Andrew meets a slave

So today I was teaching my special class for three business women who are moving to Cambodia, or Malaysia or somewhere. Been teaching for the last week, not a bad group. I prefer teaching kids, but they might sponsor the school, so heck yes I'll teach them.

But today they brought in a young girl with them as well. She sat directly next to one of the women, chairs touching, and didn't say a word. When one of the Thai teachers asked if she was studying also, we were told no, she can't understand. I didn't put it together immediately what the deal was.

So after another teacher takes over for a bit, I go to see our director who spoke with them. Apparently she's a young girl from Laos (a country next to Thailand), and she gets paid 2000baht each month. That's about $65, $2 a day. So the entire lesson, she just sat there, smiling briefly once or twice at jokes in Thai, but not participating.

At the end of class the director wants to get more information to see if there's a way we can help her, or help educate her some. Whenever he asked her a question, she didn't answer and just looked at the woman she was with to answer for her.

Her name was Noy, she said she was 19 years old but we're pretty sure that was a lie. We're hoping that they bring her again tomorrow so we can get her away from the women while they're in class, and maybe help her practice reading/writing Thai and English. Small steps, but it's better than nothing. This isn't uncommon, it's not illegal, and it is another culture so I can't say that they're wrong. But we can do what we can to help her grow, maybe someday she'll pick up enough where she can find a better job.

Kinda sad.