Here`s one of the rare pictures I find myself wearing red. Its not my colour, Thais ...
... on the other hand look really good in it! I love this picture! For the #smileyappics challenge I want to give you an insight into life on dusty red ground in northern Thailand.
This little girl wearing a fake RED manchester united shirt is an Akha, one of the over 60 ethical minorities without nationality that live in the mountains of Thailand and are scattered over Southeast Asia. I am coincidentally wearing my favorite Karen shirt, such are classically red and hand-woven. The Karen are another people group than the Akha. They still wear their traditional clothings with pride (excerpt for the children, they wear superman costumes and other cool shirts -the more cartoons, the better!).
January this year on the Thai childrens day, my family and volunteers drove to an outreach 3 hours from Chiangmai to visit the village of a work colleague to encourage her community. You see mainly old people and children there because almost all the educated adults move to cities to find work. The community is poor, doing mainly physical work with their simple lifestyle. Many are addicted to drugs because of their sorrows, not knowing what the future holds. Despite all of that, the children were so comfortable around us strangers and immediately engaged into games, face-painting and talked to us in English and Thai (not their mother tongue, but they learn it in school). I was so impressed by their language skills and touched by their openess and lightheartedness. She was especially witty for her 8 years and picked me to be her big sister for the day, enjoying the attention I gladly gave her.
She had just made me to scoop down in order to put flowers into my hair. Almost all the children loved to be carried. And loved to smile for pictures. And were extremely grateful and exited that day. We were as blessed by them as they were by us! I wonder how long she will be able to go to school and how much she gets to laugh these days. I hope she still has a playful childhood.
It looks great on you, love the flowers in your hair! Best of luck in the challenge 🥰
Thank you Karen. Jup, I was impressed at how neat she put them together. Couldn't have done it better, more like worse
Super cute..
Naaw, thanks bro 👊🏻
Beautiful
Thank you! Sweet of you to leave a comment!
Thanks for this insight. This is a very nice picture and if you read the story as well, it touches the heart. You were a great big sister to her, even if it was only for a day. I hope she still thinks about it and is happy and goes to school.
Aaaaw, thank you. Yeah, it is so easy to care if your own love tank is filled. You can just pour it out on others. It gives me so much satisfaction. I don't need her to think of me specially, as long as she has caring and loving people around her 🤗
It is great what you are doing. The question is how do get these people a positive perspective for themselves as well as everyone including their great grandchildren and further generations?