Thailand

A Reflection by Amy Hupe

Turning the corner there is a young baby sitting on a mat hands folded. As I get to her I see she is alone. She looks about 2, white powder on her faces shows someone took care to make sure her hair is combed, her dress is nice and her powder will keep her clean and cool. But she is alone. I sit down for a moment, look around to see who is paying attention.

Moments later her mom is walking up . Suddenly the moms face brightens as mine does too. Prepared for an awkward encounter with a mom I’ve never met, I rush to give my friend a hug. A friend I have not seen in a long time is back.

It was great to sit and laugh with my friend. It had been over a year since we had met. Just a week before I had felt the twinge of loss, wondering where this woman was. Since our last interactions my Thai and knowledge of her home country had much improved. We talked about some of her dreams, she would like to do hair. We talked about the groups I have met that help people in her country.

But the reality that my friend is also a mother who left her 2-year-old alone late at night on the side of a busy street to go get some food is hard. My friend has 8 other children, one is 9 months old, soon to arrive with her grandmother to take on the same occupation as mother and older sister. Her husband has left, he is a drug addict. There is money to be made begging that could not possibly be made any other way. The other children are in school, something this mom says proudly.

The lines are not so clear here, victim and perpetrator can be hard to sort out. On these streets women prostitute themselves; many outside-observers react to the morality of this act. However there is a Ugandan woman here, her parents were murdered in front of her during civil war; prostitution seems to pale in comparison. The only one that dies in prostitution is you. She is surviving, providing for her children. The little malnourished bodies with orange hair running around the streets of my friends country tell me her plump nourished daughter is doing pretty good. However begging all night brings danger, invisible losses, deep felt abuses. Like I said, the lines are not so clear here.

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