You are always where ever you need to be.

Jet-sip-lai, my current home, is not a place you’ll find listed in Lonely Planet.

Before moving to Bangkok I read Father Joe’s collection of short stories titled “Welcome to the Slaughterhouse”. The book is filled with anecdotes from his life in Klong Toey, Bangkok’s largest and oldest slum community. Many of the stories recall accounts of drug-addicted fathers, child abuse, elicit drug use, childhood pregnancies and families torn apart by HIV/AIDS. The district is made up of 50 communities and is home to over 100,000 people. Most of the residents are from regions outside of Bangkok and lack proper paper work, limiting their access to health care and other public services. Many live on less than a dollar a day and it’s common to see three of four generations all living together in the same lean-to shack. The neighborhoods are known as dangerous and at night you’ll be hard pressed to get a taxi driver who will take you here.

You could have read all of this anywhere, but if you come to jet-sip-lai you’ll see something completely different. These communities are bound together with respect and compassion; the people take care of each other.

My street is brimming with vendors grilling fresh fish and hunks of chicken over charcoal grills; smoke from the noodle stands lingers in the road. The neighborhood hums with the rich tonal language, strangers say hello and dogs, children, bicycles, motorbikes and cars share the mayhem of the road, all seamlessly weaving around each other like a choreographed dance. This is Thailand.

Every day I feel closer to this community. Everyday my neighbors cheerfully greet me, ask me where I am going, tell me I look pretty or that they like my nail polish, and they have even started learning a few words in English to say to me as I pass them on my morning walk to Mercy. In a neighborhood where you are an absolute minority and farangs ((foreigners)) are a very rare sight, being accepted, trusted and welcomed takes time. Respect begets respect, and after three months of big smiles, copious wais and sawadee ka’s, my neighbors call me by my name, smile and joke with me and have even taught the most adorable one-year-old boy, who mans my soi, to blow kisses my way.

Tonight, however, was the pinnacle moment of belonging. After homework help, the girls asked “Mom and Dad” to go out for noodles. There is a noodle stand on the corner of the road, right next to Mercy 2, that they had in mind, so off we went, our strange, special family, with the girls shouting Mommy and Daddy, down and around the soi. The girls joked that they get their hair from mom and Ben joked that they get dinner out from dad. Sitting at the single makeshift table adjacent to the noodle cart, I watched on as the girls tore through their bowls of steaming ramen, chicken and other assorted meats and spices.

The sun had set and the dark side street was busy as ever. I was distracted by all of the people jamming up and down this packed soi, and when I turned back to the group, as if appearing out of no where, a young girl, only seven years old, in her snug pajama shirt had come over to the table to join us. Her hair was pulled back in a long braid and her new adult teeth were just starting to grow-in. She was accompanied by her younger sister, only four years old, dressed merely in her oversized underpants, which looked like a white, cotton flotation device around her chubby little belly. Her ponytail stuck straight out of the back of her head, wrapped with 10 multicolored rubber bands. Both girls had jet-black hair and uncharacteristically big eyes. Ann, being an instinctive big sister, ushered the girls onto the bench beside her. The seven year old was quiet and avoided eye contact, unlike most of the children running around this neighborhood who will climb all over you, chat you up and follow you home in a heart beat. She sat with a bowl of noodles, taking one bite for herself and then feeding the next spoonful to her sister. Neither spoke, but the younger, more curious sister, stared at Ben and I with her large, round chestnut eyes. Soon it became a staring contest, yet the girls never smiled or said a word. It was an inquisitive, honest stare. Ann started asking them how old they were, and offering them some of her dinner. The oldest spoke in a whisper, always conscious of the little nugget by her side. Ann offered the girls some of her sprite and they graciously took a few small sips, being sure to not take too much. When the noodles were finished, the big sister took the little one by the hand and they were gone, just as silently as they had arrived.

I tried to imagine myself seven years old and being responsible for feeding my sister dinner, alone, on the street. The two girls were the same age difference as Leanne and I. While I’m used to seeing unsupervised kids roam the narrow sois of my neighborhood, I have never seen girls, as young as they were, eating dinner alone. Ann’s soft voice and gentle words really touched me, as she is usually the wild, hyperactive one of the group. I glanced over at Ben. We were both so in the moment. Ben leaned over: “This is something so special. We are really a part of this community, this is not something that happens often.” There we were, two farang, sitting at a corner noodle stand in the heart of a Klong Toey slum, surrounded by these amazing kids. In that moment Ben and I knew we had truly become a part of this neighborhood.

I am so proud of our kids. They wake up at 4AM every day for school, come back to Ben and I for homework help until dinnertime and never have a break. Weekends are spent studying and doing extracurricular activities and all the while they are learning in a second language. The compassion they show to others and the way they take care of each other, especially considering what they have already gone through in their short lives, leaves me speechless.

On our walk home from dinner I had all three girls hanging on me, telling me stories and asking me questions. At one point, one of the girls turned to me and seriously asked me something that threw me way off track. It made me think about the future and what happens next, a thought that makes my stomach turn.

And in this moment I am happy.

What a funny, nonconventional family I have here. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

"Dad" and the girls.

xoxo

ABA