Beyond the Banyan Trees
Sangsan Pattana 7-12

“You little brat!” shouts an old wrinkled lady as her 12 years old grandson tips over from his motorcycle and shatters all the items from her grocery bag. “What kind of driving is that? How are we supposed to pay for all those things on the floor?”

The boy picks up all the shattered eggs, meat, vegetables, and some candies from the concrete pavement.

“I’ll tell uncle Pu then,” yells the boy as he walks back towards the local grocery store.

“Hell no! You drop the stuff yourself and you should take….”

“I’ll be back,” says the boy.

A few minutes later, the boy walks back with a full bag of grocery like nothing has ever happened to it.

“So what? Did he give it to you for free again? We’re not on welfare you know,” says the grandma as she continues to pillory him.

“No, I paid him. It’s half of the price,” says the boy as he turns away from the critical gaze of his grandma.

It’s now late in the afternoon. Two young men are playing soccer in an outdoor playground surrounded by fences. Several leggy teenage girls are hanging out in front of Pu’s shop; talking on their cellular phones. I enter the shop and grab a can of ice coffee from the freezer.

“How much is this?” I ask.

“15 baht,” says Pu as he liberally applies white herbal powder on his chest and neck area. “It cools you down in this hot and muggy day, you know.”

“Ice coffee helps too,” I say; pealing off the tin lid.

“How’s the business these days?”

“Bad. But survivable. People don’t buy things as much; only the teenagers spend money here. They come here to learn computer; you know we have an excellent computer center here.”

“You’ve been here long?”
“Yeah, ever since we moved here from lock 7-12; maybe 5 years ago,” says Pu with a frown.
“Lock 7-12?”
“Yeah, why? Know anyone who still lives there?”

“Do you know Chai, the thin man?”
“Of course, I know him.”
“You do?” I say while grabbing a small table in front of the shop.
“Oh yeah, I know him alright. His son is here with his grandma, that old grumpy lady.
He just came minutes ago to ask for free eggs and meat,” he laughs.

“He flattens the whole grocery bag when his motorcycle flips,” I report.
“Oh, well accident happens; it’s not his fault, you know,” he shrugs.

There is a break of silence as I sip my ice coffee; slowly cooling myself down through the process of convection.

“Where’s the computer center?” I ask.

“Right across from the alleyway.”

I gulp whatever ice coffee that is left in the can and thank the shopkeeper. As I get up from the plastic chair, a large six-wheeler truck appears in the middle of a small alleyway to make a turn. It’s a large truck and requires some time to maneuver itself away from the intersection. The driver is an old man with a weathered face and a full head of white hair. He sported a political sticker on the side of his truck which read: “THAKSIN, WE MISS YOU.”

It is strange that so many poor folks look up to this billionaire Prime Minister who is now in exile. Next to the struggling six-wheeler truck is a large lottery stand; so large that one wonders why there is so much demand for lottery in this place. Behind the lottery stand is a large building with dark storefront windows; a sign in front of it read: SANGSAN PATTANA COMPUTER CENTER.

I enter the air-conditioned computer center and find a large bulletin board on the wall. It outlines the entire history of this community; starting from their origin at the Klong Toey seaport (1). I glance at another wall near the bathroom and find a large poster board which reads:

RULES OF THE COMMUNITY

1. MEMBERS MUST TAKE CARE OF THEIR FAMILY SO THAT THEY ARE FREE OF DRUGS.

2. DO NOT PLACE OR PLANT THINGS ON THE WALKWAYS

3. MEMBERS SHALL VOLUNTEER, ON A ROTATIONAL BASIS, AS GUARDS FOR THE COMMUNITY.

4. MEMBERS MUST FIND WAYS TO TAKE CARE OF THE GARBAGES

5. THE FRONT OF EACH HOUSE MUST BE PLEASANT TO LOOK AT; PLANTS AND TREES ARE ENCOURAGED. AND MEMBERS SHOULD HELP EACH OTHER CLEAN THE WALKWAY AND STREETS.

6. MEMBERS MUST PARTICIPATE IN COMMUNITY MEETINGS AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH.

7. MEMBERS OF THE COOPERATIVE MAY TRANSFER HIS RIGHT AND TITLE DEED TO ANOTHER IN THE EVENT OF DEATH. IN ALL OTHER CASES, HE SHALL NOT TRANSFER HIS RIGHTS AND TITLE DEED TO ANYONE EXCEPT THE COOPERATIVE.

