….well, it’s chosen but not confirmed so I will leave it unannounced for now.  But the book is at the ‘first draft’ stage.  We got ‘er done.  For the most part, anyway.  Still messin’ with some details.

The funny thing is that first draft really doesn’t mean much to us because we really just continue to ‘worry’ the content all the time until we can’t stand looking at it any longer.  First draft sort of morphs, evolves or grows over time to yield the semi-final draft.

Semi-final draft we give to others (beta readers) to critique.  If they are honest (they rarely are) then we can make improvements rather easily, polish it up, tie a ribbon on it and let her rip.  Semi-final draft becomes the beta version after beta readers have had their way, limited as it is, as a rule. When someone does say what they think – in detail – it is a real gift. That can save us a ‘stage’.

After beta version has gone out AGAIN and all changes are finally made, we get to call it Final Draft and publish it.  It is interesting to note that ‘completed manuscript’ is not part of our vocabulary and that’s because it is never really done.  Not for us.  Like a house you built yourself, you keep seeing mistakes and, over time you address them thus making the house (or the book) NEVER EVER REALLY FINISHED.

I am guessing that Sal made a change or two to the first book (electronically, of course, but that shows up immediately in the Kindle version and any later print runs if any later runs are warranted) as late as halfway through 2017.  That first book was published in January of 2015.  That’s two and half years of tinkering and, if someone told us of yet another typo, Sal would go back in again and fix it.  Seriously, a book is never done.  Not for us.

Well, CHOOSING could be considered finished if not done.  It is finished because we are not worrying it to death.  Not at all.  It was practically still-born anyway.  CHOOSING did not sell.  It is NOT a best seller, to say the least.  Beyond resuscitation.  No hope.  Goodbye.  A dead polly.

Too bad.  I liked CHOOSING, may it rest in peace.

This third book is not yet fully baked, hatched or born.  But all the DNA is in order, the limbs are formed and the due date is foreseeable.  We can feel the contractions. This little bundle of words will come.

“What is it?”

It’s a cheap B adventure featuring two old fools and setting the reader up for a series of geriatric adventures spread over a Hardy-Geezers-type series.  Marvel meets Metamucil.  The septuagenarian Jason Bourne and his silver haired biker-chick December Bride kick butt, solve crimes and go to bed early.

“Is it any good?”

Mediocre.  Classic cheap B flick kinda thing.  NOT good enough to get picked up by Ridley Scott or Tarantino but somewhat in the Thelma and Louise style.  If OUR LIFE was a C+ (it was not but I am saying it anyway) and CHOOSING was an F, then GEEZERS is a solid C.

“Should I buy it?” 

Absolutely.

We are three months away still, tho.

Being here is fun.  It’s good.  I like it.  A week is great; two weeks is good; a month is a bit long but that makes for a real break from the winter back home.  I am OK with a month. Two months and I am starting to feel a little homesick.  We are coming up on six weeks.

You can guess how I feel.

Admittedly, I am homesick for the ‘Spring, Summer and Fall’ version of home so I am being a bit unrealistic pining for home at this stage.  I understand it snowed yesterday.

I am not quite ready for that.

“So, what are you trying to say so poorly, Dave?”

Well, I don’t get it.  I just don’t get what makes ex pats live here.  Seriously.  To me, being an ex-pat is understandable if you lived in Scandinavia, England or Germany because, well, those societies are rule-bound, crowded as hell and winter can be harsh there, too. Plus the cost of living is high.  Ya gotta work to live in Europe and the USA.  Canada, too.  In Thailand, officially the least miserable country in the world*, you can work part time and live well.  Better yet, you can retire on a first world pension of even modest means and live well.  Economically it makes a lot of sense. But, sheesh……

It is still third world, here.  Open sewage, petty and some heavy corruption, madness, semi-lawless, prejudice against farangs.  Weird rules and procedures.  And VERY MUCH a different culture – so much so that ex-pat old-hands still just throw up their hands and explain a lot away by saying, ‘It’s Thailand and nothing makes sense here!’

The ‘old white-guy’ with the young Thai wife is really quite a victim when you look closely.  He’s the fly.  She’s the spider.  He can’t own anything.  He can’t work.  Everything belongs to her.  He can be booted on a whim by  her or by the government.  And love does NOT keep ’em together.  Business does.  And, sometimes, kids.

