Today has been a day for me to relax and stroll down memory lane, which is nice because I haven't had much opportunity to thoroughly go through the archives of my mind in awhile. There was one alley off of memory lane that I was reminded of this past Thursday evening. Some people may remember this and some people may not know this, but I spent six weeks in Thailand during the summer of 2006 and four of those weeks I spent volunteering and helping at a rehab center for former prostitutes in Bangkok, called The Well. Well, this past Thursday, one of the ladies that I met at the rehab center who was also volunteering, but through a different organization, Celeste, is in the U.S. and visited the college group that I'm currently apart of and spoke about prostitution in Thailand.
After the meeting, she and some of others that went to Thailand and I spoke for awhile and set up a time to meet for dinner the next day. So, Friday we went to this really good restaurant called Cervantes and met up with another lady that I had met at
rehab center who had volunteered there the same time I did, Tara, and we all talked, ate good food, remembered, laughed and fell in love with Thailand all over again. Tara and I were talking and she asked me if I would ever go back to Thailand and I though about it for a moment and realized that there have been moments over the past couple of years where the thought of going back had come into my mind without my bidding, and I told her about this and told that I wasn't sure when I would go back if it truly was the will of G - d for me to go back.
Many different conversations were had Friday night, memories of people, memories of excursions, of gross things that had happened to us. It was fun to see old friends and relate with each other.
Now today, today I've been thinking about all of these things and have re-discovered my pictures of Thailand and have re-told the stories behind each picture to myself and remember all the joy and happiness that I experienced with new found friends and remember all of the pain and despair in the eyes of the women and some of the men that I met who were in, possibly still are, prostitution and the desire to help them is brought back.
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