Wan Di Wan Mai Di: Noi (Part 1)

Chris regularly describes his experiences in his Soi in Bangkok, sometimes well, sometimes less well. All this under the title Wan Di Wan Mai Di (WDWMD), or Good Times, Bad Times (his mother's favorite series in Eindhoven). 

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I am 100% sure that if my neighbor Noi lived in the Netherlands, she would be treated and/or supervised by various government agencies. The GP and the debt restructuring are two of them. Now I'm pretty crazy myself so I can have something. And also in the past I have experienced the necessary with neighbors.

In one of the places where I lived in the Netherlands (will not mention the name) I lived next to a family (Dutch man, German woman, a son and a daughter) who at first (and even second) look normal. looked out. But appearances are deceiving.

During the summer holidays she always went to Switzerland with her son and daughter, where she stayed for about 5 to 6 weeks in a kind of religious commune, say sect. I can still remember a year when she went before the start of the summer holidays and her children who were still in primary school had to travel alone to Switzerland by train. She never told what happened there, but the children came back with strange stories: sexually tinted initiation rituals, almost no men but many women, torture of animals. I'll spare you the details. Father stayed at home and in the meantime enjoyed himself with another, younger woman who was his colleague. Together they regularly visited SM clubs. I know that because the neighbor once asked me if I wanted to come along. Well no. I wasn't that pleasantly disturbed either.

The neighbors got divorced and the high school kids stayed (at their wish, I think) with dad. Long story short, over time I got the impression that the father was sexually abusing his daughter. Finally I called the confidential doctor in my area who had already had several calls about my neighbors. But: the family had already changed GPs twice (and the current one could not confirm the story) and the father worked in a high position in the judiciary. In short: it could take a while before an effective action was taken. The children were the victims.

In my soi in Bangkok, the neighborhood solves the case of Noi itself. This is also necessary if professional help is not available. Her biggest problem is gambling addiction and linked to it borrowing money in many people and a chronic, actually daily lack of money. Coupled with a mentality of rather lazy than tired, that is a disastrous mix. She has agreed with a number of people in the building to repay part of the loan every day, but she often cannot keep her promise. My wife and I have not lent her money for a long time. Of course we are the 'bitten dogs' and she doesn't fail to send hundreds of LINE messages to other residents how bad we are.

When my wife saw some of these messages on another resident's mobile phone about three weeks ago, the soi, which is already small, was too small. My wife raised her voice in the soi and made it clear to Noi, who was sitting outside the door of her condo, that she doesn't like that, that she's a "strawberry" (which seems to be a term for a badass; strange for us Dutch people) and that – if she has something to say about her or me – she can do so directly. She has my wife's mobile number.

Since the day of this collision, Noi has not left the house. She's locked herself in her condo. My wife likes it that way. She calls a befriended moped taxi driver every morning to bring her breakfast from the 7-Eleven. She usually has lunch and dinner with two different men who not only bring her food, but also their semen and their money. Lunch is with a (married) pick-up mechanic from the company Isuzu, dinner with an (of course also married) independent entrepreneur in computers and accessories. They play the macho hero, Noi counts the money. But instead of immediately paying off her creditors, she uses an important part of the money to buy state lottery tickets. Or - when it's dark - she grabs a taxi that takes her to one of the illegal casinos in the area under the illusion that this is her ultimate lucky day. After four years I know better. It's only going downhill.