Thai education and culture does not – it seems – set them up for running a business.  Farangs are regarded as essential for running a good business.  Farangs of all persuasions are wanted but white ones are preferred because they are old and retired and have money and – guess what! – they treat their wives better than do the the other farangs.

No kidding.

So, we have all these old, fat 60+ year-olds sitting at their bars or cafe tables every day while the wife and family run around doing the work but that is not the real picture.  The real picture has them managing everything in the background and financing everything mid, fore and background from their house to the kids education, from the vehicles to the business.  They are truly being ‘mined’ by the government and the wife.

“Do you care, Dave?”

No.  You make your bed and you lie in it.  I get that.  But, without the satisfaction of meaningful work, without the satisfaction of a meaningful relationship and all that in a situation where everything is NOT yours and you CANNOT sell it, what is the appeal?  Throw in C30+ degree weather even IN THE WINTER (mid 40’s at other times) and I wonder how it is that any old, fat, white guy lasts a year here.

The only answer I have found is that, if they have kids, they love their kids. If they don’t, I don’t get it.

So, I asked Mateo.  Mateo is Italian.  Been here 20 years!  Mateo owns and runs Happy Pizza (well, his wife does) and he sits in the corner of the restaurant every day.  I asked him, “So, Mateo?  You Happy?”

Bear in mind, my question was just a little playful query based on the name of his restaurant.

“Yeah.  But what is happy, eh?  I live in Italy and I am not happy so I move and moving makes me happy.  But then I am not happy with the new place so I move again. I moved a lot when I was young.  Twenty years ago I move here to get happy but, instead, I get a family and a restaurant.  So, am I happy?  Is anyone every happy?  Or do we just look for happiness?”

“Bummer, Mateo.  Hey, I was just making small talk…..”

“You find what you find, ya know?  Capiche?  You see beauty when you come here.  You see lovely beaches.  I see everyday, ya know?  I see the restaurant business, I see the same people, I see the same food and the same weather.  What is beautiful to you is boring to me but I am happy, I guess.  Are you happy?”

“Pretty much.  So, Mateo…on another note…..”

“It is a joke, my friend.  Happiness is a joke, no?  You live.  You work. You die.  I no longer look for happiness, you understand?  I have found what is happiness and it passes.  Like life, ya know?”  

“Oh!  My pizza is here.  Gotta go Mateo.  See ya again.”

“Don’t forget to order your chicken for Friday, my friend.  Friday chicken is really good.”

“Thanks, Mateo.  I am glad you reminded me.  That makes me happy.  Sorry.  Put me down for half a chicken.  See you then”.

*Bloomberg puts out a ‘MISERY INDEX’ for various world economies (I think 65 or so).  Misery is measured by a a bunch of indicators but the two main variables are unemployment and inflation.  By that wretched metric, Thailand has been the world’s least miserable country four years running.  Canada, I seem to recall, is around the 12th or so least miserable.  The US worse than that.  Venezuela is the worst or MOST miserable. 

Imagine a fairly wide two lane road.  Two way traffic.  On the left side (they drive on the left in Thailand) there is a ‘fluid’ lane for scooters that is generally regarded as being on the left side of the single car lane. In other words, in normal traffic the lane is wide enough for both a scooter and a car to travel.  NOT safely but ‘safe enough’.

The ‘fluid lane’ is sometimes even marked like a bike-path might be but it is not marked on most roads, only the three-lane highways.

Because most roads in Thailand are divided by medians and barriers, that means that any scooter wishing to go the other way (legally) has to travel in the wrong direction for usually half a km and then cross lanes of traffic after making a u-turn and then, maybe having to do it all again to get back to the other side.  Expedience and blind faith long ago suggested ‘cheating’ for short return trips instead and there is a steady counterflow on the far, far left side of your lane for ‘cheaters’ going counter to you. In the scooter lane, you go by them (they are in counterflow) but it is their job to give you room.  Most of them do.  NOT all.

