Just keeping in touch...

I know I have been a touch sporadic lately in blogging :)

I've been having a great time though! My sunburn seems to have tuyrned a bit of a corner so I was in shorts again today

Here are some recent photos...

The moon was breaking through the clouds (*a lightning storm rolled through an hour later), and I took a pic of it and a fire dancer guy.

Water buffalo.

Butterfly

Up the road from the bunglow... I love that rock formation at the top of the hill.

All right... Serious note here. This is Miw, two nights ago. She is from a small village. A local bar had picked up seven or eight women from that village and brought them to Koh Samui to work at the bars. It was her first day and she was scared. As she should be. This is the other end of the spectrum from that little girl I saw in Cambodia. This woman has come here, hoping to meet some rich farang who will take her away, but is willing to sell her body so she can send money to her widowed mother. Her heart is good still, still the innocent.

I paid the bar fine so she could leave for the evening. She wanted to come home with me, but I just bought her a meal at the beach. She wanted one of those small hot air balloons which they send off for good luck (everything here is about good or bad luck). I gave her about half of what she would have earned if she'd gone with a man for the night and took her back to her home.

Last night she was so glad to see me walking by. I stopped and played a couple of stupid four in a row games with her, and repeated what I did the evening before. This time though I sat her down on a log on the beach and talked to her about how I saw she had a good heart, and if she stayed in Samuii there would be men who would hurt her, and soon her heart would be hard too. I asked her to go back to her village, hinted I would pay for the trip. She said she couldn't, she needed the money for her family.

I gave her once again about half what she would have earned from a customer, and told her she was free to do what she liked for the night. She could stay on the beach, or I would take her back to her house, or she could go back to the bar... either way, I was tired and wanted to go to sleep, and no, I did not wish for her to come with me.

We headed back toward the main part of town. A car came around a corner too fast, she was wearing a black dress, nearly invisible in that unlighted section of road. It looked for a moment it would hit her. I scooped her up and jumped to the side of the road. I don't think the guy caught but a glimpse of us. She chattered on and on, mixing Thai and English about the close call.

She was a little confused by my attitude, but in the end, she walked me to the motorcycle, and then turned, headed back to the bar.

I know it was pointless, delaying her introduction into this life by a couple of days... but I was reminded of the story about the little boy and the starfish.

There was a beach covered with thousands of starfish which washed up. An old man was walking down the beach and came across a little boy picking up starfish and throwing them back into the water.

"Why are you doing that?" asked the old man. "Because I want to save them," replied the little boy. The old man laughed.

"There are thousands of starfish here. No matter how hard you work, thousands will die before you can reach them. You can't possibly make a difference."

The little boy picked up a starfish and threw it into the water, "I made a difference to that one."

What Miw needs is an education, skills. I wish I could do more than hit the pause button in her life for two days and try to talk her into returning home. If you would, pause and say a prayer for Miw and women like her.

This place makes me smile. It is run by two middle aged cousins, well perhaps a little more than middle aged. They sell fruit, milkshakes (foreground), souvenirs, and gasoline. I try to buy shakes there everyday.

This is Phailin who runs that little store; she's wearing my hat. She is a crack up. She always overdresses, and tries to talk like an old time movie star...

"Hello Dahling! Let me get you a nice piece of Thai fruit, Dahling... Would you like to buy some gas-sooo-leen Dahling?"

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On a personal note... I am having the time of my life. I am seeing wonderful things, horrid things, ancient things, different customs, beauty, cruelty, good and evil.

I am also seeing myself more clearly than ever before. I haven't had a week to myself in over thirty years... and now I'm having over four. And... And... I am seeing myself feel good about who I am... what I believe and what I am willing to do, and what I am not willing to do.

For the last three decades I have been one half of a couple, not so much an individual. I see how unhealthy it had become, I had become. How codependent I was.

But now she is gone, and I find I am quite happy making my own choices, living my life without input from someone who, in the end, did not have my interests at heart.

This trip has been a blessing.