The cook found them at the side entrance just before dawn, when you could still make out the stars: Six-year-old Fon, her mum and our ferocious, slum-born, street-wise guard dog, all curled up asleep together. The "ferocious" guard dog, by the way, in spite of all training to the contrary, welcomes strangers; the more shabbily they dress, the more friendly he becomes. 

A single, rather large, brown-furred, black-winged fruit bat came swooping, screeching out of the sunset sky like it was making a bombing run over the Pai Singto slum on New Ratchadapisek Road. No one had ever seen anything like it. 

Everyone who meets her even once says “Wow!” What a special child! She’s precious and precocious. But with lots of catching up to do. Lots and lots. She's gone through many a bad patch.

He was an old drunk who had sobered up as much as he could. He still swayed a bit, I think mostly out of habit. He hadn't cried in years, but

No poor slum kid was ever more deserving of a break than Pim, and after another narrow escape it looks like she's going to make the best of it, writes FATHER JOE MAIER

Four years on the six Klong Toey boys who came into the clutches of foreign paedophiles are still faced with the daily choice of either seeking out oblivion or fighting to regain some dignity, writes FATHER JOE MAIER