Nong Pai: A Community under Water
Sila County, Kon Kaen

Sang is a 70-year-old woman who had sported a 51-year-young lover. When her young man retired to the grave a year ago, she was left struggling alone to survive.

"I do miss him sometimes," she says stoically.

Nid, a young lady from CODI asks her what it would take to find herself a younger lover. Sang's face now lights up: "It's a secret," she says with a sly grin.

Sang actually took it seriously and promises to help find a young lover for Nid. In the countryside, whenever a village meeting is held, the formal introduction would always involve a phrase like "this person is still single." Then it's up to the crowd - and his prospective lover in the crowd - to decide what to do with him.

It's a simple gesture that people from the western tradition may find embarrassing and irrelevant; but here in the villages, it's about survival - having more kids means more labor and social capital for the community.

Sang is not one who would be bothered by outward appearances, and her house manifests it clearly. Its tin siding warps around the aging wood frame; its windows are protected from rain with the same material. Except for its marine blue color, there's nothing in her house that could rightly be called "decoration."

She walks us along the newly paved walkway. There's a high moat next to her house; it's where the train tracks are positioned; where long freight trains come and go like slow-moving iron walls.

The land where Sang live now belongs to the State Railway Authority; it's about 1.76 Hectares.

The entire settlement is situated in a valley; water often gushes in and submerges the whole community of stilt houses. Every household has a small boat parked near their exterior wooden stairs.

Two years ago, the entire 120 families here got together and formed a saving group so that they could start fixing the flood problem. CODI gave the families 25,000 baht in grant - per household - to fix up their houses. It was also used in building a new 900 meters-long concrete swale and a paved roadway. The concrete swale and the new roadway cost 50,000 baht in total.

"So now the flood problem is much under control," says Sang.
"But I've heard that this whole area is a valley," I observe.
"Yes, when it rains hard, the place still floods a little,"

The "squatters" - as they were called by the State Railway Authority - are still negotiating with the officials for a possible long-term lease of the land. Even without the certainty of getting the land, CODI gave them support in improving the place; "they can't continue living in flood water," says Nid.

"It's just unacceptable. Giving them support at this crucial moment would also ensure that they to stick together as a community when dealing with the State Railway. It would be harder for private developers to come and evict them later on." The folks here, even without the long-term lease, are already paying a small rent to the State Railway; the going rate is 300-400 baht per month for the entire community.

We walk pass several concrete block houses along the way; they were raw concrete blocks without any plaster on them.

"Are those newly built houses," asks Nid from CODI.

"Yeah, we built them ourselves; cost only $1500 each," says Sang

"You guys have used the infrastructure subsidy money for building houses too?" I ask

"Sure, it's enough for both the houses and the roadways. The houses are cheap, we just build what we could with $1500 for now; when we have more money we could start plastering them," says Sang.

Sang says that some of the more expensive materials like windows and doors were actually salvaged from old houses around the area and some were repainted as new.

Sometimes the doors are made of many smaller wood boards; they are very good doors; and there's no problem with expansion and contraction because the small pieces of wood expand and contract independently without exerting pressure on the door frame.

The roof framing are made out of recycled wood and tin; so the only material that's new is the concrete block which is very cheap to buy. The community members build their own houses to save cost in hiring outside contractors.

"We have a whole team of builders here," says Sang. "It's not free though, we actually have to pay them; but at least the money stays here."

The committee members of the saving group went out and buy building materials themselves. The saving group is divided into 10 sub-groups consisting of 5 to 6 people. They live near each other so that when a man fails to pay his saving dues, the other members can simply enter his shack and his unconscious slumber and tell him to drink less whiskey in his dream.

A very large spacious house looms up from a distant. "Wow, that a very good house, don't tell me that you guys build that with just $1500?" says Nid.

"That's officer Sin's house. He's a local policeman," says Sang calmly.
"I see," says Nid.

There's a brief silence among us.

"His wife is a doctor, we often go to see her when we have problems; she's very kind," says Sang matter-of-factly.

The relationship between policemen and the squatter here is a classic example in Thailand. Here, the slums are often started by local powerful men - policemen, Mafiosi etc. They grab a large piece of unoccupied land, subdivided it into smaller parcels and rent them out to slum dwellers.

The squatters actually prefer to build their humble shacks on the land "belonging" to these influential men; they prefer the security of renting the land from these men rather than squatting independently on unknown land. These influential men act as a cushion for the slum dweller against eviction. It's a symbiosis relationship. In this particular community, however, the policeman is playing a role of the resident-cop rather than that of a pioneer settler.

A sad electrical pole buried in electrical wires stoop over the railroad tracks. It's constructed out of a steel rail tilted upwards towards the sky. There is just 1 electric meter for the entire community; and it turns out to be a very expensive meter because everyone in the community uses it. So the poor meter - serving more than 120 households - exceeds the quota of a regular household load defined by the Electric Generation Authority of Thailand (EGAT). The folks here will have to pay more per unit of electricity than any local millionaire who has his own meter.

"Once we're done with the land negotiation, we can each have our own legal address and an electrical meter," says Sang indifferently.

"So it's a requirement that you must have a legal address before having an electrical meter?" I ponder out loud.

"Absolutely, so they'd know who to send their bills to!" Sang makes a point with her index finger.

We walk pass a community toilet conveniently built out of election poster boards. "Politicians can be very useful for our community," advices Sang as she pause to peruse the innovative toilet.

We walk back to a small pavilion; it's the community pavilion that is used for various saving group meetings. There several people are waiting to greet us. They have just finished one of their monthly meetings.

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