After a few wrong turns on a dusty dirt road and quick rides across shallow creeks, our songthaew full of volunteers from Jungle Aid -- a private charity that provides a medical clinic and community development assistance to people living in remote areas of Thailand -- came to a stop at Pa La U Noi Village. Situated two hours away from downtown Hua Hin in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, the village is sprawled amid the hills, with bamboo houses, children running in tattered clothes, young mothers and stray animals completing the scene.
Female villager Normee, 25, brought along her children to the village centre after Jungle Aid's team arrived. Though just in her twenties, Normee is mother to seven children. Her oldest is 11, while the youngest is just a few months old.
The older children go to a local border patrol school. The rest stay home with Normee, while her husband works at a construction site. Her house -- a wooden shelter with incomplete walls and iron plates for roof -- accommodates the nine people in her family.
"It gets quite chilly at night," said Normee.
Life in the jungle may seem hard to imagine for city dwellers. The people here wash and bathe in the creek that runs through the village. They go to the toilet in the bush -- only a few "proper" lavatories are available. The 30 dwellings that housed 200 villagers of a Karen ethnic group has neither electricity nor running water. When it gets dark, people rely on candles or kerosene lamps.
Jungle Aid has been supporting this village and three others in Prachuap Khiri Khan for several years. Once a month or two, the team visits the villages to set up a half-day medical clinic to check on people's health. The volunteers, foreigners and Thai, are usually split into two groups: medical and assessment.
While the medical team operates the clinic, the assessment team goes out to visit the houses and collect information on the village's living conditions and improvements. Doctors can also conduct a house visit upon request. Both teams are usually accompanied by Thai translators. At the end of the day, everyone helps handing out the donated goods, usually clothes and baby formula, to underprivileged families.
Normee received boxes of powdered milk to feed her babies. While breastfeeding is ideal, she doesn't produce milk. The team speculates that this is due to her malnutrition.
Due to the lack of better alternatives, a few children are fed condensed milk mixed with water -- a poor source of nutrients, which then affects their growth.
Gerard Smit, 70, a retired doctor from Holland, is among the volunteers brought into the village by Jungle Aid. There are about 20 patients -- from toddlers to senior citizens -- who came into the medical clinic with general sickness associated with sanitation and diet. The lack of family planning and birth control is a rising concern, according to Smit.
"Pregnancy in young women is very worrying. There are lots of girls getting pregnant even before their first menstruation. It's really important they control, and that goes to both men and women," he said.
There are about 70 children in the village. The foundation provides condoms and contraceptive pills upon request, and is trying to offer alternative methods to control the population. Along the entire border of Thailand, many remote villages live in similar conditions. Jungle Aid supports four villages along the Thai- Myanmar border: Ba Mak, Bang Saphan, Bon Luk and Pa La U Noi -- all in Prachuap Khiri Khan. The organisation's founder Emma Neve reported that they only have figures and numbers of the villages they've been helping. It's unclear how many more face the same level of poverty and standard of living.
"Other villages have asked for help, too, but we are already stretched with what we do. We are in need of volunteers," Neve said. The foundation now liaises with the village leaders directly to coordinate help and support as necessary.
Statelessness is also an issue to many lives along the border. Recognition by authorities is important for the people to be entitled for healthcare services. Neve recalled she once encountered an 85-year-old female villager with a fractured hip. The elderly lady didn't have a Thai ID card, and the cost for operation would've risen to 50,000 baht.
"If these people are lucky, they can earn 100 baht a day. The money then has to be used to feed 10 people," said Neve. In the end, Neve was able to raise enough money from families and friends to pay for the hip operation. The villager -- who had been lying on the floor for five weeks, unable to stand -- was home after two weeks in the hospital. She was able to walk around again, with the aid of a walking frame.
Coming to Pa La U Noi has proven to be a memorable experience. The children are grinning as they received second-hand toys. The mothers -- with a baby on their hips -- were busy picking out used clothes for the entire family.
"I think we all enjoy [seeing their smiles]. It's satisfying to help these people. Many of them wouldn't have any other help," said Keith Ibbertson, Jungle Aid's director of community development.
Ibbertson has been with Jungle Aid for three years and has visited Pa La U Noi more than five times. Through the years, he perceived people's living condition as improving. Their possessions are accumulating, and there are no signs of apparent serious illnesses. The number of patients have also been decreasing. Still, hygiene remains a recurring problem. The foundation aims to organise seminars on personal and environmental hygiene to help the villagers improve their well-being.
"We hope to make the village sustainable," said Ibbertson. "Everything is looped together -- from health to education.
"Once people are healthy, they can work more, earn more and be able to afford to send their kids to school. The next generation is then healthier and wealthier than the previous one."
Visit www.jungleaid.org.
The creek is the village's water source for drinking and washing.
The children were happy with their find.
Gerard Smit checks up on his young patient.
A typical house in the village.
