Wan di, wan mai di (part 8)

Two maids work in the condo, both from Laos and both illegally in Bangkok. Grandmother doesn't really care about that. It is cheaper because you do not have to pay taxes on illegal immigrants, nor their visa and work permit.

The risk is of course that one of the two will come into contact with the police. According to grandmother, Leiden is still not in trouble because her son-in-law is a police officer.

Noi (I guess early 40s) likes sum tam pala, a salad with the well-known, sweet-smelling fermented fish. My wife also likes it from time to time, but after eating Noi's som tam pala twice (Noi makes the som tam pala herself) and having visited the toilet almost continuously for a few days, she is a bit there from coming back, or better: from being healed.

Noi is married to a long-haired, scruffy-looking Lao man who occasionally drops by. He also works in Bangkok, but they live almost separately. I do not understand that. I would - once married - want to live daily with the woman I love. And: what does your future, or rather the joint future, look like?

Well, apparently people aren't worried about that. Who then lives who then cares. Tomorrow is tomorrow and the coming weekend is already looking far enough ahead. And life can also change just like that.

Toi and Toi's brother

This is evident from the life of Toi, the second maid. She has been working for grandmother for a long time and went back to Laos a few years ago to take care of her sick father. She can handle grandmother's strange behavior and also responds to her, especially when grandmother does or wants to do stupid things, and that is quite often. And curiously enough, grandmother can take more from Toi than from her (adulterous) husband.

A few weeks ago, on a late Friday afternoon, Toi came to our condo to talk to my wife. From the tone of the conversation, the look and the posture of Toi, I could tell that this was a serious matter. At first I thought it was the representative of the electricity company who wanted to cut off the entire condo because grandmother is months behind on payments.

That was the case last year, exactly when grandmother – just like now – was on holiday in South Korea. No, this time I could just keep watching TV during the weekend. The conversation was about Toi's brother. I didn't even know she had a brother, but anyway.

Toi's brother is also illegal in this country. He works in Ratchaburi, 30 years old and is in love with a Thai girl of 19 years old. The Thai's mom and dad don't like it: their Thai daughter with a Lao man. Daughter knows that. Last week they ran away from home together.

The girl's parents saw their chance to get rid of Toi's brother and immediately called the police. He found the couple and locked Toi's brother in the police station because he is in Thailand illegally. However, the couple in love indicated that they wanted to get married.

Now it will be interesting, the parents thought, because in the case of a marriage there has to be sin sod being paid. But yes, Toi's brother has no baht to make, besides the fact that the parents of the Thai tarmac in several telephone conversations with Toi do not tell them exactly how much money they want. Toi has some money but most likely not enough because the parents smell money, even from a distance.

After all, if the brother officially marries his daughter, he can get a visa to stay here because he is married to a Thai. But first he will have to return to Laos because he cannot present a passport or identity card, and therefore no valid visa. And: the fine he has to pay for his illegality (if he wants to stay out of prison) could well be much higher than the sin sod.

The girl's parents have maneuvered everyone into an almost impossible situation. At first they tried to get rid of Toi's brother as a future son-in-law by calling the police, and now they smell money. But: Toi's brother first has to go back to Laos after paying a fine (and therefore cannot pay sin sod in the short term) and Toi cannot hand over the money SHE has to the girl's family (and also her brother in not visit the police station) because then she herself will be caught.

In the meantime, Toi's brother has been put across the border with Laos and is thinking about returning to his beloved in Ratchaburi. He did not have to pay the police anything. Apparently the rule also applies in Thailand: you cannot pluck from a bald (Lao) chicken.

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.