28 years old, Thailand
My name is Khai. I was born in a small town in the countryside. My mother worked as a day laborer in the rice fields. If it was not rice season, my mother made desserts to sell in the market. My dad worked at the school as the cleaning person. I went to that same school. We kids were five all together: one brother, I'm the second, then another brother and two sisters.
We lived in a small house that was covered with some kind of leaf; we leased the property from the landlord. As I recall, I started school when I turned eight when I was about eleven or twelve years I graduated from fourth grade. After I finished fourth grade I had to stop school and help my dad carry water from the well. Also, I had to help out my dad with the cleaning at the school.
I started helping my father clean six months after I finished school. I was up in the morning about four o'clock. I had to carry a kind of water container, about sixty of those containers. I had to finish my work, get those sixty containers of water, before I could go to school. My dad at that time earned about 800 baht a month ($1 USD was equal to 25 baht) and we had five children in the family. The whole household consisted of seven members. I felt that my dad earned very little. That is when I started to look for work. I started to work at daily labor like my mom and I earned about 150 baht a month. I earned 150 baht but I gave about 100 baht to my mom. I spent about 50 baht on myself. Some months I saved the money I had left, and the other months I didn't have anything left because some extra expense came up.
I had been working for two years and had saved some money so that one day I could build my own house. At that time my father went out and borrowed some money to help build a new house. Then my dad had the obligation to repay the loan. His salary was deducted to payoff half of the money for the loan. As I mentioned to you I earned 150 baht a month but it seemed to me that I couldn't make so little so I quit and went out to look for another job. I applied to work in a restaurant. The owner asked me to work from five o'clock in the morning until 11 o'clock at night. At that time I was paid 350 baht a month. I worked at that restaurant for several years. After that I was so tired I went out and looked for another job. When I turned 19 I was hired to be a sales person, to sell some merchandise. When there was some gathering of people I went out and sold some merchandise. I was paid at that time 750 baht. When I turned twenty I got married because I decided it was about time and I thought my husband had a good business. I lived with my husband for six years; my husband was 26 years older than I was.
For the first couple of years everything went well, and when I turned 22 I had the first baby. My husband had a small factory that manufactured seashell products. I went out and sold the merchandise to tourists at the beach. I had another baby when I turned 24. My husband's business was really good; he even exported some of the products to Malaysia. But we were cheated for payment for our merchandise in Malaysia. About that time my husband started to have another woman, a girlfriend. The reason I decided to separate from my husband was that he wouldn't take any responsibility. And he had the girlfriend who was a singer. The singer was only 18 years old and my husband tried to bring her into the house. I gave my husband an ultimatum that he had to choose between the girlfriend and me. If he wanted to live with me he had to quit seeing the new girl. He came back and said it was up to me to decide what I should do.
Everything was going well until the domestic problems started. I didn't have any financial problems. We had 16 people working for us at that time; we made good money. I decided to divorce my husband and went back home and did not take any assets, any property with me. I went home and stayed with my mother. The two children stayed with me so that when they grew up they wouldn't have any problems. When I went home to live with my mother I did not tell her that I was already divorcing my husband. My mother became suspicious about why I stayed with her so long. My mother asked me, "Is their any problem?" I told her there's nothing going on; I just want to spend time with you. I lived with my mother for a month and my husband did not pay a visit.
After I waited for a month to see whether or not my husband would come to visit, I decided to go look for another job. I decided to be the wholesaler of seashell products and went out to see the owners of the retail shops to see whether they wanted to buy the products or not. I started out with some capital; I spent 1,000 baht at that time. I started to make deliveries of the merchandise. I made some money. Actually I'm the one who produced this product by myself. I bought the seashells, and selected, and hand crafted, and put on the finishing touches, and went out and sold the merchandise. Some months the total sale was about 10,000 baht but the cost was 5,000 baht so I made about 5,000. At that time I thought that I could not survive because I had the burden of taking care of my mother and my two children. I forgot to tell you that my father had already passed away. My mother was a widow. My mother became sick and had to go and see a doctor. Let me explain. My mother had five children and yet nobody made a good living in order to take care of my mother. One of my younger sisters got married and never sent any money home for my mother. At that time nobody sent any money to my mother. So I felt that I had a burden; I had to take care of the family.
About that time Rei's sister came and told me that Rei would like to find someone to help her. She mentioned that if I agreed to go and work for Rei I would get paid 6,000 baht a month and wouldn't have to pay for rent or to pay for food. I wouldn't even have to pay for the airline ticket to the United States. She asked me to say whether or not I was interested and said that I would have to go and talk to Rei right away. My mother told me that I had to decide on my own, but one of the considerations was that I wouldn't have to pay for any expenses. And at that time my children were small. I thought that I could spend about four years and save some money then I could come back and be with my kids.