Hugo (Room 10) reflects on his experiences in Thailand

13th September 2011
HOME
Home, I love home, it’s the place I’ve spent longer than anywhere else.  It has more things I love inside it than anywhere else.
 
It has my first proper bed, my first soft toy, my much loved Lego, my drawing equipment, my cardboard, skewers, scissors and sellotape, my month to decade old magazines (that dad thinks are just absolutely WRONG to keep) and my mum and dad who are literally with me 65% of the time and they are around me in any way, shape or form 90% of the time.
 
Being overseas is one of the most exciting things in my entire life but it has also been one that has felt very cruel because when I feel like I need my Lego, soft toys or even just the pure smell of my own bed, I can’t.
 
Anywhere I live longer than 4 weeks for I can smell my own smell, but I prefer my own bed.  Lots more.
I find (many people may find this) that home grows on you it makes all your senses switch off because you haven’t had something go entirely wrong in order to terrify you right to the mid most atom in your most central bone.
 
Over here in Thailand, I miss not just my house, but the entire property, every tree, the gardens, the lawn, my two storey “tree hut” with its roof top deck and its tarpaulin fake wall escape door and its climbing wall as well as the tall cabbage tree beside it that I often “shinny” up to show off.  I can’t do that here.
 
People are sure that I am having an absolute blast and that I am getting the experience of a lifetime (including the educational side of it) and that this may be the last time I ever visit an orphanage and they’re right about everything and that they want to come to an orphanage…  Mums dads kids, an orphanage is an orphanage no matter how normal these kids seem, they all have one thing in common and it’s not that their nationality is Thai, all of them have lost something, all of them have lost one or even both of their parents.
 
Getting over that takes a long time and you realise how different these kids are to you and they don’t go to a fast food restaurant to hang out every so often, they don’t get presents on their birthday.  They don’t have a single person to put them to bed each night, they don’t get to have mum or dad or granddad or grandma or aunty or uncle to tell them how much they are loved or how proud they are.  They get to see a parent maybe none to 5 times a YEAR.
 
Thinking about this made me feel spoilt, I have everything that they don’t and I want MORE.  These kids just have basically only what they need and they take and be grateful.  Our people can just be spoilt, wealthy, well fed and get what they want.  These orphans only have a small dessert sized portion of rice porridge for  breakfast to last them until about 12:00 midday every day.  Like us, they could have more.
 
This has changed my entire life.
 
By Hugo van Cingel
At Baan Tharn Namchai Orphanage, Takua Pa, Phang Nga, Thailand