So you have a truck or SUV a smidge too close on your one side as you beetle along at 50 kms and you encounter scooters going the wrong way on your left side doing about 30kms.  They are to the left of your usually unmarked and fluid scooter lane.  Adding to the mix is a the occasional three-wheeled, 4+ foot wide, ‘working scooter’ used to carry materials and so the counter flow can require extra space now and then.  Put another way, the single-but-generous lane you thought you shared with the car is now shared by scooters going the opposite way.

And Thais will park anywhere they want to stop.  Even on freeways.  So the ‘parked vehicle’ is always in the scooter lane and the imaginary scooter counterflow path.  Parked vehicles are like venturis.  They constrict the traffic flow even further.

Of course, some scooters are slower than others and so the quicker ones will pass the slower ones and so the counter flow may have two scooters-abreast or a 3-wheeler coming at you while, at the same time, a scooter from behind decides to pass you (between you and the cement truck).  That means the generous single lane is often occupied by four scooters and a vehicle.  Sometimes a parked vehicle, too.  That can get a bit nerve-wracking.

I confess that I have managed to adjust to it all and the above melee is something we navigate all the time.  We are acclimating.  Sal screams rarely now and has even stopped holding on real tight.  My ribs have lost the grip-marks.

Two nights ago was the exception.  That night was sheer lunacy-on-wheels, mobile-madness, death-by-Honda.  It was chaos at maximum kms.  OMG!

It was Cha am market night.  They do the Hua Hin night market-thing on a smaller scale but only on Wednesdays. And, of course, they locate the market in a smaller, tighter space with only one way in and the same way out.  Traffic is unbelievable chaos.

And then they added something new to the mix.

We, of course, were deep in the 4-vehicle flow-lanes-in-one mode of driving when lo and behold, scooters started coming at us in the opposite direction from the opposite direction car-side of the lane as well.  It seems that scooter traffic going the other way, when thwarted by traffic jams will resort to simply driving in the opposite traffic lane.

That means our fellow SUV or cement truck has a pack of scooters coming right at him.

He’s not stupid nor does he have any moral qualms about crushing the fools but, of course, instinctively he encroaches a bit on our limited space.  And we squeeze the counterflowers on our left. We all have to tighten up so the maddest of scooter drivers can drive down the middle of the road.

Of course, our lane has mad scooter drivers too and so some of our guys do the same thing to their guys.  Now we have the most death defying phenomena ever: a flow and counter flow of death-seeking lemmings in the middle of the road where there is simply NO ROOM WHATSOEVER even if everyone on both sides tightens up. Worst case: FIVE lanes of scooters and a vehicle vs FIVE lanes of scooters and yet another vehicle passing in opposite directions, at speed, at night with some counterflowing on your left and your right but all in your lane.  All this in two official lanes.

And then they make it MORE interesting.

No one ever stays in their ‘fluid’ lane.  Even the SUV/truck has to turn now and then.  So the scooters are always moving and flowing between lanes jockeying for a quicker route to the night market’s BBQ chicken and hot sauce.

Thai traffic abhors an unfilled space.  If you are five cars back from the light but there is a crack of room for your scooter, you are obliged to take it and wend your way through and past other scooters and cars until you are at the front. If you don’t, you will get beeped to move up by the scooter behind you.

At the light, the vanguard is a ten or so wide scooter pack all ready to scream off handle-bars to handle-bars across the intersection. By a silent agreement, the mothers with tiny babies and/or three children (not uncommon for four or so people on a scooter) move off rather slowly (even tho they went to the front of the pack).  The single guys are moving fast before the light even changes and those, like us, who are two up in the middle are supposed to move en masse and in unison.

“Can it get worse?”

Absolutely.  On market night the nearby shops and stalls spill out and occupy the sidewalk so pedestrians are always stepping off into traffic.  They do not look first.  Stray dogs are everywhere, too. And they don’t look either.  Scooters stop for no reason as do the cars.  Sometimes a truck stops and the driver gets out to unload stuff.  A massive swirling blob of traffic-jam results instantly from the unexpected lane-blocking.

And there is the inevitable, old Farang on a bike, too.  They are from Europe. Usually Dutch, it seems. That syndrome is weird.  “A bike is safer” goes the thinking but I don’t see it.  I just see bikes as slower moving targets.  The Thais feel the same way.

