Emmy in the Rice Paddy: Preparing for the Flood

As some of you might know, Thailand’s Prime Minister Shinawatra has declared a State of Emergency due to the flooding that is ravaging Northern Thailand, and now has hit Bangkok. The rain is outrageous, I have never seen anything like this. (This is coming from someone who spent 4 years in rainy Ithaca!) It has been fascinating to see how a city prepares for a flood. Mounds and mounds of sandbags seem to be the most common approach. Today schools throughout Bangkok were closed due to the flood, and the Fulbright Program had to cancel our home-stay weekend, which many of us had been looking forward to, but we obviously understood! A few days ago, when everyone first heard that there was going to be the worst flooding Bangkok had seen in decades, the grocery stores were flooded with people (no pun intended). October 12, 2011 marks the day that Bangkok sold out of instant noodles. My roommate Andrea didn’t get the memo that there was going to be a huge flood, and returned from the grocery store with a soccer ball, a fairy costume, and a blow up pencil. (Props she had been meaning to buy for her future classroom). She said that every other person standing in the checkout line was carrying jugs of water, and looking at her like she was a crazy “farang” (Western foreigner).

It has been really inspiring to see other people helping each other. The past few days there have been tons of officials, and children, too, on the streets volunteering to help collect money for flood victims. So many people have been reaching for their wallets. I can’t help but think about the families who live on the canals that I saw just last weekend on a long-tailed boat ride. They have been evacuated, and their homes are surely flooded by now. In an effort to save the Grand Palace and significant monuments along the Chao Prayha River, the city has been channeling the flood to overtake the small feeder canals where many of the city’s poorest people live. I was at an outdoor market today when the flood hit. There are so many outdoor markets and street vendors in Bangkok. The street vendors’ livelihoods depend on selling food, clothing, etc. They can’t do their jobs for at least the next few days, and most of their goods from today were ruined. Everyone, whether directly or indirectly, is affected by the flood.

After the market was flooded out, my friend Kelly and I followed some Red Cross workers through the downpour to the nearest hospital to volunteer for flood victims. We entered the hospital and it was packed. However, it wasn’t packed with flood victims; it was packed with people waiting to donate blood. Kelly and I were led to a top floor where we were assigned the job of putting labels with emergency phone numbers onto food pouches. There was a really sweet high school boy who was working there as part of a service component for his international school’s IB program. His English was better than mine. He was asking Kelly and me all about the admissions process for American universities, and he taught us some hip Thai phrases! His mom showed up, helped with the labels for a half hour, and then invited us to dinner with their family! There were six of us total, and we left the hospital for the family's favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant in two cabs. The mom had her youngest son ride with us so we wouldn't get lost or separated. When our cab pulled up to the restaurant, her oldest son ran to the driver's window and handed him money for our ride. It was extremely generous! At the restaurant they ordered a feast of different Thai foods for us to try, including pork neck, liver, papaya salad, and “laab”- don’t ask me what was in it but it was delicious. She wouldn’t let us pay for anything, and even ordered us coconut ice cream, because we had never tried it, for dessert. We barely knew each other. I don’t know their names. This is the kind of sincere generosity that I’ve found in so many of the Thai people I have met; they are simply kind, without expecting anything in return. It is a way of life. I hope that someday I can do the same for someone else. Today marks my two-week anniversary in Bangkok, and it has been my most meaningful day yet.