For some reason, I like to think that I am a badass. I like to think that Angelina Jolie in
Mr. and Mrs. Smith is my alter ego.
I have worked with prostitutes in Washington D.C. since
November of 2009- some as young as 12 years old. Does it gross me out?
Absolutely- but working with the non-profit in D.C., my primary
objective is to remove the girls from their situation and get them to safety
and a new life. It is a very
focused mission.
But out here on Redemption Road, the ‘mission’ looks far
different. We are here to make
friends with the girls- and even the men.
We are supposed to go to these bars and just spend time building
relationships with these broken men, women and girls. And honestly- it has been a great experience. The problem is that you can’t go into
the situation with a focused eye and a hard heart- you need to open your heart
to these girls. You need to love
them. You need to invest in them. You need to leave a part of your own
heart with them- and that leaves you very open to having it broken. And honestly, it hurts me a lot to open myself up as much as I need to in order to truly love these girls and be genuine with them. Hiding behind my ‘badass facade’ was so much easier…
One bar down from my favorite bar, there are two little
girls who work there.
Realistically, they are probably 13 years old- but Asian girls always
look so much younger. And these
girls look… so very young.
They say that they are there to help support their families
(a burden put on Thai girls and women which propels them into bars, massage
parlors and brothels in the first place.)
Tonight as I was playing pool and drinking my Coke Light with one of my
regular johns (who I learned tonight is actually married, his wife is here in
Thailand on vacation with him, and they “tell each other everything” so she
“knows what he is doing”) I kept seeing them just outside. And why are they standing outside? Because here in Thailand, the bar owners
put their best bait out in front to dance and smile and seductively greet the
western passersby. In front of
this particular bar, these two little girls sit on motorbikes for hours.
Two nights ago, I saw one of them sitting inside at a
table. It looked like the most
jacked up family dinner you have ever seen. Allow me to explain:
My favorite professor from college, Dr. Lewis (he taught all
of my super interesting terrorism classes) and his gorgeous and awesome wife-
being the incredible people that they are, decided to adopt three little girls
from Asia. Two of them, Kaia and
Sammi are from China, and Tasha is from Kazakhstan. You want to talk about beautiful girls who delight in the
attention of their daddy and mommy- these three are the poster children. I absolutely hated children- until I
met these three. Dr. and Mrs.
Lewis came out to dinner after graduation, and these little nuggets were
fighting over who would sit next to me- a reaction I have never evoked from a
child in my whole life. Dr. Lewis
asked me to nanny for them for the summer before Jaimie and I left for
D.C. I couldn’t believe it, but I
actually wanted to, and the girls and I had a lovely summer together.
I said that to say that I became accustomed to seeing
beautiful young Asian girls with an older western man. With Dr. Lewis and the girls, it was
just pure fatherly love. Beautiful
and sweet. And these girls adore
their daddy- always wanting to show him their latest painting and play “Jedi
Knight” with him (they each have their own Light Saber).
So the other night when I was walking past that bar on my
way home, I peeked my head in and noticed one of the girls at a table with a
western man, with his arm around her.
He was whispering something in her ear. There were other people at the table as well, but I don’t
remember anything about them. I
just remember feeling like I was going to vomit- and I peddled my bicycle back
to the hostel as fast as I could.
Tonight as I was watching them stand outside of their bar,
dressed up in women’s clothing- all I could think about was when I was a little
girl, and how I would love to play dress up with my mother’s high heel shoes,
and makeup. That is how these
girls look- like little girls playing dress up, standing outside of a bar, baiting
western men to come into the bar and pay for another night of stolen innocence.
