Lend a helping hand

An event in late 2010 that re-shapes my activities for 2011 was Da Da's passage through Petchaburi on 13th Nov.

This guy is a nut with a huge heart! Nut because he was inadequately prepared to undertake the 1,200Km walk to Phuket. He embarked on the "Walk for Education" mission without sufficient resources! Saw him on sandals with blistering toes as he reached Petchaburi, covered only 40% of the distance.

The first paragraph of his blog wrote: (22nd Oct 2010)
Quote
Made a phone call to Somchai at 8:00pm to tell him that I only have 15 baht (US$0.50 or RM 1.50) on my pocket and I will start the solo walk tomorrow. He told me that “this is not right and even dangerous”. He promised to arrange some money immediately as he has his bank passbook with Dada Prasanta. I told Somchai strongly that he should not tell Dada P my situation. He said he will call back later.
Unquote

I can't imagine myself doing that, not even contemplate to walk 1,200 KM in the first place. Yet he set off whatever the circumstance on 23rd Oct and reached Phuket on 6th Dec after 45 days! I take my hat off for his endeavor. This is one tough nut!

The last photo post of his blog towards Phanga, almost there to Phuket. I've passed this way several times before, only on 4 wheels at 120Km/Hr.










What really touched me when I first met him was this guy has a huge heart. What's the fundamental difference between us I asked myself? The goal he set out is selfless. While mine had always been self-centered.

As for his fund raising objective - he is far from it, still very far!
He met some journalists while passing through Bangkok hoping to get press publicity. It came to nothing. Huh - a Mr. Nobody doing a fund raising walk to build a technical school for minorities at the Thai-Myanmar border was not newsworthy of course.

All I can do at the time was to add a post to Bangkok Post forum captioned "Lend a helping hand". It invited 3,400 views but again it may not be of much help either.

During that time, a person I came to know through this blog called to consult on sound system for his new bird house. I proposed to review his design and he contributes to Da Da's school building project. He agreed without hesitation.

Since then another blog reader has also made a contribution. Thanks to their kindness and supports given. There are more helping hands out there I believe.

Going forward my intention is to help by do something concrete. I have several loose ideas floating in the head now and will crystallize them over the coming weeks.