the next day we had to leave by 4am, we dropped the relief team off at Suvarnabhumi Airport @ BKK for their 9am flight home. straight after that, we took the 5hr trip up to Petchabun.
3000ft above sea level and directly at the border of Petchabun and Phitsanulok, lies Baan Kek Noi. And this is where Radion‘s shophouse resides.
within this village is where they run a few of their programs for the needy
- Street kids project – selected kids are given the chance to go to school and stay off the streets, away from drugs, glue, theft, gangs etc.
- Village outreach
- Intergrated Farm – providing jobs for the destitute
- Hmong Lao refugee camp – this is the primary aim of Radion, to provide for these people.
(picking up the boys from school)
(visiting the friday market, ice creams on me 🙂 )
(walking down to the farm)
(designated cooking area of the farm, not napping area)
(farmer wee and his piggies. amy is the one right next to him)
(resident superhero – Sabai der man)
a fair bit of our time was spent trying to fix my Powerbook, we brought it to the nearest town which was Lom Sak. I never expected that we’d actually open it up to change the HDD by ourselves!!! It wouldn’t make any sense to send to BKK for repairs because they send it to back to Singapore anyway. And we couldn’t afford to wait that long.
my primary reason for going to Petchabun was to get a group photo of the Streetkids for Radion‘s revamped website. getting them to pose was hard but getting them together was even harder!
the following night, farmer wee, ben and me went to have a meal at an eatery. they told me that it is quite expensive to eat out, i told them its alright and it’ll be on me.
- fried som tam
- stir fried wild boar
- omelette
- fish
- 4 plates of rice
total bill? 300+THB (about 12 – 14 SGD)
i realised that their “expensive” wasn’t expensive to me, which also means that they are not surviving on much. so it wouldn’t hurt to pledge a certain percentage of my earnings to the organisation. 😉