how words made me speechless: Wat Prabaht Nampu

There is a place that is very popular and legendary in Thailand. Its name is Wat Prabaht Nampu , which is a temple that is located in the province of Lop Buri, about 150 kilometers north of the city of Bangkok. Today, the temple is being a home to 152 HIV- positive patients .

The founder of this place is a Buddhist monk named Alongkot Dikkapanyo. This place was originally a Buddhist temple worship which then functioned as a shelter for AIDS patients in 1992 when two young men with HIV positive status came asking for help and shelter to the temple because they were rejected by the families and the hospitals. Started with only 8 beds , Wat Prabaht Nampu now able to provide 400 beds to accommodate patients. Until now, this temple has been treating more than 10,000 of the 610,000 people infected with HIV in Thailand , according to data from the UN .

Most patients used to work as commercial sex workers or who contracted the disease from their partners. 60 of the 152 patients who are now in the temple are currently in good condition and being healthier. They are each placed in a small bungalow with bedroom and toilet facilities, not together with the patients with other opportunistic infections that are placed in several sal care. 60 patients were allowed to work in the temple depend on their each appropriate skills such as cleaning service, administration officers and being assistants to help nursing the paralyzed patients. They are also involved in the empowering group to make some creative handicrafts. The handycrafts are shown and sold in the special gallery. Actually, they live like normal people. They choose to settle in the temple because of family rejection and stigma from society .

Some NGOs conducts some supporting programs in the temple. They may run some programs to the patients as well as to the temple physically. There is also a special room for receiving guests who wants to make donation in small or big amounts. The donation could be in form of money or goods. When I was in that place, a truck came bringing full loaded of goods to be donated to the temple. They bring instant foods and some useful household utensil. There is special corner to unload all the packages.

In the front park, there is a corner which displays some artificial statues name Bone Resin Art. The statues are very beautiful. They are made of unclaimed human ash and bone mix together with resin. The statues form reflects the AIDS patients sufferings.

Patients who died will be put in the refrigerator while waiting to be picked up by the family . If the body is not picked up, it will be cremated by the temple. In the past when the temple still used old cremation machine, it would leave bones as well as ash. But now it uses modern cremation machine that only make the body being into ash. The temple now has 8 modern machine. Last year in 2013 there were about 7 to 8 bodies that were cremated each week, but this year the number is decreasing. Piles of the bones and ash of the patients are stored in the museum on some big shelves. The museum is known as Life Museum. It is located inside the temple complex and also contains the display of the preserved bodies of AIDS patients who donated their bodies for the sake of study. In addition, there is also a small museum named Body Part Museum. This place displays some important body parts and organs of AIDS patients that placed in some big glass jars. The body parts and organs are such as hands, feet, heart, penis, intestine, bladder, etc.

That is how wonderful to share and be able to make them smile. So that they still feel "meaningful " , although in the queue to the cremation machine , sometime in the future .