And on it goes.  Stalls of hanging BBQ being hand-wheeled into place but using the traffic lanes to do so. The odd Harley or big bike without a muffler roaring by and scaring the hell out of you.  A couple of times even the narrow counter flow lanes occupied by a truck going the wrong way.  Vehicle door openings.  At anytime and anywhere.

Last night was a bit much.  I admit that.  There were more than a few times traffic showed up when I least expected it.  When that kind of thing happens, my instincts are to go faster and find the open spaces if I can.  I break for the open field like a scared rabbit flushed from the bushes.  I know the pack of rabid hounds is behind me but if I go faster, at least they won’t run over me.  It’s an instinct, not a plan.

We got up to the market, bought dinner and got home in record time.  Fast.  Way, way too fast.  But we made it.  Some of the guests at the place we are staying walk on Wednesday nights.  “Too scary to be out there on Wednesday night.  Too slow if you take a cab.  We just go somewhere nearby on Wednesday.”   

Next Wednesday, so will we.

This is Sally writing:

So, to satisfy David’s clamoring readership, we went back to ‘the bridge’ to take some photos.

First we had to go through the seafood market to get there.

And wait for foot traffic to cross.

And bicycle traffic.

In the meantime I took a photo of the machinery used on both ends to raise the bridge, like a double drawbridge, for boats going farther into the harbor.

Finally the bridge is clear of people, dogs, bicycles, what have you, and David starts across.

In the photo above you can see the groove in the middle of the planks worn by bicycles and motorcycles.

This last picture is a little blurred because I had to jump out of the way at the last second!  David was coming quickly and my camera operates slowly. We sure know how to have fun.

After relocating up to Cha am, we were without wheels and, for a day or two wandering the local streets, which was fine.  Shanks mare was good enough.  But, well, I need wheels.  It’s a primal thing.  It could be my immense girth.  It could be sheer laziness.  But whatever it is, it is a real feeling and it is exasperated greatly by daytime temperatures in the 90’s.  I do not want to walk too far in that kind of heat and we are located rather far from most places of interest.  So, I rented another scooter.

After getting it, Sal and I went for a longer exploration of Cha am.  It is a beach town and, like most such towns, is stretched along the beach (duh).  Cha am beach (south side) is pretty long (maybe twenty kms, maybe longer).  It stretches at least as far as Hua Hin. But the beach road is piecemeal and our piece is only about four or so kms long with a man-made harbour cutting access to the north beach.  The north beach looks pretty nice.  The south beach has the ubiquitous string of hotels along it.

Basically, the beach is a beach and the part we are on is very much the public, older, more local beach for the hoi poloi.   The rich people have different sections of beach further south or further north.  We have the sea food stalls, cheap restaurants and 7-11’s.  And, for the whole four or so kms, our beach is covered in large, virtually permanent beach umbrellas.  It’s interesting but not exceptionally pretty.

The red sign is the street sign (we think). The yellow sign directs day-trippers to a toilet and shower establishment. We are having a lot of fun getting around with no map and no phone. We use our laptops to Google a route and then hope for the best.

So, when we got mobile, we left our local stomping grounds and went north.  We hit the fishing harbour and had a good look but, for some reason, looking from the other side appealed to Sally more and so we headed inland in an effort to find a fishing harbour crossing.  And we did.

Imagine a foot suspension bridge about 200 feet long and four feet wide.  It is sturdier than a rope suspension bridge because there is some steel structure to it but the ‘sidewalk’ is four-foot lengths of thick plank NOT FASTENED DOWN laying flat side down in angle iron.  When we approached from the south end, I saw a few scooters just exiting.  There was maybe 8 inches of space on either side of the handle bars.  But, up we went (the entry was higher than the crowded market stalls at the entry side and so we ramped up onto the rickety bridge).  Once up, there was nothing for it except to make a quick ‘scoot’ across since other scooters, bikes and lowly pedestrians were awaiting our crossing before they could go.

As we passed them, more than a few were surprised to see it was two farangs riding two-up on the bridge.

Not much room for error.

