Chiang Rai Pictures

On Friday, I visited Chiang Rai with Bill and Malee. Here are some pictures from the trip. The following are of Mercy House- a home for girls and one boy from the hill tribes that live up in the mountains where they can live and eat for which they must work in the coffee fields. They come down and live here so that they can attend school. We were there so that we could meet with the girls who wanted to attend high school. Bill finds the funds to allow them to go to high school, which, though tuition is free, has a lot of fees associated with it for books, uniforms, etc. At first, Bill was going to have to tell certain girls they would not be able to go since he had not yet raised the funds, but he said he was taking a leap of faith and enrolling them all- 8 in total. About $600 for the year a child.

This is the house that the girls live in. It has Thai toilets (squat toilets) and no shower, only a barrel full of water to bathe with. They have two rooms full of bunk beds and a kitchen area across the dirt road.
I thought the flowers above and bike below looked so bright in front of their drab lodging.

I did not feel comfortable going inside and taking pictures so I took one from where our car was parked. I cannot speak Thai and the girls cannot speak English so I would not even be able to explain why I was taking pictures. I felt like it'd be imposing for me to go inside like a tourist taking pictures of their impoverished lives.
This is the road leading to the house. The house would be about right where I am writing. There were some sort of cattle across the street, though they did not look like cows in the U.S. I am not quite sure what they are called.

A picture of behind the home where the girls hung their laundry to dry. Really pretty fields. The home from a distance. That is Bill's car parked in front. The girls and one boy for the most part take care of themselves. There is one woman that supposedly looks after them, but she is never really there.