1951 Randolph Grad Serves

Communities in Thailand, Nepal

By Elaine Pitkin

Susan had been sitting quietly with Ami and other village women who were weaving those most colorful waist bands and shoulder bags that the Thai women do so well. No words were spoken because we didn’t speak Thai and the women don’t speak English. But there were smiles all around and we felt a silent connection between us.

Susan said, "I call it waging peace and it is simply a small moment of acceptance and respect that occurs when you take the time to let people know you respect and honor them,"

This is what Global Citizens’ Network (GCN) is all about. They learned some time ago (fifteen years ago to be exact) that which the US Government has never learned—that throwing money at a problem does not solve it. The philosophy of GCN is that travel is an essential ingredient to a global citizenry concerned with the desire to live conscientious and sustainable lives. They seek to build a network of individuals dedicated to the shared values of peace, justice and cross-cultural understanding. One of the reasons I chose a GCN project is because they have no upper age limit and I am 74 years old.

Susan and I were part of the team that went to the little village of Heygo to build a toilet for a primary school. Why is this important? To people living in Heygo, a tiny village precipitously perched on a steep slope in the Hill Tribe Country of Northern Thailand, it is a major problem for three reasons. First this town of 39 families is one of the poorest of the poor in a region where subsistence living is the norm. Secondly, having a teacher is a luxury because few teachers are willing to travel by motorbike (the major mode of transportation in this part of the world) over rutted, muddy roads that are brutal to maneuver. Thirdly, the absence of toilets promoted lax habits, particularly with children in that they tended to relieve themselves whenever the urge took them, creating a contamination hazard for the town water supply.

There were seven of us in this GCN team and we worked alongside the Thais who designed the toilet and did the skilled construction work. We helped with the digging into the hillside with pick axes and shovels, carrying of cement, rocks and water in bucket brigades and cementing the building blocks in place. We then painted and drew a mural on the front with drawings the kids had done in classes with us.

During the two weeks that we were in Heygo, we had many opportunities to immerse ourselves into the daily life of the Thailand Hill Tribes. We learned that one of the ongoing problems which plague the families is the lack of opportunity for education and alternative occupations to working in the tea, corn and rice fields. Lack of primary education results in non-preparedness for going on to the secondary boarding schools. A very serious result of this lack of opportunity is the number of young girls being seduced into human trafficking and slavery.

Our experience sensitized us to the fact that the families in this remote village had the same aspirations as parents everywhere. They wanted a better life for the children and hopefully, our presence there and the impressions that we made will change life for some of these children as well as change the image of Americans which is so damaged in the world today.

After Heygo, we went to Jampaling, Nepal to a Tibetan refugee camp. The task was to reconstruct a kitchen that is used for Buddhist religious ceremonies. This camp holds the survivors of the first refugees from Tibet who left with His Holiness Dalai Lama in 1959. It houses an old folk’s home which takes care of the Mustang fighters who were trained by the CIA to fight the Chinese. They were monks who gave up their vows to fight for Tibet and finally laid down their arms at the behest of the Dalai Lama in the 1970s. The home houses those who have no families to take care of them as they are now in their 70s and 80s. The rest of the camp is the home of their descendants and descendant families.

The camp also has a monastery and many priceless and irreplaceable artifacts and shrine icons that were carried out of Tibet at that time. The camp is a center for Buddhist religious activity for Nepal. We felt that this project was important for it would help save the remnants of a very valuable society which has been destroyed by the Chinese.

During our time there we had the opportunity to interview, through an interpreter one of the Mustang survivors, a resident of the old folks home who is now in his eighties, and who came out of Tibet in 1959 when the Dalai Lama was forced out. His picture is on the following page.

Tibetans who grew up in the "Old Tibet" are a quickly disappearing people and we felt it was a privilege to be of assistance to them as well as to their descendants who are in the process of being assimilated into the Nepalese society.

My own personal mission is based on the belief that each and every one of us can help to change the world in a positive direction towards peace and to try to communicate good works to the rest of the world. I have many reservations about the current state of the world and wished to do that which I believed in for me. Not everyone can go to the other side of the world. However, there are many NGO projects that one can become involved in that add a meaningful and perhaps even spiritual dimension to one’s life.

Dr. Elaine Pitkin, 74, graduated from Randolph High School in 1951 and from Massachusetts College of Art 1962 and has masters degrees from Fitchburh State College and Boston University School of Education, and a Doctor of Science from Sargent College of Allied Health Sciences.

This was not her first adventure. In 1980 she rode a bicycle through Eastern Europe for two months, returning for more European bicycle trips in 1984. She has bicycled bicycle through Mongolia an China as well, and has hiked the Himalayas in Kashmir and India.