More Flood Pictures

Childlren catching fish and crabs in the water that took over their village streets.

My Dear Readers,

I have received many requests to post more of the flood pictures that I took on my trip to the Bang Khae area. Many of the pictures show the devastating powers of the moss, sewage and fish infested waters of the khlongs. 

We visited the house of one of our school staff member's and his grandmother's. Joke told us that no matter how many sand bags they used or cement walls they constructed to keep the water out, their efforts were in vane because it seeped through the walls of the house. He was forced along with his family to evacuate and I am glad that his grandmother had not yet returned to see what had happened to her house or she would have been heart broken. Her house was old style and one had to walk down some steps to enter it, which meant that it would act like a giant indoor pool when water occupied it.

As I mentioned in my previous post, What an Attitude, the trip took a toll on my emotions but the people, their smiles and their warm inspirational attitudes gave me the boost to continue snapping pictures. During the whole experience, and although I took pictures of the damage done, I tried also to balance everything out and find some beauty in my surroundings.

Below is also the message that was sent to us thanking the team for providing them with emergency and food bags.

In Thai:

เรียน   คณะครู  นักเรียน โรงเรียนนานาชาติใหม่  และทีมจักรยานจากหมู่บ้านฟ้าปิยรมย์

ดีใจค่ะที่ได้รับน้ำใจจากกลุ่มคนกลุ่มเล็กๆที่เต็มไปด้วยพลังที่ยิ่งใหญ่ พวกเราทราบซึ้งในความตั้งใจอันแรงกล้าของพวกคุณที่ได้ส่งความช่วยเหลือมาถึงพวกเรา

ความช่วยเหลือของพวกคุณ  สามารถทำให้คนอีกมากมายได้มีกำลังใจในการใช้ชีวิตอยู่กับน้ำที่ท่วมขังต่อไป สิ่งของที่พวกคุณนำมาให้ทุกชิ้นมีประโยชน์ต่อพวกเรามากจริงๆค่ะ

      และขอขอบคุณทุกท่านอย่างจริงใจ

                    จาก      ผู้ประสบภัย

Translation:  

Dear teachers and students of the New International School of Thailand and the Biking team from Baan-Fah Piyarom village,

We are so happy to have been touched by such a small group of people with such big hearts. We are very grateful for your courage that has made you reach out to help us. Your help has given so many people hope to stay strong in this time of crisis. The things you brought for us have been very helpful to our community.

And we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

From,

The people of our village

The inside of a house in the village.

The streets of the village covered in garbage and dog poo. The person responsible for the village said that the government did not visit this village once to help out. 

One of the narrow allies in the village. As you can see it is impassable as it is filled with water and garbage.

I went walking while the others were waiting for direction on what to do next. I had to take a look at other places around the village. This run down house was adjacent to a well kept rich one that was protected from the waters by walls and hundreds of sandbags and plastic covers.

The Thais have a sense of humor. They chose to save this torn couch by placing it on top of the small bridge.

You can see to which level the water reached from the marks on this white wall.

The man was pumping the water off the streets and into a khlong near by. I could not help but snap the picture because of his bright contagious smile.

This and all the below pictures are form the inside of Joke's house. You can see a black boat floating in the background.

A beautiful garden... such a contrast between the bright pink flowers to the dirty water lying beneath their pot 'houses'.

The inside of the grandmother's house.

They tried to save as many of their belongings as possible placing them on top of table and basically anything that had legs.

Joke and his family kept geese in their backyard.