Take Care Kids

....hello my friends....I'm a little late with the news this time...maybe because I used to process them faster and it takes a little more time now. Many things have happened in this first month here in Thailand, close to our children, the ones we help and will be helping in the near future. First of all, I must thank those who allowed me to take 120kg of clothes toys and other things on the plane. Armando and Anna from Thai Airways,

and Silvia who managed to find land transportation for all the boxes from the Pizzeria Le Palafitte. And then I must thank all the people who gave me all kinds of things for the children. As soon as I got here, the monsoons had already done huge damage, and at the moment I am writing, there are thousands of acres of rice fields flooded by the heavy rains. A total disaster, which had not occurred in the last 20 years. Luckily the area where I live, suffers heavy rains and floods, but then it manages to drain the water and we can all be relieved. TCK will soon have its own building. I use simple words for this and my heart still jumps. 16 years after taking the first 1kg bag of rice to a family who used to live on the street we will finally open our shelter for single mothers and their children, this will happen in approximately one month. We had to work extremely hard for this, some of us had to suffer a lot of heat and others a lot of cold in order to reach the goal, and some of us had to spit blood for this, but we succeeded.....in the end we reached the goal we had in mind years ago. I am filled with happiness....those of you who know me well, I am sure, will party with me right now. The opening of the shelter is not going to represent the end, but just the beginning of a new challenge: it is the victory of true and healthy international cooperation, and of constant hearty work. I want to quote a song in order to express my feelings right now and in order to thank all those who fought hard for this project: "the greatest show after the Big Bang was watching you!" I'll keep you posted on the developments of the shelter.

Now I have to move on to another subject, a boy who was born about three days ago. His name is Tanakon and the mother's name is Maria (a very rare name for a Thai woman). She lives in a room that is more like a shoebox on the outskirts of Pattaya. She makes fruit juices for a living and tries to support a whole family with this job: her mother, her aunt and an HIV positive friends (this friend is also affected by TBC right now), plus two children. When she was 5 and a half months pregnant, Maria started feeling sick, and she actually gave birth on the floor of the room to an 800gr child. She ran to the hospital immediately after delivery and the child was put in an incubator. They call me, so I run to the hospital and I find myself in front of what you can clearly see in the pictures. The doctor looks at me and tells me that the child does not have a great chance of living. Maria walks up to me, smiles from the heart, and I take her hand as she says: "thank you for coming!". My answer was: "I am not here alone, I represent all those people who help me daily in giving children like yours some hope in life."

TCK