January 9, 2002

Vail Daily 
Vail, Colorado

Songkhla Road is all smiles
By Polly Letofsky

Editor's note:  Vail resident Polly Letofsky has been on the road since she left town Aug. 1, 1999 on her mission to become the first woman to walk around the world and promote awareness of breast cancer.  From Vail she first walked to the West Coast, then crossed the two islands of New Zealand, up the eastern coast of Australia and on to Malaysia and Southeast Asia.  This is the latest installment from her journal.

Songkhla, Thailand-- The south of Thailand is poor.  Very poor.  trekking up the rural coastal Songkhla Road introduced my eyes to a new meaning of the term poor.  There was a constant flow of people--not two villages in 150 kilometers as my map indicates.

There were old men gathering on the front porches inviting me up for a drink of whiskey.  Old women were pushing heaping food carts down the road dodging trucks and endless streams of motorbikes.  Barefoot children chased each other through mud, long grass and heaping mounds of garbage that accumulate in front of each home.  And they were all smiling.

I had learned straight away how to say "May I take your photo," and they excitedly gathered in a tight crowd while I showed them the immediate results on my digital camera.

There is no technology, but Instant Messaging has never worked as swiftly as this week up Songkhla Road.  Thais of all shapes sizes and ages came to the front yards of their homes to wave on this peculiar-looking  foreigner with the pale skin and blue eyes.

"Hello!" the little ones would yell as a group from behind a tree, shyly trying to practice their English.

"Hello!" I would wave back, sending them running in fits of giggles.

Stray dog after stray dog after stray dog was seen rummaging through garbage trying to find any hint of food.  If they weren't gnawing at an old chicken bone they were laying on the side of the road--too tired to even bark at me.  Chickens ran wild in each front yard chasing the family cow.  Mr. Cow had nowhere to run since he's attached to a tree.

There are poorer places in the world than southern Thailand's Songkhla Road.  There is no famine here.  Food is one thing that the Thais have plenty of.  But there is little else.

And an odd thing was happening on Songkhla Road.  These poor but smiley people were running after me giving donations towards my project--starting a breast cancer center in Thailand.  

PraYoon, my driver has been driving patiently behind me all day, every day.   we have a banner on the van explaining in Thai what I'm doing and why, but we have had no plans to actively pursue fundraising while here in the poorest part of Thailand.  At the very least we wanted to get the word out that there is such a disease as breast cancer and to be aware of it.

There aren't many statistics on breast cancer here in Thailand.  No cancer registry means no efficient statistics.  No statistics imply that breast cancer is not a problem here.  If it's not a problem there' no education in fighting it.

Consequently women don't go to the doctor until the very last stages at which point are told to home and prepare to die.

They go home, no records are kept and the silent cycle continues.  This scenario doesn't apply to everyone as some cases are caught early, but no one knows that percentage.

My mission here is Thailand is to get the press to list the symptoms in the newspapers.  We'll also explain that the earlier you get in to see the doctor with these symptoms the better your chances of survival.

All funds raised here in Thailand benefit the Lampang Regional Cancer Center.  It will use the donations to start a new breast cancer department.

The smiley Thais on Songkhla road run after me donating 20, 50, a hundred baht at a time.  A hundred Thai Baht is roughly US $2.50--a lot of money for these people.  They don't know much about breast cancer.  They don't know the strange looking foreigner walking through their neighborhood.  But they do know they're getting involved.

This the very beginning of an awareness campaign in Thailand.  It's not going to be easy, but as they say, "a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."  And I'm not talking about my walk.