Meth: a Ticking Timebomb Gone Viral

Stories from the Village

It has become a custom that each day when Nada and I go for a walk, she relates stories of her childhood. Nada grew up in extreme poverty, and she remembers many occasions when she and her five siblings had little to eat. Her parents grew rice, and when there was an abundance, they would trade the excess rice with other families in the village for meat and vegetables. They survived, and most of her stories are happy ones...but not all.

Nada's older brother was a fifteen-year-old fisherman working in the south of Thailand in 1989 when typhoon Gay struck the Chumpon Province, killing eight hundred thirty-three people. The boat her brother crewed was lost at sea and there were no bodies recovered, despite Nada's Papa searching the coastline for days for his body. Ten years ago, another brother died from sleep apnea.

When Nada was fifteen, and despite being a good student, she was sent to Bangkok to work in a sweatshop. Earning only 300 baht (US$9) per month, she was forced to work ten to twelve-hour days, seven days a week. Thankfully, after only three months, the company ceased operations and Nada returned to her village. She learned a lot from her time in the city. Many of the women Nada worked with took advantage of her kindness and vulnerability, borrowing small amounts of money that they never paid back. She was already a good cook and earned food by helping in the kitchen.

There are many positive stories Nada recounts as we walk. She knows which plants are edible and which ones are not. After school, she and her siblings would search for mushrooms and cut young bamboo shoots to bring home for food.

Ten years ago, Nada also lost her mother. Then, one year ago, Nada's father, who is seventy-eight, broke his leg in a motorcycle accident...although he is well on the road to recovery. The family owns a lot of land, and over the years, Nada has acquired eighteen rai, which includes a rubber plantation and land adjoining her family's plots. After visiting her family and verifying the story Nada told me about her ill-advised lending of money to her younger sister (Nada mortgaged her land to secure the loan), I decided to help by setting up a meeting with the lender and negotiated a new loan to avert the imminent foreclosure. I also helped Nada and her family by loaning her some funds to finish the renovations to her house. I helped her make a budget, and in five years, Nada will be debt-free and will retain her properties outright.

In the meantime, her papa will live out his life in Nada's house...which is a far cry from his current living conditions. He sleeps outside on a bamboo bed set up under a high-set house, exposed to the weather and the mosquitoes. And the payoff for me is it feels good to do something positive to help people less fortunate than I am.

Soon, Nada and I will marry, and in time (depending on her father's situation), we will move into her house in Isaan. That's the plan, but we are flexible. We shall see where the future takes us.