Another walk brought friends and me to the other side of our development, to a klong-side community that has existed for over a century. As we walked, people smiled and waved, stopping to chat, and inviting us to see their flood defenses (Some worked, some did not). It was quite a dichotomy; leaving the dry middle class mooban and stepping literally only a few meters away through a door in the wall that divides it from a poor mooban in which everyone was dealing with the flood. It was sobering to think of how "we" (the "haves") have been anxiously wondering whether or not we will get any flood waters, and our neighbors (the "have nots") have been in it for at least two weeks, and expect it to get deeper. Our neighbors along the klong seem to be handling it better than any of us would, or will.
Working when you can, with what you can, on whatever you can build above the water.
Wooden planks across piled sand bags form a temporary walkway from homes to the main
elevated concrete walkway along the klong.
Potting plants will have to wait for a while!
Normally a quiet place to sit and chat with neighbors, it is now a place which offers
visitors a subject for photos.
The only place that remains dry is the community mosque
(I have always wondered where the calls to prayer were coming from).
These men greeted us and asked us--the two of us who are male of course--to have tea.
It's a guy thing.
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