It’s been 82 years now, since my Baptism. Over 50 a Redemptorist Catholic priest,- known as ‘the slum priest, or the Catholic slaughter house priest,’ an honorable life-time in the Buddhist Klong Toey River Slum of Bangkok. Walking carefully on rickety wooden walk-ways hopefully showing honor & dignity to all I meet, as I think Jesus & His Mother Mary would. Me, a stranger, not born here,  accepted, tolerated, by the Buddhist & Catholic  poor, where I have stumbled along those slum walk-ways & through the Slaughter House. A salvage place drenched in mercy where only the lowest level of Thai society lives and works. Where our Catholics butcher pigs & water buffalo.  

The bad news is that twenty five slum houses burnt to the ground & six more mostly destroyed, but partially still standing, but really, nothing left, you can’t live in them.  Six of our kindergarten age kids who lived in two shacks with their grannies lost everything.  These are the kindergarten kids who grabbed their teddy bears, and dragged their crippled grannies to safety. Grannies ‘complaining all the way: “ now be careful, don’t fall down.”  Kids are staying happily in our school for a while. For them, it is an exciting adventure. There is  always room, & recently some good folks donated some mosquito nets plus  soft floor mats, & blankets, so we ‘are in business.’  Grannies staying  with cronies.

COVID TUESDAY  29 JULY 2021

Dear Everyone

  

FOLLOW THE FOOD – FOLLOW THE FOOD. WE MUST KEEP SLUM EDUCATION TOP PRIORITY ALIVE AND WELL. NO MATTER WHAT. BUT FIRST OFF FEED THE CHILDREN AND THEY SURELY WILL LEARN TO WRITE THEIR NAMES ‘PRETTY – LIKE’  ALONG THE WAY. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE DOING AND THAT’S WHAT WE WANT YOU TO HELP OUR CHILDREN WITH TODAY FOLLOW THE FOOD AND FEED THE KIDS SO THEY CAN LEARN EACH DAY TO WRITE THEIR NAMES PRETTY LIKE  AS SISTER MARIA FIRST TAUGHT THEM 49 YEARS AGO. 

 

 

A proper cup of tea (or even whiskey in the ‘tay’) as you might hear mentioned in a pub in Dublin)  to thank you in the name of our bedraggled Klong Toey 4, 5 & 6 year olds, their slum kindergartens closed now for over two months.  To thank you in the name of their grannies, who are both mum & dad for so many of them, plus the lucky few with real mums & dads, but now some dads, even mums leaving  home, leaving their kids once again with their grannies, having lost their jobs; looking for work, anywhere & everywhere.  

A proper cup of tea (or even whiskey in the ‘tay’) as you might hear mentioned in a pub in Dublin)  to thank you in the name of our bedraggled Klong Toey 4, 5 & 6 year olds, their slum kindergartens closed now for over two months.  To thank you in the name of their grannies, who are both mum & dad for so many of them, plus the lucky few with real mums & dads, but now some dads, even mums leaving  home, leaving their kids once again with their grannies, having lost their jobs; looking for work, anywhere & everywhere.