Anyway, we got to the other side and took some harbour shots.  Cool boats.  Very beamy.  Wood.  Old.  Still working. Some of the machinery we saw on the boats and on the shore was pretty old.  30’s and 40’s era.  Almost like Easthopes for those of you inclined to the salt.

In one picture there are several lines leading from the rocky shore to the bow of the boat.  Sal is sure that is how the crew boards and disembarks.  She was so sure that she was going to ‘prove it to me’ by walking out on the single thick rope relying on the higher thinner rope for balance. “If you attempt that nonsense, at least wear your scooter helmet because you are sure to pitch onto the rocks below.”

Note the flip flops on the rocks waiting for the owner to return (via the ropes)

“If I do, you’ll save me, right?”

I refused to answer.

She took that as a sign.  Once again valour fell to discretion.  We rode away intact.

A reader sent me an article wherein Trump was quoted as lamenting the recent loss of due process and pointing out that lives and reputations are being ruined on heresay.  The tongue-in-cheek implication from my reader was ‘do you find yourself agreeing with Trump?’

Short answer: Yes.  I am opposed to Kangaroo courts and judging-by-social media.  In that, Trump and I agree.  A minor but important observation:  I agree with a broken clock twice a day.

On the other hand, Trump went a step further and supported the alleged abuser and opined that he was likely innocent.  Declarations of innocence without due process are exactly the same as judging someone prematurely guilty.  The due process requirement cuts both ways.  Porter (the alleged wife abuser) may be guilty.  Maybe not.  File your charges, arrest the perp, do the diligence and then, and only then, bring down a verdict.  It’s NOT a complicated process.

FYI: I do not agree with Trump even twice a day as a rule  So far, this is the only time.

I have tried to stay off the Trump topic for several reasons; one, anyone who reads me likely despises Trump as I do so I am preaching to the converted.  Boring.  Secondly, the guy is in the tent peeing inwards (Roosevelt?) and so my distaste for the pig is greatly exceeded by the feelings of millions of others including the idiots that have camped out with him (Republicans).  They don’t need my advice.  Or my opinion.  In fact, few of anybody ever does.

So let’s go to someone else.

Prayut Chan-o-cha.  He is the ‘interim leader’ of the Thai government after mounting a successful coup in 2014.  PC is a military dictator who has promoted his personally drafted 12 virtues to school children and suppressed democracy and dissent in Thailand.  PC is an oppressive dictator.  He is fashioning himself after Mao.

So, raise your hands out there if any of you knew that.  Ever heard of PC?

Our waitress at the local canteen is politically knowledgeable.  In her opinion, PC is just emulating the Chinese.  “Dictatorships are becoming more common.  It’s happening all over the world.  Trump is acting like a dictator but there are too many checks and balances on his power.  But PC has none.  Neither does Xi Jinping. All the democracies are being divided.  All the dictatorships are getting stronger.  I think democracy is dead.”

So, a 26-year old Thai waitress has a strong political opinion on global politics.  Admittedly, she studied in the States for a few years but still, she is up to date and opinionated.  She can talk Syria, India, China and USA.  I did not test her regarding Canada.

“You afraid for the future of Thailand?”

“Not really.  Short term maybe.  But the Thai people are already standing up to him even though protesting is now punishable with jail terms.  That won’t stop them.  Thousands protested in Bangkok last weekend.  Thousands were likely arrested.  Or will be. Thai people will die for their freedom. We’ve done it before.”

I thought about that…..

“Not me.  I’d move for my freedom but dying seems a bit extreme, ya know?  Maybe go to Panama or Argentina.  I like New Zealand.  But give me liberty or give me death?  Not bloody likely.”

When we were living down there, closer to downtown Hua Hin, we didn’t go.  Now we are in Cha Am staying in a hotel for a bit and they have a night-shuttle so we did. The Hua Hin night market is a major attraction in the area.

But the night market at Hua Hin is not all that it is cracked up to be.  Chinese mass-produced junk, stupidly overpriced food and a bit too much cynicism in the vendors for me.  When the street food-courts employ touts to lunge out at you to ‘charm’ you into their establishments against your will, you know the night market thinks it has gone up market.  The tourists are no longer customers, they are marks and dupes.  Quality is gone.  Genuine is gone.  Respect is gone.  Money rules.  Smoke and mirrors are now on sale.

