Living underwater

This is a letter from my uncle Bill who lives with his wife in Thailand about the floods.  I thought it was pretty fascinating - particularly the boredom and the truce between the dogs and ducks - read on........

Jen

If we could be totally objective, its really beautiful. The skies are clear blue, the temperature has dropped so its not so hot, and as far as the eye can see there is green vegetation, flowers  and water. Its one of those scenes that ordinarily would make me very happy to be living in Thailand. The problem is that there is too much water, it has damaged households and livelihoods, and a lot of this water is in our yard.

This is the 16^th day of our captivity. The water inundated the fields and roads around our land on October 21 and entered our grounds steadily on October 22 and for several days thereafter. Fortunately our house sits on a rise roughly two meters above ground level  and water has never reached the first floor; water has entered the room under the house which has forced us to cut electricity to some parts of the house. We lost the fresh water supply to our house about day # 3 when our  water pump quit. The water level must have peaked somewhere around October 27 and has since dropped a bit. At peak the water level was about mid-calf level up against the foundation of the house and about 90 centimeters deep  or about waist level at our front gate. The drop in the water level was about 20-30 cm and has since slowed.. We find we have way underestimated the length of time this whole thing is going to take; we have stopped talking about days and started thinking in terms of weeks.

We are a long way from anything. We are about 500 meters from Klong 4(Pathumthani) but there is nothing there since everything has been closed by the flood. If we want outside contact we have to paddle our boats about 3-4 km to the intersection where the Outer Ring Road(Rte 9) crosses over Klong 4. There we can meet friends or Paew’s relatives who are waiting for us with supplies which we load on our boats and paddle back home. We have also discovered that at that same point on the Outer Ring Road a market has sprung up. People in pickup trucks bring in vegetables, fruits and water which they sell from the backs of their trucks; the prices are a bit fancy but we don’t begrudge them their markups for the service they are providing. The sense of isolation is more than this. I said to Paew “suppose we could magically lift up our car and plunk it down on some road which is dry, I would still be uncertain about where to go”. All the markets and malls we use or are familiar with are closed or have very uncertain access. What are we supposed to do, go to Siam Paragon?

We have also been receiving “care packages”. We don’t actually get them at our house since we are too isolated but if we paddle out to Klong 4, the packages will be waiting for us. at a neighbor’s house We have gotten packages from our Nai Ampher(district chief officer), Channel 3, Princess Ubolratana’s Poom Foundation and one other whose name I cannot remember. We are very happy to get these packages. Not only are they large, but it is obvious people have gone to a lot of care to provide things useful to flood victims: water purifiers, mosquito repellant, medicines, rice, canned fish, canned pickled vegetables, etc. We are very grateful .

We have harvested many kilos of bananas of all types. We had to rush to gather them ahead of their normal time because slowly but surely the flood is killing off our banana plants. When we moved in here in the year 2000, a relative gave us forty banana plants of 5 different varieties; these had multiplied into about 100 banana plants since that is what these plants do:multiply. We have been enjoying large harvests ever since. I suspect that this and the loss of three jackfruit( khanoon) trees that have already died will be the physical loss from the floods that will mean the most to us in the long-run: These bananas and khanoon had been the source of delicious eating for many years not only for us but for friends, people at Thammasat, etc.. Machinery can be repaired or replaced ; but replanting and nurturing  bananas and khanoon will take years.

Something has happened during the flood that I cannot explain. We have six geese and one duck who thinks he is a goose and then we have six ducks. We also have seven dogs, three of whom(mostly the younger ones) have a strong tendency to attack and kill geese and ducks. For years we have kept these two groups apart; they are never wandering about our yard at the same time. The flood came and we could no longer keep them apart. They are now together and on a much smaller land area than normal. But nothing  has happened; geese and ducks wander amongst the dogs and there is not even the slightest hint of a possible attack. Do these animals have some instinct that allows them to declare a truce in difficult situations? Will the truce be over when the flood ends? Can somebody explain?

The case of the factory next to our property is very instructive. Their property is very large extending from in back of our house all the way to Klong 4 some 500 meters away and consisting of seven large buildings, access roads and a football pitch(right behind our house). They were very well prepared for flooding: two meter high walls around the 3.8 of the 4 sides of their property, the remaining 0.2 entrance was heavily sandbagged, there were large pallets of sandbags strategically placed at many points inside their perimeter ,and they had many water pumps ready to go .Water still entered their property in large volumes  which they first diverted to the football pitch( which is a sunken area some two meters below ground level) and then pumped out over their walls. At least three pumps(the ones we can see) have been pumping without stop 24 hours per day for the 16 days since flooding began and they appear to be achieving somewhat of a draw in the sense that they are now pumping out as much water as is flooding in and the water level in the football pitch appears to have declined a bit. This is a victory of sorts since water has not entered any of the seven building but it is taking a massive effort to achieve this. If you are a dry area in the same area and at the same level as has been flooded, there will be pressure for water to enter and you must defend yourself continuously.

I actually got out today. One thing you discover very quickly living in a flood zone is that you are living in a “cash  economy”: banks are closed, many of the kinds of places that accept credit cards are shut down, ATMs have been shut down and checks are not generally acceptable, and so you had better have lots of cash. Two weeks ago I had started out with what I had thought  was enough but I had underestimated the magnitude and length of this crisis. When Paew’s relatives brought our supplies, they offered to drive me to where they were sure some banks were open –the Thai Market at Klong Luang .Thai Market was very strange: one half of the market is under water and the other half is behaving as if everything was normal. There, all bank branches were open except for my normally reliable Kasikorn Bank(they will get an earful when they reopen, letting people down in a crisis is not acceptable); no matter ATM machines from some alien banks were open. This trip was fascinating since it took us past Klongs 4, 3, 2, 1 all of which were heavily flooded and massive amounts of water along both sides of Klong Luang. There was also massive flooding on all the local roads around Thammasat/Rangsit which were not usable and what looked to be a large amount of water on the campus itself. There are people living on bridges and on the parts of Klong Luang road that are slightly elevated relative to the land on both sides. On the way back, we picked up a man who was going to Klong 6. He told us that two crocodiles had entered houses along Klong 6. We told him  that keeping the crocs confined near Klong 6 would be greatly appreciated.

The water level appears to have dropped some 50cm from its peak according to what we see on our property. The water level has another 80-100 cm to go before hitting ground level. We are pleased but not really very excited since it is likely to take many days  before we hit dry land.

If there is one word which sums up our personal experience with flooding, that word is “boring”. The flood came very, very slowly and with much advanced warning; we had plenty of time to prepare. About the only point of excitement for us was when water began to enter the underground room in quantity and we had to make the decision whether to shut off the electricity to that area which would affect a couple of other rooms.  We  spend parts of our days hauling, filtering and treating water to make it more safe to use (our most time consuming activity)and some days paddling out to the ring road to  pick up supplies. Otherwise we have to think up ways to fill the time in our days. And we now realize we are going to have to keep doing this for many more days, even weeks ; we have no idea how much longer before our lives become normal again. Oh well, we have managed so far and we will continue as long as it takes. But when we think of people who are living in refugee centers, or are living on the streets, or are living on bridges, we realize how incredibly fortunate we have been. We are getting through this crisis relatively well.  

We think that everyone in Thailand should begin to think more optimistically. After the flood crisis is over, we will all be able to buy sandbags very, very, cheaply.

Bill and Paew