An Accidental Village
Goa Seng Cooperative, Songkla

In 1960, General Sarit – Thailand’s most powerful strongman - had inadvertently stepped on a pile of shit while strolling on a beach. General Sarit got angry after he had learned that the excrement was of human origin. He also learned that there was a small fishing village near by. Fisher folks in the olden days did their private businesses on the beach after nightfall; they believed that the land they lived on is sacred and so should not be contaminated by human excrement.

Characteristically, General Sarit snapped his fingers and ordered the entire village out of the cape area - his trademark. The beach was swept clean in a matter of weeks; and the cape was then marketed for tourism. The unfortunate residents were hauled by 6 wheeler trucks into present day Gao Seng settlement near the market place and away from the beach.

“Shit happens,” says a fat lady as she chases away the afternoon flies on her front porch.

The fat lady sits on Gao Seng settlement which sits on the land belonging to the Treasury Department. It has a total 21 Rai (3.36 hectare). Since the majority of the population at Gao Seng were 80% Muslim, General Sarit had authorized that a mosque be built here. Such a mandate from General Sarit made the folks at Gao Seng feel that they had legitimate claim to the land even though they had no formal land title and deed until recently. The population grew over the years and now there are 2,365 residents or 436 households in the settlement.

Many people – like the fat lady - still remember that little incident with General Sarit; they remember the days when they had been kicked out into this new settlement. They are now in their golden years. But not all residents have such memories.

Fa, a sultry young woman in her early 20s, lives here too. She grew up with the fat lady in Goa Seng settlement since the 1980s. She is an adopted daughter of a fisherman who sells dry salted fish. Her aunt, Taew, is a local organizer who is rarely home and who often got in trouble with the authorities.

Fa has a small scar on the left side of her forehead; it was due to a childhood accident. When she was a kid, her adopted parents used to work during the day; leaving her alone with her adopted grandma – the fat lady. There were also many other similar accidents among young children at Gao Seng. Because most young parents in the community worked outside the community, they had no way to looking after their own kids.

To the right of the fat lady’s porch, is a childcare center. It was built by the folks in the community after too many accidents had befallen the kids who were home alone. A large multi-purpose room with high ceiling and colorful walls can be seen behind the hyperactive kids, screaming and shouting foul languages with no pretension.

Near the fat lady’s place are rows of houses with numerous photovoltaic panels and a series of small wind turbines on their rooftops; they were planted there by the energy department in 2003 as one of their pilot project to promote a self-sufficient community.

There is also large steel-framed shed. It’s now sitting idly as a storage, but during its more active years, it used to function as the community’s salt cooperative.

Salt was an essential ingredient for a community where a large chunk of the population consisted of fishermen. Fa’s adopted father also made and sells dry salted fish in the adjacent market. The co-op got started in 1990 as the residents felt that they should start producing salt on their own so as to cut down the cost of the middlemen. But they soon lost the battle as the middlemen struck back by cutting their own prices so that the salt co-op – with a smaller reserve fund – found itself irrelevant in the eyes of the consumers. It was abandoned after a year of operation.

A young man is standing next to the abandoned salt co-op. He has a CD in his hand and is speaking to the fat lady who is scribbling something in her accounting book. One can hear a loud background of Hip-Hop beat in the background.

“So you want to deposit 500 hundred baht, eh?” exclaims the fat lady.
“Yes madam,” says the young man.
“Why, did you just win a lottery or something?”
“No, no….some of my friends….”
“Gambling! You brats, now get outta here,” scolds the fat lady.
“Is Fa here?” asks the young man in a docile manner.
“No.”
“But isn’t that… her music?” says the young man as he points in the direction where a throbbing Hip Hop rhythm is emanating from Fa's room.

“Then why do you ask? If you want my permission to go out with her, forget it.”
“Well we’ll just have to elope then,” says the young man with a sly grin.
“Hell, that’s what she needs anyway,” suggests the fat lady as she turns away in annoyance. She tugs the 500 bill in an envelope and puts it in a large drawer. The young man waves goodbye to the fat lady as he walks away to find Fa.

I sit down next to the fat lady and light a cigarette. The fat lady told me that she is among the 6 people who are in charge of all the deposits to the community saving group.

