As an adolescent, Havarangsi was often struck by the depth of the divisions that separated rich from poor in Bangkok, and she yearned to do something to help. But her father forbade her to study nursing, encouraging her instead to learn Japanese and reap the economic benefits of the influx of foreign business into the city. Out of obedience to him, Havarangsi completed a bachelor's degree in Japanese language and, upon graduating, began working as a secretary at Bangkok's Four Seasons Hotel. Still, she felt a tug in her heart every time she walked down the crowded city streets. "One day I was walking on the pavement -- and in Thailand we have a lot of beggars everywhere on the street -- and I just realized that it means nothing if I cannot do anything to help other people," she recounts. "And it reminded me that I really need to be a nurse."
      Barred from pursuing a second bachelor's degree by Thai academic restrictions, Havarangsi quit her job at the hotel and came to the United States, determined to study what she loved. She told her father she had won a business scholarship.
      "I lied," she says gravely. "I moved out of the country, and then I didn't study anything like that at all." After settling in Madison with her boyfriend, Gumpon Sriprutkiat, Havarangsi took English classes at Wisconsin English as a Second Language Institute (WESLI). She told her teachers at WESLI about her dream of helping the poor in her homeland, and they recommended that she apply to Edgewood College's nursing program.
      Havarangsi says she's glad they did. "I really loved Edgewood a lot. The professors are very wonderful," she says. "They are not just like my teacher, they're like my mother -- really, really kind."
      During her time at Edgewood, the path to her future vocation became clearer, thanks in part to the guidance of Dr. Colleen Gullickson, who introduced Havarangsi to the concept of hospice care. Another professor, Dr. Pamela Minden, helped her to heal spiritually -- and to transfer that spiritual healing to suffering patients.
      "She taught me how to forgive and how to love people, how to see people in a different way, an optimistic way," Havarangsi says. With Colleen, I [could] see the vision so clear [of] what I want to do; and my heart feels what I should do."
     Thanks in part to her professors' guidance, Havarangsi, who graduated from Edgewood College with a degree in nursing last spring, pinpointed a desperate need for hospices in Thailand, where families have traditionally taken responsibility for caring for the elderly and those suffering from terminal illness. In such a system, people who live in extreme poverty and those without children or other family members to care for them struggle to survive without proper care and often end up on the streets. Compounding these challenges is the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has ravaged Thailand in recent years. As of July 2004, 560, 000 adults and 12,000 of Thailand's children were infected with HIV/AIDS. In 2003, 58,000 people died of AIDS in Thailand.
      Apart from her desire to provide respite for the ailing poor, Havarangsi hopes her hospice will help lessen the burdens families with terminally ill relatives must bear. "If people have cancer, it really makes a lot of work for their families," she says. "So if I can open a hospice for the poor people, I would be very, very happy."
      Every day, Havarangsi says, this dream becomes clearer, even as the sacrifices she makes to achieve it grow more taxing. And as she begins her first nursing position  at University of Wisconsin Hospital's geriatric wing, Havarangsi has already mapped out a plan through which she can begin saving money for her hospice. Sriprutkiat, now Havarangsi's husband, has nurtured her vision, even forsaking further study in civil engineering to go to medical school, with the hopes of assisting her at the hospice. "Maybe we'll start with seven small beds, eight beds,' Havarangsi says. "We don't have much money, even though we [will] try to save."
      As for her father, Havarangsi has told him the truth, and she says he's learning to accept her chosen career. Despite his initial disapproval and the pain it caused her, Havarangsi maintains that she has no regrets. "Now I'd probably work in a Four Seasons Hotel," she says, contemplating what her life would be like had she not been brave enough to follow her heart. "I'd probably be a manager now. I'd probably have studied hotel management or something if I [had] obeyed my father."
      "Although she admits she is sometimes worried about financing the hospice, Havarangsi has decided she will work to save money and gain experience for at least 10 years before returning to Thailand. As for other potential challenges, she is content to heed the Thai proverb "Don't worry about the fever until it arrives." But that hasn't prevented her from envisioning the hospice as a welcoming place with a view of the ocean. "We will try to find a place by the sea, because we want people to have a last moment to see the sunset before they die," she says.
      Havarangsi believes that true peace before death is important, especially for those who have suffered in life. According to the tenets of Theravada Buddhism, which is practiced throughout Thailand, the soul is reborn time and again until it reaches paradise -- a perfect state of nonexistence. If a person's soul is marred by selfish or immoral deeds in life, that person will be reincarnated as a lowlier being. In the same way, selfless acts and positive feelings allow the soul to ascend the celestial hierarchy and perhaps be reborn as a prince or princess. Ultimately, a blemishless soul will be reborn as an angel.
      In recognition of this tradition, Havarangsi says she wants her hospice to be not only a haven of healing and peace, but also a place of spiritual renewal. "Sometimes poor people  --  they'll be a thief or they'll be a criminal, and they have bad memories," she explains. "If you forgive them for the last piece of a week before they die, then they have a lot of good memories with them when they transition to the next life. They will carry a good piece of their heart with them." One heart at a time, Havarangsi hopes, the realization of her lifelong dream will heal some of the suffering that has overwhelmed so much of her beloved country. And whether or not she realizes it, when she heals the hearts of the infirm, she will be guiding angels to paradise.
At the feet of the angels
Nawaphan Havarangsi follows her dream
by Maya Ghayyad
  Bangkok is a contradictory metropolis, a city whose flower-lined canals shimmer alongside snaking superhighways, where businessmen and beggars crowd the streets and towering hotels flank temples so magnificent they moved Bangkok's founders to christen it "the city of angels."
      Indeed, Bangkok's contradictions were what first inspired Nawaphan Havarangsi to dream of becoming a nurse. Although she loves her native Thailand, Havarangsi is -- and always has been -- troubled by the extremes of prosperity and poverty that characterize life there.
      "Bangkok is like New York, but outside Bangkok, it's not," she explains. "Outside Bangkok it looks like [parts of] India -- it's very, very poor."
Nawaphan Havarangsi