Living an Isaan (Part 4)

The Inquisitor now has a unique opportunity to follow the average life of a small Isaan family. Sweetheart's brother. A typical Isaan life, the ups and downs, probably with the main question: how to build a life in this underprivileged region? Time for a sequel, The Inquisitor takes you to the past, in a modern age, in what calls itself a modern country.

An Isan life

The dry season still prevails, but little by little the heat is creeping in. Cool nights quickly turn into hot days, luckily there is some wind. That wind will cause quite a stir later in the day. After the morning ritual with cows and vegetables, Taai and Piak are dozing off on the terrace of our shop. Piak is very tired from his logging adventure, it was working from sunrise to sunset, then taking care of food, sleeping very uncomfortable in a self-made hut of branches and tarpaulins, lots of insects and snakes. But twelve hundred baht on three days makes up for it.

Diagonally across the street from the store, Luen, also an alcoholic freed by the monks, is burning down some dried-out weeds near his brother's house. That brother, Jaa, is working somewhere in Chonburi for a few months and Luen, a bachelor who lives with his old mother, is sleeping there for the time being. He likes it, there is a kind of karaoke machine that he uses frequently, also a kind of bicycle, with extra large and fat tires that he happily rides through the village. In return, he does the necessary chores on this typical Isaan house, built from surplus wood. But Luen is a dreamer. He leaves his smoldering fire for what it is and goes out.

Around noon, everyone is gradually starting to think about what he or she wants to eat, a stronger wind picks up. And shoot up the fire of Luen, the wind chases the flames over the neighboring barren paddy field. Still no one notices anything, after all they do nothing else this time of year : burning the fields. But the wind brings in too much oxygen. The flames rise high, and a few trees that provide shade also catch fire. Sparks are carried further towards forest. That also starts to burn, now everyone is starting to look a little concerned : it is a fairly large forest of a rich owner who could make problems about the loss of wood. Someone calls the fire department, well, here they call it the , 'water car'. It is always on standby somewhere for such things.

Only the is already busy somewhere else and they only have one. And typical for this time of the year : the wind gusts turn in the opposite direction. Everyone relieved, the forest has been saved. Only The Inquisitor is concerned, the fire is now heading our way. And yes, it goes faster than expected. Suddenly Piak remembers: his cows. They are grazing there somewhere, and nowadays he ties them tightly, given the lesson from last time. Sprinting he will catch the best, just in time. The flames go high, the dry material is excellent fuel. The fire is coming towards the street, you think this is a good barrier, but no. Sparks fly everywhere, Piak and De Inquisitor have to take precautions. Spraying everything wet is the message. No problem for De Inquisitor, he has enough garden hose and connections, but it is problematic for Piak. A single garden hose is not enough, the buckets of water that Taai cut down have little effect. But then rescue comes from a strange quarter.

The water pipe that has not been installed in the village for a long time consists of blue plastic pipe. Normally they stick them about fifty centimeters deep in the ground, but because we are on the edge of the village, those pipes are simply lying here in the -now dried-out- canals on the street side. The fire has now reached the trees and shrubs on that side of the street, and the heat is causing the pipes to burst open. Fountains of water spray everything wet, the fire quickly goes out and the shower of sparks stops. Moreover, the wind has turned again, the fire is moving deeper into the country, away from the houses.

Piak has damage. Some roof beams, because of wood in his house, have started to smolder and are now less stable. Taai's vegetable garden is partially scorched. Get started right away, recovery is the message. But that doesn't bring in any money, on the contrary. Fortunately, The Inquisitor has plenty of supplies of all kinds of useful things. Wooden beams, screws, ….. The young couple has to carry out repairs for the rest of the day.

Pi Pi had been taken to the grandparents before, so we sit together in the evening discussing the day's events. If you now think that an Isaaner will complain and whine about his problems, you are wrong. Piak no longer drinks alcohol, but Taai, liefje-lief and De Inquisitor take a solid Chang. Everyone is laughing because we all have black soot smears on our bodies. Liefje-sweet even has a scorch mark on her leg: she went to put out some nearby trees with buckets and fell on the smoldering grass….

Luen, the perpetrator, is also not bothered. He cheerfully told the countless spectators who passed by that everything is now ready for the new rice season. That he has only 'cleaned' a little. Sure. The Inquisitor's view is now black. Blackened trees. But no one here cares or is angry. No one to lecture Luen. Just an accident that ended well. OK then, The Inquisitor will adapt.

To be continued