How Poor People Live -- Reflections on a recent trip to outer Esarn

I’ve just come back from another trip up to my wife’s village Trakarn Puedpon, a small village about 50 kilometers north east of Ubon. Here are some of the things I experienced.

FLYING BOMBER

I flew up to Ubon from Bangkok. First I booked my flight on the phone and bought an e-Ticket. Very convenient. Even the taxi ride to the airport worked out well. I walked out of my house loaded down with notebook and an overnight bag stuffed for 4 days away. I groaned at the prospect of walking the half mile to Phaholyothin Road to find a taxi.

But luck was with me. Three of our old lady neighbors were going shopping up at Tesco, so there was a taxi waiting outside my gate. I didn’t realize why he was there at first so I asked if he could take me to the airport. He shook his head no.

Turning to face the daunting walk I heard a shout behind me. One of the old ladies was asking where I was going. When she heard I was going in the same direction she invited me to share the taxi with them. I dropped them off at Tesco and then went on my merry way.

I checked in quickly and walked to the security gate feeling lighthearted and happy….so far. But then all of a sudden I was the object of much consternation. Bells were ringing and security guards were becoming very alert.

What had I done?

They asked if I had a toiletry bag inside my travel bag.

Sure. Why?

Do you have any shampoo in there?

Yep, a nice big bottle of natural herbal shampoo I am planning to market overseas. Works a treat too. No soapy foam. Just massage it into the hair and leave it there during the shower, and then rinse off all the accumulated grease and dust afterwards.

But the security guard wasn’t interested in my sales pitch. The bottle is too big, they exclaimed as one bloke examined it minutely.

Lucky for me the label was in Thai so the security bloke could actually read it.

He looked up and smiled, tucking it back into my toiletry bag.

“Next time, you no bring big bottle, ok?”

I zipped up my bag and passed through to great sighs of relief all around. Another potential in-flight bombing nipped in the bud by our ever vigilant security personnel.

So much for security. What if the contents really had been the makings for a bomb? I guess it would have been alright, because the label was in Thai.

I’M A RICH MAN

I am officially a ‘Rich Man’. I know this because the doctor at the local hospital in my wife’s village told me so when I went to renew my hypertension medicine. He told me the pills I wanted are not available at his hospital as it is for poor people. Apparently, my pills are too good for them.

I asked my wife what would happen if a poor person has hypertension. Nothing, she said. Poor people don’t get it. They work too hard. It’s a rich man’s illness.

So there. Now you know. You are probably rich too. Doesn’t it feel good?

OLD AGE

My wife’s grandmother is now 102 years old. Three years ago, the last time I saw her, she was sprightly and very active. She still did her own housework, cooked, washed…all the things women seem to do.

This time around the old dear is laid low. She is so old now that she has lost most of her eyesight and hearing. We had to lean in real close and shout so she could hear.

Despite this I was chuffed that she actually asked my wife where I was. There I was sitting right next to her. She wanted to touch me. My wife instructed me to put my foot close to her and this thin, bony hand reached out and caressed my foot. He skin was surprisingly soft. Then she took my hand and stroked that too, exclaiming over my hairy arms as well.

I expected her to want to touch my face next, but she seemed happy with just my foot and hand.

She still understands everything and even came out with a couple of witticisms. I guess that will be the last time I will see her alive. She’s a lovely lady. I will miss her.

THE NEW FENCE

Last time we went up there we had a new bathroom built. It’s probably the best room in the house, fully tiled, nice sit down toilet, and a huge tiled tub they fill with water then scoop out water to bathe themselves.

This time, my wife had ordered a new fence around the house, including a half-height breeze block wall out the front with a sliding iron gate. Pretty swish.

But watching the local workmen build it was truly an education. When I arrived, they had already laid the foundation for the wall and put new barbed wire around three sides of the house.

The next morning they started laying the breeze blocks. That took all day for a length of about 30 feet. After that they spent a day and a half plastering it with cement. Rough, but serviceable. It wouldn’t pass any plasterer’s QC test in the west, but it fit in with the other houses in the village.

Finally, on the last day big brother started making the gate. I’m never sure which big brother he is, but he’s the one who lounges around a lot and drinks Thai whisky. He did a pretty good job actually. Good enough that I am considering hiring him to help out in one of my businesses. He’s a versatile handyman and could be very useful.

I figure the whole job took five days, with five blokes working, for the princely sum of just fifteen thousand Baht, including materials. That’s what I call value for money.