Takes the fun out of it for both sides.

To illustrate: a small bunch of bananas a block or two away are 20 baht (and that is Farang pricing).  In the night market they are 50.

But this one example set even the always cheerful Sal off: “OK, now that makes me mad!”  Big, well-lit toilet signs a few feet into the market direct one down a hallway and both Sal and I decided to avail ourselves of the amenity despite the issue not being pressing at that point in time.  We know how to plan our bladders.  Entry to the bathroom was 5 baht or 20 cents.  Whatever.  BUT the woman manager didn’t like mopping up every once in a while after dirty-shod people so pee’ers had to wear clean shoes in.  If you did not bring an extra pair of clean shoes with you (who does?), you had to rent a pair of flip flops for 50baht ($2.00).  And, of course, a few Farangs were doing just that.

We passed.  Both muttering curses as we did so.  And kept wandering.  Imagine my surprise to find another, deeper-into-the labyrinth of the market toilet facilities that suited my purposes just fine.  Entry fee: 3 baht (12 cents).  No ‘clean shoe’ requirements.  I was relieved, so to speak.

“Why would that be?”  Because the other loo was well lit up and closer to the main course of traffic.  Most tourists just accept.  Most ‘entrepreneurs’ push the envelope.  And most Thais knew enough to walk past the tourist bathroom on their way to the 3-baht loo.

And that pretty much says it all about the Hua Hin night market.

Well, not all.  I fell for a tourist trap.  I wanted to resist it but I just couldn’t.  In the end, I took off my shoes and sat in the window for all the world to see. Rasps cleaned my feet.

Please understand, I have relatively clean feet.  I do not need a dead-skin eating fish to fine-clean my lower extremities but, and I say this with not just a little embarrassment, it looked like fun.

And it was.

Call me crazy but dozens of little fish nibbling at my feet was hilarious.  Well, it was at first, anyway.  It was kinda fun for five or so minutes.  Then it was just amusing for a bit and then it was ‘just me sitting in a window with my feet in someone’s aquarium.’

When you go in for a rasp-fest or fishy foot-job, you pay 100 baht ($4.00) to feed the man’s fish with your dead body parts.  But only for 15 minutes.  There is a limit to all the fun you can have.  By the twelve minute mark, Mr. Fish-owner indicated that my time would be up in four minutes.  I decided to check out early.  So I had an eleven minute experience and it was just right.  Four more minutes would have ruined what had been – up til then – something special.

….slipped on the shoulder gravel and fell down out of sight.  I heard two shots.  And then I saw her again through the side window. She was standing up straight and calmly pumping more slugs into the windshield of the truck that had just rammed us.  Elapsed time: three seconds and she was back in the car”.

“Hit it!”

I stomped the accelerator and the old Pathfinder leaped. “What happened?”

“I slipped getting out but it was okay.  I fell on my stomach but then had a clear shot at their tires.  Hit them both.  When I jumped up, I saw the two guys sitting there. One had a  rifle. I thought a few shots into the cab might give us more time to get away.”

“You okay?”

“It made my day.”

And so goes a scene in the cheap B-flick kind of novel we are writing.  Of course the book careens from one Bruce Willis-like incident to the next Arnie-style fracas but the twist is that it’s two old people.  He’s 70 and she’s a close second.  But she has yoga.  It’s a buddy movie.

Sal won’t let me write in a sex scene.

“I could easily get you naked.  We’re running from some cops.  Fall in some water.  Get somewhere and have to strip down naked to get dry?  Piece of cake.”

“No.  No, no no!”

“OK, I stop at bra and panties.  I can make that work.”

“Say ‘bra and panties’ one more time and I am not writing anymore.  I swear.”

“Okay.  We surprise a woman by breaking into her house to get dry and she’s in bra and panties.  I could make her Asian or something for added interest?”

“That’s it!  We’re done here.  I quit.  No more editorial work for you, pig-face!”

“Pig-face?  Isn’t that a bit harsh for your co-author?”

“Look.  No sex.  No nudity, okay?  Just stop with the bra and panties crap.”

“Okay, fine.  We just kill and wound people.  Maybe blow up some cars.  Steal stuff.  That kind of thing.  But no sex.  No sex because why?  Because we’re British?”

