Ever hear of something called “Prickly Heat?” It’s pretty amazing actually. It has the same effect as Vicks vapor rub except it’s intended for raw and itchy flesh, just like my skin from a couple days back. You apply directly after showering and this cool mintiness just starts digging into your pours. In any case, no, I haven’t visited any doctor for my recent bout with the Ebola virus, Eczema or heat rash, whatever it was killing me a few days ago. It’s not gone, but it’s definitely better than it was two or three days ago.

Just fresh enough to get me back to work on Monday morning. I taught three classes, rather painlessly…I thought to myself that despite the fact that I don’t meet with any of these groups of these kids to make any substantial progress with them, I’m lucky to have them. There’s a great chunk of them that are really focused and willing to learn new things. And even the ones who’d rather be somewhere else than in a classroom are respectful to me in a way that I never was to my own teachers growing up. Every class ends with the students clasping their hands in the “wai” position as they say, “Thank you teacher” in Thai.

And then yesterday afternoon I had my first taste of what working in a real inner city school might be like…it didn’t go over so well.

Somsi is a fifteen year girl who lives on site and works in the kitchen. She doesn’t go to government school and she doesn’t take any classes at the vocational school either. Somehow, someone decided, she should just work in the kitchen because she’s just not cut out for very much else. The first time I met this girl 5 months ago, she was sitting at the lunch table eating noodles when she started convulsing and spitting out of control. Two of her peers appeared out of nowhere and like clockwork, they brought her into a resting position. She had had an epileptic seizure. Her epilepsy is probably linked with all of the reasons that she is not in school and is not receiving a range of vocational training.

Aing is a 4 year old boy who came into Lorna’s arms sobbing yesterday because Somsi made his foot bleed by stomping it with a rock. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Aing forgets or neglects to do his chores, not because he’s a bad kid, but because he’s 4 and he doesn’t understand why doing his chores is important. Somsi sometimes thinks she can make him understand by screaming at him and hitting him. She takes it a few steps too far, by most people’s standards. Lorna had Aing in her arms and Somsi started reaching up to him to scratch and pinch him. Lorna started reprimanding her saying, “ya know what? You’re being mean. Knock it off.” Somsi’s response? She slapped Lorna across the arm. Lorna flipped, of course, as I would have, and told her to go away and to never EVER touch the children or staff like that again. And she walked off.

Lorna needed to get out of the office as she’d be coming back in to work for a few hours in the evening. So she left Aing with me. I let him sit on my desk while I was typing at the computer. Not minutes later, Somsi appeared again, though she came into the office without my inviting her. Now Aing was technically breaking a rule, hanging out at my desk, but he was hiding. He started visibly shaking and got off my desk to hide behind my chair. When Somsi gets mad, it looks like Satan has taken over her soul. Her eyes become hollow and dark, her brows knit and her mouth purses up.

“No you’re not welcome in here, go away.” And she looked at me like I had said something terribly unjust. “No really, leave.” And for a good thirty seconds she just stared at me telling her over and over again to get out until I realized that that obviously wasn’t going to work. I got out of my chair and put my hand on her shoulder and said again, “Please leave” and not a second went by before she knocked my hand out of the way and threw a punch in my direction. I caught her fist before she could do anything, but then she started scratching at me like a rabid squirrel. She was fuming and grinding her teeth, but she was also really pissing me off. It was an effort to not break her fingers as I clasped them together to protect myself. I walked her towards a Thai staff member’s office and spewed profanities under my breath in English, none of which she would have understood if I had said out loud anyway. Not wanting to deal with her anymore, I just dropped her off in Chulai’s office, explaining to her what had just happened. She could deal with it better than I could.

Lorna said the slap she got from her hurt pretty badly. If she uses the same force on kids 1/3 her size as she does on adults, she’s definitely traumatizing them and I don’t think she should be here anymore. And that was it. That may have been the first time in my life anyone ever tried to punch me. And I gotta say, it made me mad. Sometimes I ask myself if I’d ever be equipped to work with inner city kids from New York. And if that’s the sort of thing that happens on a regular basis, then forget it.