Wan di, wan mai di (part 5)

Until about six months ago, Porn and her husband, the taxi driver Joe, lived above us on the second floor (for Thai: the third floor!). Porn is a housewife and I think watches TV or movies all day. Her husband Joe runs a one-man taxi business. The taxi is his property.

Joe is a good-looking man, in his early 40s (I think), always wearing a well-ironed shirt, fashionable jeans and always smelling 'hom'.

When he lived here with Porn, I could see that he started work in the afternoon and drove into the night. Apparently he's not a morning person.

Porn is his third wife with whom he is married (or rather, lives with). I don't know where his two previous marriages ended, but I do have a suspicion. Joe does like women, especially if they are a bit larger than average on top.

This description also fits Porn. She has a somewhat stocky build, doesn't really have a pretty face, but when she buys a new bra, she has to look at the larger sizes. Joe likes to hold on when he makes love. That became apparent in recent months.

Grandmother had a maid from Laos who had some breast size a bit like Porn. This worker went back to Laos because her father was ill. She asked grandmother if she could come back in due course and told in passing that the main reason for this wish was Joe. She had an affair with him, she loved him and she said it was mutual. On further questions from grandmother, the charwoman revealed more details.

During her working hours, Joe sometimes came by to make love to her (somewhere in grandmother's house) and that sometimes happened at night when he came home from work, before going to his own condo. Grandmother was in all states and told Joe to wait. He had to pack his things and she gave him notice of the rent. Joe tried to calm things down, but it didn't help.

Grandmother told Porn that she had given them notice because her husband was "doing it" with her maid. Joe swore it was all lies and Porn believed her husband, despite his two previous failed relationships. They moved out of the condo and now rent a condo in a newer condominium building further down the soi. With their dog of course.

Porn loaned Kob 100.000 baht from the laundromat to gamble. Because Kob's lover no longer wanted to support her, Porn and Joe now have a hole in the family's savings of 90.000 baht because Kob still gave back 10.000 baht. Joe didn't know anything at first, but Porn of course had to confess the story. (By the way, my Thai wife is certain that this is a punishment from the Buddha for Joe's adultery)

Joe now leaves in his taxi in the morning and comes home late at night. Porn tries to find a job and make some money in other ways. One of them is that it has set up a kind of savings/loan cooperative for private individuals. I don't understand - even after explanation - exactly how it works. The essence is that 10 to 15 Thai deposit 1000 baht every month, creating a piggy bank. After a few months there will be about 100.000 baht.

It is not about the interest on this money through the bank account, but if one of the depositors needs money (for example to buy a flat screen or a mobile phone), he/she can borrow money from the pot (the savings cooperative) at a fixed interest rate that considerable, but many times lower than that of the so-called 'loan sharks'. The interest goes back into the pot, so remains the property of the members of the depositors club.

What can go wrong in this country (and does sometimes go wrong) is that the linchpin of the club, the treasurer, runs off with the whole pot, without leaving an address or a new telephone number. So you have to have a lot of confidence in the treasurer because there is nothing on paper.

When I first heard this construction, the name of the first cooperative (in the purchase of fertilizers, fodder and seeds, established in Aardenburg, in 1877) in the Netherlands immediately came to mind: “Well-understood self-interest”.

Chris de Boer

The condominium building Chris lives in is run by an elderly woman. He calls her grandmother, because she is both in status and in age. Grandmother has two daughters (Doaw and Mong) of which Mong is the owner of the building on paper.