abroad. She responded with "oh would you like to call back when you have more time?" and I said "no I'm abroad and this is costing me a fortune!" It still took forever, the longest 7 minute phone call ever. I think I hung up on her while she was still thanking me for calling and telling me to have a nice day.

For breakfast on our last day (Wednesday) we had fried rice and french fries! Third meal in a row with french fries. It's the only dish we have eaten absolutely every crumb of so I think they have us figured out and keep making it. And with the fried rice/french fries combo most of us were in heaven.

None of us were eager to get back to the wall, even on the last day. But upon our arrival we learned we were basically done and would be making more metal framing for the foundation of the next half of the wall. We didn't realize how good we had it with the metal work until we got back to it; we had a system completely worked out and were pros. At the end even Ava was telling us to "work slower!!" so we didn't have to go back to cementing anything upon completion.

Alright, here's where things get serious. Really serious.
At 10:30am a man drove up on his scooter with two young children, a boy of about 7 and a girl of about 5. He came over to our work area and started talking to Ava, and her face was unforgettable. Horror mixed with utter surprise. She responded confusedly and then the school's bus driver, an old man I've never heard talk, yelled in response, apparently telling the man to go upstairs to the office. However as far as we knew the office was empty because there is no school this week.

I immediately asked Ava what was wrong, what had happened, and she recounted that the man was trying to sell his kids. He had said "I have two kids, you want them? I only want a little money." We were just as shocked as Ava.

He was told to go upstairs and we all watched horrified as he sat his kids down on the stairs to the office and talked to them for a while. It seemed like a serious talk and they seemed so dejected. I can only guess that he was telling the kids "look you're going to stay here with these people" before he went to 'sell' them to the office. Then after a few minutes they went upstairs, and we sent Ava after them to make sure they found the right people. There was only an office worker there, and she instructed him to bring the kids back tomorrow with paperwork that they're indeed his. Then a little while later he came back to our area and talked to Ava some more, apparently clarifying what he needs to bring tomorrow. He asked if a copy of their documents would work, and she said an original was fine too. Then he responded "good so I don't have to pay to make copies then" and laughed. By his speech he was obviously high, drunk, or otherwise altered, but this disgusted me more than I can even say.

Two girls started to tear up and had to take a minute inside, and I was a little frustrated with myself for not getting emotional about it. But I was so shocked, I couldn't believe we had just lived that. After hearing so much about those situations we were suddenly confronted with one. On our last day no less. I'll never get to know what happened to those kids, I have to choose to believe that they ended up with DEPDC and weren't sold to someone else. Though as I recount it all tonight it thankfully makes me emotional now.

After a while we broke the depressed silence by playing some music, Bon Iver of all things. For me at least that took my mind elsewhere. At lunch we all discussed how we felt about the situation and debriefed. But then at around 2pm the man on the scooter came back. This time with both kids, clean and in nicer clothes. Ava repeated the same thing, come back tomorrow, in fear of mishandling the situation. At DEPDC there are people trained to talk to parents who want to sell their children and convince them to leave them with the school for free, thus preventing them from being sold to legitimate traffickers. And even though we wanted to, DEPDC  absolutely can't buy any kids otherwise more would come and the school would become basically a shop. The man then asked if he could watch us work and we did our best to ignore him while he sat and stared, with his kids pathetically looking on behind him. I asked Ava if it was because we're all women, but she suspected that he wanted money from us. Maybe he thought we would eventually feel sorry for him. But more than anything I was angry, how could he come back like that? How could a parent sell their kids like animals? It was horrifying.

It also made what little we were doing seem even more insignificant. So what, we built a wall. So what, we [maybe, if we're lucky] taught a few English phrases. The people here do real, valuable work and we only got to see it really the last day. They don't need us here, what they need is support. They need help supporting kids like the two today who will hopefully come live and study at DEPDC's shelter instead of being truly sold to trafficking.
If you want to donate, and I hope you do, visit the website at www.depdc.org