On the last morning we were there, while big brother was still working on the gate, it rained. No, it didn’t rain…it poured. The water came down in buckets. We sat and watched the water level creeping up on the inside of the new fence. It threatened to lap over the one foot wall already surrounding the veranda area. We all pitched in to dig a drainage way. Still, the water rose in one place that wasn’t being drained.

Big brother picked up a crowbar and went outside. The next thing I knew he had broken a large hole through the brand new wall, chipping off chunks of plaster with it. But at least we were able to avoid flooding the house as the water drained away.

I didn’t stay long enough to see what their solution will be to the big hole, or for the drainage problem. But you can bet it will be something equally Esarn ingenious.

NO INTERNET

I didn’t realize just how much my life revolves around the internet until this trip. Although I took my notebook with me, there was no wi-fi up there. My niece has a nice desktop computer with a modem, but for some reason we just could not make it connect to the internet.

So, there I was stuck in the wilds of Esarn with no internet, no communication, and absolutely nothing to do but eat, read, and sleep. What a novel experience.

There was no communication possible with the outside world, so I just sat watching the rice grow. But at least i could sit there and figure out how much that rice would fetch on the market right now. Prices are skyrocketing, so much so that farmers are having to sleep in their fields to stop thieves stealing it overnight.

But I had a very relaxing holiday. While I was there the hospital checked my blood pressure. It was an amazing 110/78. That's the best it's been in years. Maybe nature is trying to tell me something, eh?

THE TRAIN TRIP

Instead of flying back we decided to take the airconditioned train. It pulled up at the station and looking at it I already had qualms. Dirty, bits hanging off it, funny looking stains on what looked like important parts all gave it the look of a bad mistake.

However, inside it was comfortable enough. For a while, anyway. Then I started feeling a wedgie coming on. I slid up the seat and adjusted my jeans. All was well for a little while, but then I slid down again and the wedgie bit harder.

Finally, after a couple of hours of this discomfort I got up and looked at the seat. It sloped downwards at the front, just like those horrible seats in MacDonalds that force you to feel uncomfortable so you leave faster.

But I was on a train. I couldn’t leave faster.

I looked across the isle. My daughter needed a sleep. So I asked my wife to swap seats and lay our daughter on the seat, buttressed by the small blanket the train issues to each passenger. That worked. I spent a reasonably comfortable trip staring out the window thinking about all sorts of possibilities.

But they weren’t done with us yet.

Next, they served dinner.

How is it possible to make any food look and taste so unappetizing? I mean, you would have had to work really hard to produce the horrid looking mess they served up. If you plan on traveling on a Thai train take your own meals with you. The coffee was good, though, and that sustained me until we arrived in Bangkok 10 hours after we left Ubon. It was an interesting experience, but next time we will fly.

HOW POOR PEOPLE LIVE

Are the people living in those poor villages up in Esarn better or worse off than us ‘rich people’ living in the city?

I guess it depends on how you look at it. The older people I met up there were all slim and very healthy. I doubt many of them have to go to the doctor for anything serious more than a couple of times in their entire lives. They eat off the land on what they catch or grow. The food is not to my taste, and probably not yours. But it is definitely healthy, with no preservatives or fattening agents.

The poor kids in the village are the same as their elders. But some of the kids from richer families (richer being a relative term here) show signs of obesity. However, the proportion is nowhere near what it is in the big city.

Housing is very basic. The best homes in the village have been built by farung husbands, but neither of them actually live in them. In fact, the house across the road was built by a German bloke married to my wife’s best friend. Her mother lives there, but she has had a cheap wood and thatch building erected in the garden and she lives in that. She doesn’t want to live in the concrete monstrosity her son-in-law built.

The other house was also built by a British/Thai bloke who married one of my many cousins. It’s a beautiful house, but the only time it has ever been lived in was when they got married. Since then, someone sleeps in the place but that’s about it.

People ask why I haven’t built a new house for my mother-in-law. Why would I? She loves her old house and feels comfortable in it. The rest of the family have their own homes, and they are all mostly old wooden places with thatche roofs as well. I don’t see any advantage to building a flash place just to give the family ‘face’. Luckily, my in-laws don’t think that way either. They are happy with the small improvements we have added to the house instead.

It’s always an edifying experience going upcountry like that. But not something I want to do too often. Once every two or three years is fine. But next time I’ll make sure I know how to run the internet using my mobile phone connected to my notebook. The Internet Deprivation was almost too much over 4 days. I don’t think I could survive much longer than that without being in touch with the world.

© Marc Holt. All rights reserved by the author.