From pillar to post (part 2)

Dew washed Granny Eed's feet at the temple

"If you come into our lives you have to change your ways - we don't like slum habits over here," I told Dew. He made an effort to fit in and was considerate when the mood suited. At other moments he could cry and make life awkward when he refused to get his way.

Dew would stay at Grandma Eed's place, or down the lane with the family of his former carer, the one who was now in jail.

I gave Granny Eed and her sister a couple of hundred baht a week to help with Dew's school expenses, and bought items such as clothes and shoes if he was in need.

One of our first tasks was to go and see Dew's form teacher at school, as exams were approaching and the school had threatened to make him repeat the year, he had been absent from class so often. 

His mother's nocturnal habits (druggies turn up at all hours of the night for their fix) and irregular finances played havoc with his schooling. Rather than let him go to school every day as the law demanded, she would often have him call in sick. She would put Dew to work as an errand boy, delivering drugs to customers in the soi. 

His grades slipped horribly as a result. Eed and I, on our visit to his school nearby, persuaded his teacher to give him another chance. Eed and her sister injected some discipline in his life, ensured he went to school daily, and helped with his studies.

As a result of their help, he passed the exams which enabled him to graduate to his next year at school.

However, my relationship with the old women suffered after they decided to have Dew join a school holiday programme in which youngsters serve the local temple as novices. Temples all over the country host the kids every May in a scheme which usually lasts a couple of weeks. 

Eed and I took him to the local temple, Wat Dan, to be ordained along with 70-80 other children, including some of his friends from the soi. About 40 invited guests, including teachers from the school, moved from child to child as they sat in a row in the temple yard, cutting a lock of hair from the head of each, in one of the first charming rituals to open the event.

In another ceremony the kids wash the feet of their parents and custodians. Granny Eed wept (see picture above), as she recalled her own son, many years before, performing the ritual for her when he too entered the temple as a novice.

The first couple of days were full of moving occasions, in fact, including another where the kids have the rest of their hair shaved off by the monks, and yet another where their carers sit in front of them and spoon-feed them as if they were still little. They also get a back rub at night before bed.

After learning about life in the temple, most kids go back home to enjoy the rest of their holidays. However, Eed and a handful of parents who decided they didn't want their children back during the rest of the break decided to leave the kids in the care of the monks, even after the programme had ended. The temple performs the service without charge, though help from donors is appreciated. 

Dew and half a dozen other kids ended up spending six weeks at the temple, missing out on the Songkran water throwing festival and the chance to join their friends. I took the bus out to see him several times. By the end of the period the novelty of temple life had started to wane and the kids just wanted to go home.

now, see part 3