Volunteering for the flood victims (November 2011)

As you all know the 2011 monsoon season hit Thailand more intensely than usual. After spreading from the northern regions of Thailand along the Mekong and Chao Phraya river basins, the floodwaters reached further south and inundated parts of Bangkok in October 2011, right about when I got here. Until last month, January, the flooding persisted, luckily by now everything is back to normal. To put it in numbers; in Thailand alone more than 800 people died and millions were affected. Almost all of Thailand was declared a flood disaster zone and huge parts of the farmland got damaged. Every chat I had with locals in the beginning of my stay was at some point about the flood. I met people whose houses were entirely flooded, finding shelter at friend’s houses and temples, Thais who lost their jobs because the factory where they were working was inundated and all machinery left useless, but still carrying a smile on their face in Thai manner. In the city sandbags were stapled everywhere, concrete walls were erected to protect shops, car owners parked their cars on the sides of the city highways and everyone took precautions either leaving town or buying enough supplies to stay home resulting in a food and water shortage.

My house always stayed dry, but I wanted to help somehow. From a friend I heard of a possibility to help packing sandbags at the Metropolitan Water Authority that was in charge of delivering drinking water to more than 10 Million Bankokgians. I got the directions and went by myself to ask if they need a hand. Located in the outskirts of the capital I took the BTS to the terminal Mo Chit, followed by a 30minute taxi ride until we reached flooded streets and I had to hop on a moto-taxi to the industries site. My moto driver talked to the guards who referred him to a man driving a jeep who then took us to a little shelter where a volunteer camp was set up. The well organized camp consisted of around 20 volunteers and a few staff members, divided into groups carrying out different tasks: filling up water, drying water bags, stuffing a second water bag over the first one, sealing bags and finally packing boxes of water bags. Straight away a woman picked me up and told me which was to be my spot. For the next 6 hours I was sealing water bags along with 4 other people around my table. Apparently no other foreigner had come here before, as I later figured a few foreigners were at a different site packing sand bags. It was a very monotonous task and I was happy to get some distraction, talking to fellow volunteers, some of them university students with English skills. Later the afternoon the lady in charge informed me that the Thai minister of the Interior was scheduled to pay a visit and maybe wanted to have a chat with me. I kind of forgot about it until the whole camp became a hectic mess when suddenly cars and TV cameras showed up. Everyone carried out three tasks at once but tried to keep a calm face. You could feel the tension. The minister was shown around, had a sip of the water and was then lead to talk to me. Cameras in my face and a high-ranking Thai to my side I smiled nervously and mumbled answers to general questions: “What are you doing in Bangkok? How did you here about this camp?” When he was gone I wanted to get relief and share this experience by talking about it with the rest of my work group. However, a more personal chat about a topic, which involved a hierarchy/ political figure, was out of range. The next day I returned for another shift, taking along one of my housemates. (this happended in the beginning of november)

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