“Exactly!  I was born in England and we don’t talk about sex.  Too rude.  But murder is perfectly fine.  We love talking about murder, don’t you know?  And the weather. We’ll talk about weather.  Make that work!”

“Cheap B action movies always have scantily clad women.  It’s de rigeur like a Klingon is to Star Trek.”

“Fine.  You can have a scantily clad Klingon.  Happy now?”

“Hmmmm…not bad.  The story needed a twist.  Let me think about that…..”

His name is Jack.  He’s 24.  Short.  Pleasant.  Looks and acts a bit like a Thai-version of Jack Black the comedian.  I like him.

Jack is the waiter at one of our local haunts.  He likes to practice his English with us because we talk more than do the Scandinavians.  “What do you think of the Scandinavians, Jack?”  “They don’t talk much. One or two words.  They do not use English.  We point to the menu mostly.”

Seems Jack is NOT Thai, tho.  He’s Burmese.  He prefers to use the term Burma for his country altho Myanmar does not offend him.  Myanmar is the name chosen by the ruling ethnic group that has been winning the civil war for over thirty years.  The civil war is more of a tribal war than a strictly political one altho, there is not much difference, I suppose.

Jack is a member of the Karen community.  That’s a tribe NOT part of the ruling ethnic group.  Jack’s people (and Jack, himself) are refugees now relocated in Thailand (since May, 1997).  He mostly grew up in the 6000 strong refugee camp named Tham Hin just ten kms from the border.  Semi-jungle-cum-swamp environment.  No resources.  The camp is off the road, water and electrical grids.  It’s cramped, primitive and isolated.  Plastic-roofed tent-like structures.  Almost a prison.

Sometime around 2005 the Thai government started to lift some of the restrictions on those so-housed.  Some of the inhabitants were allowed to work and Jack eventually did just that by securing a position as a waiter while hoping for a chance to emigrate to North America.  His chances are slim.

Too bad.  Jack’s alright.  Canada has taken just over 4000 Burmese refugees so far but Tham Hin is just one of many refugee camps and, sadly for Jack, one of the less visible or visited ones.  Canadian diplomats do not traipse into the jungle very often to conduct the critically important interviews on which ride the hopes and dreams of the Karen.

“Is Jack’s life hell?”

Not to him.  He’s optimistic.  He’s working.  He has a girlfriend.  His employer provides him housing in this resort area and he only has to go back to the camp to check in now and then.  He has a poor-Thai person’s future but it is better than a poor, refugee camp-inhabitant’s future.  Jack still has hope.

And he’s upbeat.  Great sense of humour.  Learning English as fast as he can slowed only by the monosyllabic Scandinavian customers he mostly serves.  At this rate, he’ll never get fluent but he can make himself understood so I’d give him a D+ linguistically. C is achievable given the circumstances. But he’s smart enough to do much better if he had teaching or even more English speakers.

He’s a Buddhist.  Most Burmese are.  Somehow that seems to translate into ‘good attitude’.  Like I said, Jack’s alright.

I do not have what it takes to be a good Buddhist.  Smiling too much hurts my face.  But I must admit, I have a great deal more than Jack does to be smiling about.  These adventures Sal and I have had over the oh-so-many decades are always interesting but even more, they are always re-affirming.  We have it great!

But, as far as accidents go, pouring water over your computer is one of the lesser ones available to us down here.  Old people can really SCREW UP down here.  SO MANY WAYS to choose from. This is the land of surprises and accidents. So far, we have have been lucky.  All of our surprises have been lucky or benign so far. Well, except for the keyboard drenching this morning.  That was interrupting.

Long story short: the wetted keyboard simply ran on and on placing ‘equal signs’ all in a row.  If you tried to type, the keys indicated ‘dead’ and the equal signs just went on and on.  Bummer.

So, we jumped on the scooter and presented at the local computer shop and – long story short – went home with a cheap ($15.00) Thai-based keyboard.  Well, it is QWERTY-based but every key has several Thai squiggles so it is confusing as hell.  I am still of the hunt and peck style.  I look at the keys.  Right now, I am looking at squiggles with English letters on the upper left side.  Weird.

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