Saw John has been in American for four years, his favorite activity here is the soccer team. He is from Thailand, and spent several years in a refugee camp. Nothing has diminished a ready and heartfelt smile.
He wears his hair in a pony tail and misses the freedom he had to walk to see his parents where they worked and to visit his friends. Here, they can’t walk much in their neighborhoods. He is an honor student heading for high school in September.
Next week, we are getting him some new clothes and shoes. If you wish to help Saw John, you can contribute to the Gus Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. And thanks.
When the soccer team went to Ramblewild for their forest and tree climbing adventure yesterday, I joined them at lunch. I wanted to talk with them and take some portraits, so you generous people might have a sense of who you are helping.
I often see these young people but rarely get to sit down and talk with them, In the coming weeks and months I hope to visit them at home and meet with their mothers or fathers. They need help too.
I am especially fond of these young men (and two women, who do not wish to be photographed or written about), they are gracious and warm and honest about their often very difficult lives.
Many lost everything, as their families did when they came here, and they are struggling to adjust to a very different life in America. They must now worry about being in fashion with clothes, they are experiencing the challenges of urban life, often amidst great poverty.
Back home, they played soccer in their backyards barefoot, not there are leagues and teams and uniforms and fancy and expensive teams. Back home, they had freedom to go and walk everywhere they pleased.
Here, they must be driven everywhere, and their streets are often too dangerous to walk about freely. At home, they lived a peaceful and rural life, amid animals and trees and water. Until it wasn’t peaceful any longer.
Back home, their families were intact, they were comfortable, now they mostly live with single parents working long hours at minimum wage. They have all lost someone dear to them. They have all spent years in refugee camps.
Ali is their pipeline to the outside world, the soccer team their support and community. The Army Of Good makes this possible.
Klue says he misses home, he says the soccer team is the thing in life he most enjoys.
I am happy to know him and support him. We help him with clothes, necessary tablets and digital equipment and with tutoring if he needs it. He has the most genuine and radiant smile, and treats everyone with kindness and courtesy.
He appreciates the trips and journeys he is now able to go on, he is seeing a wider world.
If you wish, you can support Klue and the soccer team and their families and the refugees living in New York State by sending a donation to the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz. P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].
