Doing the best we can?

Bangkok shortly before curfew, at least in the seedy parts of town I pass as I get from home to work and back, is a forlorn place. Shops are closed, and public transport is out. Kids zip about on motorbikes, pointing at the white face.

Taxis have taken fright. Few ply their trade at night, but they started disappearing even before a curfew was declared for the first time several days ago.

I avoided them even before the curfew regime, as my taxi route home would have taken me past a fortified encampment set up by the red shirts. On foot, I was able to cut across railway lines, over fences and past overbridges unseen.

The city cut the lighting, plunging streets into darkness. But never mind. I still felt safer left to my own devices than having to trust anyone else.

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I am finding it hard to forgive Thais for what they did. The charm has drained away from this place...whatever it is that keeps me living here took a beating over the past few days of violence, senseless looting, and arson attacks on city landmarks.

Artistic types have started a campaign to bring back Siam’s smile. Actors and singer pose [link harvested - it died] before a director’s camera as they tour the wreckage of Silom, like birds picking over a discarded meal. Good luck to you – I won’t be heading there for a while yet.

However, I admire the fire-fighters, medics and so on who had no choice but to venture into that war zone while the fighting was raging.

I admire even more the unsung street cleaners, utilities men, builders and so on who will have to put the place back together again.

Most of all I have praise for the soldiers, even if some of them wore shooting at random. Many are just kids, serving out their time as conscripts.

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Ball and family have been away for the last two days. When the red shirt leaders surrendered on Wednesday, extremist elements in their ranks went on a rampage, setting fire to prominent buildings – symbols of the city’s establishment and its elite.

Among their targets was the local electricity company. Power to Ball’s slum was cut. When I dropped in to their place in mid-afternoon, the place was in darkness.

Mum and other members of the household were hurriedly packing their things, ready to evacuate to her own mother’s place about 10min away.

On the first day over there, they busied themselves laying floor tiles. They stayed a second night, and again yesterday. Mum mentioned something about her eldest son, a soldier, paying a visit.

‘We are sleeping tops and tails,’ she told me last night. ‘Ball and his elder sister are sleeping with me,’ she said.

Space sounds as much at a premium at her mother’s place as it is her own.

On the night before he left, I spoke to Ball, who was drunk. He asked me why I spend so much time with him, and so little time with my boyfriend.

‘I think you are lonely and bored,’ he said.

True...I am. In the absence of his family, I have spent the last two days at home with Maiyuu, which was dull if bearable. Thankfully, I am still working, or I would have gone spare.

The next night, when I called his mother, he was drinking again. He could not remember any of our conversation the day before, which is typical.

He’ll be back today. I am working, but will drop in at some point.

I am not used to being absent from Ball and his family for so long, and wonder if we can slip back into our old habits as easily as before.

Idle-taxi driver Lort stayed at home. Two days ago, I dropped in to their place to see him. He was sitting idly on the couch.

The power had just been restored, after a wait of more than 12 hours. Dog shit and other detritus had piled up in the alleyway outside.

An uncle figure who helps the family occasionally takes a broom to the rubbish in the alleyway. I doubt Lort has ever lifted a broom in his life.

If slum families are failed families, Lort is part of what holds this one back from doing any better.

Even in the lead-up to the government’s crackdown this week, some Westerners were comparing Thailand to a failed state.

So, what elements do a Bangkok slum family, and Thailand’s ‘failed state’ have in common?