The saving group got started in 1990 right after the salt co-op went out of business and the folks were being threatened with eviction. People felt that they need to regroup and get organized. The members held discussion every first week of the month. Today it has pooled together over 2 million baht in saving. Their efforts were facilitated by the 4 Region Slum Network – a country-wide network of housing activists. They helped the folks here set up the structure for the saving group which divided into 5 sections; each section had a number of volunteers working within it:

1. Deposit clerk: 6 people
2. Membership recruitment: 1 person
3. Loan and interest department: 2 person
4. Loan eligibility department: 3 person
5. Public Relation: 1 person

“Around the time we started to organize - I think it was in 1988 - the government wanted to clear out our entire village so that they could market the area for tourism, but the residents got together and formed resistance groups,” says the fat lady. “Thousands of people went to the provincial government to express their grievance. The provincial government said that tourism is inevitable and that it could only postpone our eviction date.”

“Tourism!” I ejaculate.

“Well hell, at least now we have our lease with the Treasury Department. But for over 30 years, we lived with a constant fear that the next morning, someone or some bulldozer could appear and wipe out everything we had.”

She says that sometime in 2003, several organizers within Gao Seng settlement managed to convince some 128 families to join the newly created collective housing program. It was administered through the Community Organization Development Institute (CODI). Since the folks here already had a saving group – an eligibility requirement – the process went by fairly quickly.

CODI managed to secure a renewable 30-year land lease from the Treasury Department. It also gave out 9.6 million baht in infrastructure subsidy and 21 million baht in housing loan - with 2% interest rate - to the cooperative. Solar photovoltaic panels, energy saving stoves, and small wind turbines were provided by the energy department in conjunction with the collective housing program. “It was cheaper to purchase solar photovoltaic panels than to run electric wire - and pole - to the settlement,” says the fat lady. Gao Seng settlement had then registered as a cooperative in 2003.

“Architects were sent to help us design out new houses,” says the fat lady.
“From CODI?” I ask.
“Yeah, and they were very young,” says the fat lady. “They were very careful when dealing with different groups.”
“Groups?”
“Well during the design process, our folks decided that we should divided into 33 separate groups so that we could work out our design more rapidly with the architects. Each group sent a representative or two to discuss things with the architects.”

“Is this the first time that you guys worked with architects?” I ask.
“No, in 1992 or 1993, I’m not sure; the UNDP sent some architects from Cambridge University to help us planned the storm drain system and walkways,” says the fat lady. “We were meeting with them every week; and to be frank, I think they just wanted to make sure that we didn’t spend their money on lotteries!” laughs the fat lady.

“So you had similar experience with the architects from CODI?”

“No, it was different. We were actually the boss this time. They were just there listening. Also, I don’t think they care too much how we spend the money. They were sort of, you know, just following our orders.”

“So you like to be the boss,” I observe.

“Hell yeah, and we built the houses ourselves too, with a very few outside subcontractors.”

“Participatory architecture,” I say.

“It was everywhere in the newspaper,” continues the fat lady. “We were their model project. Politically, I think the newly elected Thai Rak Thai party was still eager to get their votes in the south back then, so they supported CODI’s initiatives.”

“So things are working out fine,” I observe.
“Well, we actually have some technical problems now because not all the people had joined the saving group then,” says the fat lady. “It’s hard, and our cooperative is 2 years late in payment.”
“What payment?” I ask.
“The land lease, you know. We haven’t paid the Treasury Department for 2 years now.”
“Why not?”
“It’s the issue of free ride, you see. We have a total of 436 household, but only 128 households are part of CODI’s collective housing program. And only 150 households are paying their land lease dues. Since the cooperative cannot collect all the money required to pay the land lease, we still owe the Treasury Department 2 years worth of late payment,” says the fat lady as she attacks a fly on her coffee table with a roll of newspaper.

“But it’s still better than in the past where we’ve no security and tenure,” continues the fat lady as she leans back on her chair. “Nowadays, with the micro loans from CODI, we could sell dry salted fish in the market at our own price and to whoever wants to buy them. When I was young, the fishermen here didn’t even have their own boats, they have to rent them from the village headmen everyday. And when the fishermen finally caught their fish, they had to sell most of their catches – at a very low price – to the boat owners because they didn’t have enough money to pay back the day rent. Those who wanted to buy a boat had to take out a loan from the loan sharks, you know. And in the end, they would have to sell all their catches to the loan sharks at miniscule price. It was bad.”

The fat lady turns her head towards Fa's room. The sound of Hip Hop music has stopped; there is an unusual air of silence and calm in the area.