8. MEMEBERS SHALL PLACE BRIGHT LIGHTS INFRONT OF HIS HOUSES AT NIGHT.

9. EACH HOUSEHOLD MUST CLEAN THEIR PETS REGULARLY.

10. CARE SHOULD BE TAKEN WHEN RIDING MOTORCYCLE. DO NOT MAKE UNUSUALLY LOUD NOISES.

“Hi, can I help you?” asks a young lady who I taken to be the teacher here at the computer center. The students – mostly kids and teenagers – begin to arrive at the center.

“Hello! I wonder if you teach adults here?”

“Oh yes. We have the adult class at night,” she says; picking up a piece of paper from the bookshelf and hands me the class schedule. The syllabus runs from 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM everyday – even on Sunday. There are 7 courses listed on the syllabus:

1. MICROSOFT WORD
2. MICROSOFT EXCEL
3. INTERNET
4. BASIC COMPUTER
5. MICROSOFT PUBLISHER
6. MICROSOFT ACCESS
7. MICROSOFT OUTLOOK

“Are you interested in taking a class?” she asks.
“No, I’m more interested in what made you come to teach a class here!”
“Me? Well…I just want to make a difference,” she smiles.

“You sound like a Miss Universe pageant,” I comment.
She laughs and says that she got inspired by The Gang of Angels.
“Have you heard of them?”

“Sort of; they operate in the southern provinces though,” I observe.

“Exactly, I read about them in the news. They’re just teenagers, you know,” she says.
“Yet they make history...”

Suddenly the door slams shut; an unruly kid appears. He is the same boy who has tipped his motorcycle earlier and crash landed his grandma’s grocery.

“Hi Sek!” says the young teacher. “Did you do your homework?”
“No.”
“Are you taking the excel class today?”
“No.”
“What do you want then?”
“My letter,” demands the boy.
“What Letter?”
“The letter from my mom; you know what I mean!”
“Well, I’m sorry but I don’t think there’s one this week,” says the young teacher.

The boy turns away from the teacher and left the room without closing the door; a gush of hot air rushes in from the outside.

“Where is his mom?” I ask

“She lives in Germany,” says the young teacher as she silently looks me in the eye. “Once in a while, she sends money for Sek.”

“What about his dad?”

“He lives in Lot 7-12 at the seaport where there’s a large Banyan tree; he comes here every once in while, but his health is failing though. He has gotten very thin lately. He was actually among the people who were eligible to move here….but then his wife left with this German guy, so he gave up the plan.”

“The thin man.....” I utter.

She looks me in the eyes – surprised - without saying anything. “You know him?”

I let her question rests unanswered as the image of the thin man and his lonely face and his dried up eyes overwhelmed my senses. The sun is setting; a dark silhouette of a stooping Banyan tree can be seen against the orange sky.

(1) In 1952, the Port Authority had built row houses for its workers; they were divided into 12 lots; each lot had a 2-story rooming house with 18 rooms in it. As the city expanded, a larger pool of labor force was needed. So the port workers invited many of their relatives from the villages to join them in their row houses. Soon the 12 row houses were filled; and the newly arrived workers planted their own houses out of whatever material they could find around the area – scrap wood, thatch roof, and cardboards.

The new detach houses soon filled up the entire 7.2 hectares port area. The new houses did not have electricity or running water; they had to buy their utility from the port workers who lived in the original row houses. The waterways around the canals started to deteriorate creating a breeding ground for various diseases in addition to the foul stenches.

In 1978, the Housing Authority tried to solve the crowded conditions around the seaport by building 2,098 units of housing in the form of high-rise flats. After families had moved up to the flats, new squatters arrived to fill in the vacant space. In 2000, as the Port Authority became a limited company, the land - where the squatter lived - was leased to private developers. The Port Authority successfully moved a few hundred households of squatters to the Wacharapol suburb, 10 Kilometers away. It was not a successful endeavor; the site was too far from the city where most people worked. After a period of several months, most of the families moved back to the port, again as squatters.

In 2003, the Community Organization Development Institute (CODI) helped the squatters negotiated a land lease with the Port. They all agreed to move to a nearby 2 Acre land. The Port Authority had agreed to do a month-to-month land lease for 30 years. The squatters pay 1.25 baht per meter square each month for their land lease.

The Port Authority and CODI helped 114 people resettled into this new land. These people were originally part of a saving group which over the year had amassed 1 million baht in saving. They used this money to build their new houses on this site. CODI, in addition to providing architectural services, gave the squatters 16.6 million baht in housing loan (with 2% interest rate) and a grant of 9.3 million baht.

Most of the houses in the area are 1 to 2-story houses which cost 170,000 to 220,000 baht each. The net usable area is between 42 to 91 square meters per house. The folks pay 1375 to 1600 baht per month in loan payment; depending on the size of their houses.