Sarnelli House

After hitchhiking to Chiang Mai, I spent one miserable night in a hostel with my first bout of food related illness. Not knowing whether I would be able to take the next day's 12 hour bus to Udon Thani, I luckily gradually improved after eliminating the contents of yesterday's sustenance sometime in the night. The bus ride was an interesting experience, for I was the only Westerner on the bus or seemingly in any of the towns we passed through. The further we traveled from the tourist populated Chiang Mai, the more stares I received from the locals.

Finally after drifting in and out of fleeting sleep, I arrived in Udon Thani at 2:30 am. I was dropped off at a bench of the side of the road, where I sat next to a Buddhist monk in incommunicable silence for 30 minutes until my next bus took me to Nongkhai, a city on the Mekong river bordering Laos. Stepping off the bus in Nongkhai at 4:00 am, I was bombarded by tuk tuk drivers asking (in Thai of course) if I needed a ride. I tried to show them the address of Sarnelli House, but after ten minutes of comical and frustrating miscommunication, I eventually gave up and found a spot on the bench at the station and lay down for a two hour nap before calling Sarnelli House for a ride. Awaking in the dawn light from my homeless-esque nap with a sore neck, I called Father Mike from Sarnelli House. An hour later I found myself traveling along the red dirt road to the place I would spend the week.

Now would probably be a good time to explain what Sarnelli House is and why I visited. Sarnelli House is an orphanage for sick, abandoned, and abused children from the local NE Thailand area. About half of the children have HIV/AIDS, while a number of others have been raped or have other illnesses. The orphanage, which consists of six homes across a few kilometer radius, was started 15 years ago by the Redemptorist Priests of Thailand and was spearheaded by Father Mike Shea, a missionary priest originally from Wisconsin. St. Michael Church in Wheaton has donated money to Sarnelli House, with my Dad being a contact for the orphanage here in Wheaton. I visited, as I was curious and I had a connection from back home.

The orphanage is extremely well run, having about 60 staff members, consisting of farmers who tend to the pigs, cattle, chickens, sugar cane, rice, and tobacco fields, multiple cooks, caretakers for the children, office workers, drivers, and many other people who help make this orphanage run streamlined.

During the week almost all of the children went off to school, so my mornings consisted of lifting weights in the weight room under the room in which I stayed, reading, writing, and eating enormous amounts of food that the wonderfully kind cook, Pidah prepared for me. Everyday around 4:00 pm, I would bike over to the House of Hope, where the younger children stayed, where I would spend the next hour or two swinging the children up and around. Leaving exhausted and sweaty, I biked back to a different tasty meal every night.

My stay at Sarnelli House was very rewarding. Seeing how generous everyone at the orphanage was, I left inspired to help others in need.

Here are some clips from my week in Nongkhai: