Slum people always rebuild their homes after fires. Always. And as quickly as possible. I’ll tell you why in a minute. First, let’s revisit the Tap Gaew slum the day after the fire.
You could still smell the fire as you approached. The families that had been burned out were camped temporarily next to an entrance to the expressway that ran overhead. They sat on mats surrounded by whatever possessions they could save. For several of the homeless, the first item they grabbed on their way out was their electric fan. They also had piles of clothing and a few TVs. One boy was playing a guitar.
Some of the main walkways are of concrete and these survived, making it possible to walk between what used to be thirty-one houses, now burnt to their pilings. Not much left was identifiable. A twisted bicycle here and there, scorched gas cylinders, metal pots and pans. There were a couple of refrigerators—symbols of relative wealth. (Most slum people buy their food on a day-to-day basis and even if they didn’t, they couldn’t afford one.) Several TV sets were strewn about, their guts smashed in. There was a smoldering couch that had been dragged out of one of the shacks onto the barren railway land flanking one side of the slum. There was a dead dog too, its charred remains in a heap. Somebody’s pet, gone.
A hose was hooked up to pump water into the walkways where the moms could wash their children. Some people might think that Bangkok slum people are dirty. It’s not true. They are as meticulous about their hygiene and personal cleanliness as anyone else, and Thais are known for this. They bathe frequently. So even if the house is gone, the daily bath is not.
In the Tap Gaew slum on the morning after the blaze, many folks who had been burned out were poking in the ashes with long metal rods. There must have been thirty or forty of them, industriously digging for… (Can you guess?) Gold.
In their haste to escape, many folks had left their gold chains and amulets behind—hidden under a floorboard, or someplace else they thought safe. Now, after figuring out exactly where their homes had stood and remembering the precise spot they had stashed their gold, they went searching.
One woman struck pay dirt, literally. She stood up from her bent-over crouch and shouted out in triumph, clutching a mess of melted gold in her hand.
There was to be a meeting in our neighborhood kindergarten because it had the biggest room still standing. The men and women arrived late in the afternoon to talk about what they could do. Some of those at the meeting had been through a fire before but most had not. The railway land beside their homes was an unused bit of urban wasteland. The longer they remained camped under the expressway and delayed rebuilding, the harder it would be to reclaim the original slum site. Everybody wanted to rebuild immediately.
You have to understand something about the slums: they are not always places people want to leave. Given a choice between living in Tap Gaew or in one of the nice “uptown” neighborhoods, there is no question. But it’s not a question of choice. Slum people get used to their own community. They form established neighborhoods that have a cohesive integrity. Some slums in Bangkok have been home to families for three consecutive generations, and more or less happily.
This is where we get back to why it’s important to rebuild rather than relocate, or be relocated. Everything material was gone, except for the few items saved on the way out of the flames, making it even more important to hold on to the social structure. If people continue to send their children to the same schools, if they continue to take the same bus routes to their jobs, if they continue to shop at the same slum stores, if they continue to see the friends and relatives with whom they have lived and shared a place in their community, then the psychological damages are diminished and their chances of rebuilding their homes and maintaining their livelihoods are far greater.
At the meeting, they were told that the new houses probably would be smaller than their old ones, and that it would take a year, maybe even longer if they had to fight additional red tape, before they could rebuild on their original sites. It would not be easy.
One of the men stood up to ask if they could be arrested if the building was illegal. Another in attendance said that if anyone was arrested, everyone—absolutely everyone in the slum, moms and babies too—was to go to the police station and surrender, confessing identical guilt. In that case, they all decided, that just before they arrive at the station, the moms would give their children plenty to drink and as much sticky candy as they could eat, so that the smallest children will end up peeing on the station floor and leaving messy handprints on the police officers’ trousers. Someone then suggested bringing along puppies too, so they could pee on the floor as well. The room exploded in laughter.
We’ve used the same and similar tactics over the years in rebuilding hundreds and hundreds of homes after fires. During the past three decades, there has been an average of two large slum fires every year, sometimes three, and in almost every case, the people left homeless have rebuilt.
Ironically, in this case at least, the government will be helping to pay for the rebuilding. If the land under the burned-out slum has any value, the government will reclaim it for development, if for nothing more than as a parking lot for government trucks. But there is also a program in existence that provides for people made homeless by fires—30,000 baht for each family that “owned” a house (legally, owning a house is different from owning the land beneath it) plus a small sum to each tenant. The idea behind this is to help the victims rebuild their lives.
The homeless victims in Tap Gaew decided to use part of this money, regardless of the government’s original intentions, to build temporary houses on the railway land, starting as soon as possible. It was a Thursday afternoon. The railway authorities who owned and administered the land would not be expected to do anything on Friday. That meant they had until Monday before the authorities could get organized. The plan was to have the new houses up and occupied by Monday when the business day began.
Committees were formed. One would deal with the police and government authorities; another, distribute food and clothing donated from the private sector. A third committee concentrated solely on organizing activities for the children. One more was assigned to visit lumberyards the next day and retrieve cheap nails, wood, and corrugated roofing, much of it donated by a charitable organization. Loans were made and repayments promised as soon as the government could provide its mandated compensation to those left homeless.
The building material was delivered by Friday night and construction commenced right away. Dads, moms and children carried the wooden boards and bags of cement. Tools were loaned to the community. The nine-meter poles that were to be used as corner posts for the new homes were too long to be carried down the twisting walkways from the highway, so the men swam or waded across the swamp with the poles on their backs. All night and through the next two days and nights the slum echoed with the sounds of hammers, saws and drills.
Every slum has its slum carpenters—men who have worked in construction or who built homes in the past. They acted as foremen and told the others what to do. No one slept longer than a few hours.
The last home was ready to be occupied by 6:30 A.M. on Monday, just as the sun was coming up. The stench of the charred wood still hung in the air, along with the sweet smell of success.