Feeling Thankful

I wake up near midnight to a low blood sugar and a dark room. Outside there is the sound of rain dripping off the thatch and wind in the banana leaves. I can hear the creaking of bamboo as students turn in their sleep in the rooms around me, and a cool breeze comes through the gaps in the wall. I am warm and dry in my blankets, tucked warmly into my mosquito net, on my small mat on the floor. The rats are quiet tonight, perhaps they are snuggling together for warmth somewhere too, hiding from the rain. There is a little moonlight coming through the skylight in the roof. For awhile, I stay like that, taking it all in. Then, I reach beside me to light a candle. The circle of light only reinforces the coziness of the scene. I crunch on some sugar then dive into the bag of fresh rambutans. I peel away the red hairy shell and slip the sweet white flesh into my mouth. Somewhere out in the night, I hear the camp guards beating out signals to check in on the hour. Twelve taps – it must be midnight.

There are days when I am so exhausted I just want to sleep away a week. Days when I am frustrated and worried, nervous, trying to pull of a thousand feats that seem impossible. Days when nothing is going right, days when I just don’t care anymore. But then there are the moments that I am drowned in wonder. Days when I can’t stop smiling. Days that take my breath away. Days when I am sure I am going to wake up from this dream because I can’t believe that this is actually me doing this. I am twenty-three years old and I just opened the school year for a small but amazing school in a refugee camp on the border between Thailand and Burma. I somehow transported a handful of illegal students from all over the border past check points, security guards, deportation trucks and police just in time for the opening ceremonies on Tuesday morning. There they were: twenty students ready to change their lives. Twenty students looking at me and the staff and I wondered as I smiled at them and made my speech in front of the community, “Can I do it? Is this me?”

It’s rainy season in Thailand now and up in Umphium it is cold. The skies are almost always gray. The mist comes down off the mountains and into our rooms. Things never seem to dry, including my hair, my blankets, my clothes. But it’s breathtaking. The hills are an impossible bright shade of green, the sky a purpling dark gray, the wind brisk. Impossible not to feel alive and adventurous.

My actual adventures are not so noteworthy. In fact, I almost always work, which is why I haven’t been writing hardly at all. My apologies for the lack of emails and contact. I’m afraid that will continue for awhile as I teach full time during the week and try to hire a male teacher to replace the one I just lost, fund the school, understand a million tiny things that need to be done from budgeting to buying rice on the weekend. Thank you to all of you who write me such warm emails, send me your love and give me the support I need to get through all the hard times and keep me here. I am living out all my dreams, I am waking up in the morning smiling and I feel like the most fortunate woman in the world, so thank you.