Miss Vipa’s nickname is Jai, meaning, “heart.”
Jai is a high-powered poetry-in-motion waif, skipping, hopping and jumping to her destinations. If there’s a tree nearby, she climbs it too.
Just six years old and a star pupil in her kindergarten class, Jai is that rare one-in-a-million child, a pure joy and blessing to everyone she meets. What makes her even more remarkable is how she barely escaped from the tomb. No, I don’t mean literally dead, not “hospital dead,” but maybe in some ways, even worse than that.
The same goes for her friend, Miss Nang. Together, the two of them truly are resurrection kids. Walking, talking, chattering, jump-roping, marble-shooting kids who are busy being reborn—living, breathing proof of the birth of a new dawn, and life’s magic and miracles.
Of course, Jai, like most children, wants to be a year older. In her worldview, to be seven years old is really ancient. She can’t even possibly imagine what it would be like to be eight! She’s trying to make the days go faster but she still has eleven months to go before her next birthday. Even with the long wait, she still says “Wow” at the thought of her being eight and all grown up.
Wow! Who knows what could happen? Wild stuff!
Actually, though, to tell you a secret, it’s not the growing up that she yearns for. It’s the cake, candles, parties and ice cream—with double scoops for Miss Nang!
Jai was abused. Her biological father was gone before she was born. Mom and stepdads number two, three and four hammered on amphetamines, beat her with coat hangers and threw her against a wall on many occasions. For a few months, they made a habit of it.
Her mom was sent to jail on drug charges while her stepdad continued to get high. When he couldn’t get drugs, he got pure mean (via deet, as they say in Thai) and then he would throw Jai against a few more walls. That’s how Jai learned to scream loud and long enough to rile the neighbors and sometimes even get them to make it stop.
This abuse continued until about a-year-and-half ago, when one night, in one of his meaner moods, he tried grabbing Jai’s teddy bear from her. In the ensuing tug-of-war struggle, he tore an arm off her Teddy. Jai and Teddy ran away.
She had to protect Teddy and find someone to fix his arm. Teddy was in pain. He needed help. She ran into the darkness, hoping to find her grandma’s house, but everything looked different after dark. Fortunately, one of her neighbors had a few Klong Toey dogs—hardly of pedigree stock but real prizewinners when it comes to protecting scared little girls. She slept beside them that evening until she could see her way to her grandma’s house in the morning.
But sometimes, even a grandmother’s love alone cannot repair such damaged innocence: the violent beatings took additional tolls and Jai herself became violent. Her grandma, nearing age eighty, could barely cope with Jai’s rages. One day she trashed her grandma’s shack and broke everything, even the rice cooker.
So the courts gave Jai to us and we gladly took her in. She still can go into rages when the pain and fear return, and then she gets terrible and god-awfully mean. But then a kind of miracle occurred with the arrival of Miss Nang in our home. That’s how Jai’s resurrection began, but first let me tell you something about Nang.
Nang’s spirit has soared since joining our family. When she first arrived, she was legally blind—everything was a blur. Her eardrums had holes in them, so she couldn’t hear well either. She was skinny with lice-infested hair and worms in her bottom. She had a bad heart that required an operation, and she was also mentally impaired. Plus, she was born with two thumbs on one hand.
At first she was catatonic and couldn’t—or wouldn’t—talk. People had always laughed whenever she did. Government welfare paid for the surgery. Her ears eventually healed and she wears glasses now. She also talks all the time and even sings. True, she mauls lots of words, but if you listen hard, she makes sense. She’s even put on weight—almost eight kilos—and is strong and healthy.
Jai is like a big sister to Nang, and being a little sister to Jai can’t be easy, trust me. It takes time, patience and tremendous six-year-old savvy. Jai has been teaching Nang her whole bag of tricks, all of her street-urchin wisdom, to toughen her up. The lessons started with Jai stealing Nang’s lunch money. It’s a difficult one to learn, I guess, since it has been going on for several months already.
At first, Jai stole Nang’s lunch money even before they arrived at school. Over time, though, Nang learned to do more than just cry and give up.
Now, she fights for it. Nang can’t see very well without her glasses—loses at least one pair every month—but when she enters combat with Jai, she is careful to take her glasses off. That’s one of their self-made rules. Jai cannot hit her until the glasses are safe. Of course, then Nang can’t see and with everything a blur, she usually loses. Still, sometimes she wins.
Jai is tough with Nang but protects her too. Under no uncertain terms will she allow Nang to cross the street without her first putting on her glasses and looking both ways. Then Jai takes her by the hand and they run recklessly through traffic together. Jai tells Nang when it’s time to take a nap or take a bath or most especially, when it’s time to play.
Last week, they ran away from home—skipped school for the day with three of our other kids and took bus No. 46 all the way to the Mahboonkrong shopping mall. Some kindhearted person bought our girls fried chicken, and then they did a bit of panhandling and split the proceeds, ending up with eleven baht apiece. Afterwards, they took the same bus back home, quite proud of themselves.
When the children were asked why they ran away, Jai, their ringleader, said that they didn’t want to forget how to beg on the streets, and besides, they had to teach Nang to beg too, didn’t they? It’s basic Klong Toey survival. Every kid knows that.
That was last week. Today, Nang has the sniffles and Jai whomps her every time she uses her sleeve instead of a tissue. In this way, Nang learns the meaning of friendship, loyalty and love. And while Nang is healing and coming out of her shell, Jai learns lessons about love she never received at home.
Jai and Nang are being reborn through friendship. They teach us all.
All we have to do is observe.