Mouth

I ended my day in Klong Toey shooting 35mm film again, there is such a fluidity to the format that I enjoy shooting it. The picture quality is not on the same level as larger film cameras but the feel and the speed you can shoot at makes up for some of the picture quality negatives.

As 5pm approached and I was about to leave I ended up on a part of the train tracks that I shot the day before. Young children came up and got all excited by me being there again, hamming it up for the camera etc. They even remembered my name, I always tell them that my name is the same name as Jerry in the Tom and Jerry cartoons (I would be the mouse). That always brings a smile to a young Thai persons face and then they usually laugh and repeat the name 2 or 3 times.

The children came up to me again and called out Gerry! I took a few pictures then we had a short English lesson. One of the young boys asked me how to say nose in English(my nose seems to fascinate them because it is bigger and longer than a Thai persons). I started a short English lesson, nose, ear, hair, face, mouth, eye, leg and arm. We went over it a few times, I said the word first and then they (about 8 young boys and girls)repeated it. One young girl was very happy to learn the word mouth, even when I did not ask her to say it she repeated it over and over. "Mouth, Mouth, Mouth" she said it with a big smile and shining eyes and was very happy when I said "dee mak, geng!" (very good, your smart!).

It is very obvious these young minds are searching for knowledge, they want to learn everything including English. The slum schools Father Joe has opened with the help of people like John P and others (around 300 people work at Mercy, paid and volunteers), give these young minds a chance to grow.

I want to process and then send the photographs I made over the last few days back to Mercy, maybe they can give them to the children or use them to raise awareness and to promote donations to the Human Development Foundation/Mercy Centre.