Travel Journal 2009/10

1. part

Hello friends,before I start telling you about these first few weeks in Thailand, I would like to start this travel journal with a short story. A few days before I left I visited the province of Brescia because a nine year old supporter of ours wanted to give me his offering. As soon as he learned about what we do for the kids in Thailand from his mother, Marco became very active. He sold some of his toys and donated the amount of 130 Euro. This is a very significant sum of money for us, we can do many things ...

2. part

TANKYOU BALBALA (Barbara)....The kids whispered it in my ears while we went out for a huge icecream day. They stained themselves, sang and went wild the whole time. Out of the orphanage they can leto go of all the rules, mainly because Khun Gio allows this and plays along with them at all times. Each one of them ordered their favorite cup, and you should have seen those faces! Priceless!! Seeing the picture of the ice cream is exciting, but seeing the icecream cup itself is completely different. Some of the kids were in shock, some seemed to never get ...

3. part

Christmas….we’re almost there…..so Santa has started looking for a little present, a thought for all those who live in the slums. We are working specifically for them this year. The kids living in the three slum areas where we work right now are approximately one hundred. We cannot give a specific number, because these little iron cities keep changing constantly and the inhabitants change with them. The last count we received told us that 65% of them are girls between the age of 0 to 14. we will most probably celebrate on the 22nd of December with them, while we ...

4. part

Here I am as promised, to tell you about our Christmas….the one we celebrated with the slum children. When I first thought about this Christmas, I wanted to bring together the inhabitants of the three major slums we work in, but since they were too many and it was impossible to bring them all in one place, we decided to break Christmas in half. It was a great party as usual…..lots of joy from and for the kids and their mothers. As soon as I got off the car, the kids looked at me suspiciously…my beard scared some of them ...

5. part

...dear friends...so many things happened after Christmas...let’s start from the positive ones, the ones which give you strength to fight each day with total determination....this year, just like last year, we managed to deliver 10 tons of rice to three different centers. A very good Thai friend of ours helped us this time…her name is Khun Oy…she really worked hard to get a great price from a local wholesaler…..the rice reached its destinations on Tuesday the 5th of January. Three tons went to Mercy Center and they will be feeding over 200 people (85 of them are children) in the ...

6. part

I am not a father...I don’t have children...but the experience I have been living for more than ten years keeps on giving me such strong emotions, that I believe are the same as any father’s....let’s go back where we left off....I was about to tell you of our field trip with the deaf kids from the Orphanage. Our volunteer Giorgia, decided to buy them lunch before going back to Italy. There are no adequate adjectives to faithfully describe this heart filling trip..... these children are extraordinary, so sensitive, always looking for physical or visual contact in order to fully share ...

7. part

....this time I won't begin by telling you about the children, but I'm going to start by saying HURRAY!!!! WE MADE IT.....as some of you might have already read on facebook, after many years of hard work with kids in the toughest situations, and after months of serious scrutiny by some of Thailand's Government institutions (Investigative Police, Interpol etc...) we are now recognised as Take Care Kids Thailand Foundation, and can operate as a charitable organisation in this country. This is for us a very significant starting point, a boost which will allow us to reach our main goal...the construction ...

8. part

After Un’s father died (we sponsored his funeral which lasted three days) and after another round of flu, which affected 80% of the kids in the orphanage, I decided to take a three day vacation on an island I truly love…Koh Chang….I wanted to turn off all my switches and this island (the second largest in Thailand right next to the Cambodian border) which is very peaceful, was the ideal place to do so. I left everything in the hands of our wonderful volunteers and took off. I drove 250km to the port ...

9. and last part

Dear friends we have come to the end of our yearly Thai journey and we said fairwell by going to the swimmingpool with some children. The great heat has arrived (as if we needed more). This time, we took 12 kids who generally could never make it to our field trips due to their school calendars. To them, this was an unforgettable day. For Maria, Piero and I it was great fun just watching them play in the water till they reached exhaustion. I must confess, that I was totally out of gas as well by the end of the ...

Take Care Kids

ONLUS - Thailand Foundation