Interlude: Amazing Thailand

Dear Ones:

Early Monday afternoon the electricity went out. This is not a frequent occurrence but when it does happen, it usually comes back on in a few minutes. Rarely does it take more than an hour. After an hour, the early afternoon heat was becoming unbearable. AJ and I decided to seek heat relief at the Seacon Square Cineplex. So we hopped in the car and took off down the street towards the wat, the temple at the end of Soi 93. As we approached we saw a tangle of wires, a light pole, and two transformers blocking the street. Parked across from the 7-11 was a big cement mixer-truck. AJ said, I bet that's what caused our power outage. We had to turn around and take another route to Seacon where we saw Madagascar 2, not exactly high culture, but we weren't looking for anything too educational either.

It was late in the afternoon when we got home to feed Gigi. It was getting dark but there was still no electricity. Since the pump wasn't working we had no water pressure. No bathing, no cooking. I fed Gigi and left her munching her dinner in the evening shadows. We went to the Club to have showers and dinner. After dinner, I bought two bags of ice at the supermarket to stuff in the freezer.

As we approached the turn into our cul-de-sac, we could see strong spotlights at the end of the street where the repair crews were still working. But the whole cul-de-sac was eerily quiet and dark. Usually you see lights and hear the sounds of television and voices talking. This time, I was truly glad to have Gigi to watch the house. Her bark is always worse, but no one knows this. Unfortunately, the cool weather we had enjoyed for so many days has dissipated and the mosquitoes who enjoy the cooler weather as much as we do were out looking for a blood meal. I could see it would be like that sweltering summer night in New York City when our a/c broke down. But this is Thailand. Hotels aren't that expensive here and thanks to the PAD for chasing away the tourists, the hotel occupancy rate is down too.

AJ and I packed up our jammies and toothbrushes, got back in the car, and drove to the Dusit Princess near Seacon Square. We just parked at the front door, walked up to the front desk, and checked in. It was that easy. We got a comfortable double room with twin beds, a/c, cable tv and buffet breakfast the next day.

All this time we had no information on the progress of the repairs, no report on what caused the power outage, or when power would be restored. It turned out AJ was right about the cause. Somehow, the low-slung power lines got tangled up on the cement mixer. According to the Bangkok Post, eight power poles were pulled down. That was an exaggeration. The newspaper carried a photograph of what happens in the narrow streets of Bangkok when moving force meets stationary object: something's got to give. It said vaguely that the power outage lasted "several hours" when AJ and I know for a fact that it lasted at least 8 hours and certainly more. Amazingly, no one was hurt or killed.

*****

So Tuesday evening, AJ and I were settled back in our house, thankful for the gods of electric light (and bless the crew of the MEA) when we heard the most fearsome commotion. The front door rattled and shook. At first, I thought someone was trying to break in. But why didn't Gigi bark? AJ and I approached the door wondering what to do. Then AJ said, I can smell Gigi, and I could hear her whining too. I opened the door; Gigi was in quite a state. Her tongue was hanging out and she was panting heavily. She had broken a dew claw and rubbed off a patch of fur on a hind paw. Then I heard a distant bang and a whistle: fireworks. Gigi is afraid of loud noises like exploding fireworks and thunder. I was so mad when saw the damage. She had gnawed and scratched the door. And I had to hose off her yucky slobber too. I reclaimed the door as "mine" then I took her out for a walk/run in the empty cul-de-sac so she could get rid of her nervous energy. In due course she relieved herself of all her pent up feelings. Silly Mutt.

On this New Year's Eve, AJ and I wish everyone health and happiness.

Walk good,

Jo Anne

A Christmas Letter from Thailand

Hope is that thing with feathers/that perches in the soul/and sings the tune without the words/and never stops—at all. ~Emily Dickinson

Dear Ones:

After school, the air crackles with energy as the seventh graders leave my classroom. Speaking English all day should be exhausting but it seems to have energized them. To my seventh grade language learners, the world is an awesome place for friendships, new experiences, and discovering the intricacies of English. Yet they are sometimes afraid to fail, afraid to reach too high and be punished for daring. They must be prodded and encouraged. For them there are only possibilities. For them, hope is a lively tentative thing, mysterious and exciting.

For some people, though, hope is a thing that is ailing. Broken dreams and dreams that have been put on hold litter the landscape with their jaded finery. You know these people. It is someone who has lost a home or a job. It is someone you know who has cancer. As Langston Hughes once said, their struggle represents a dream deferred. That’s particularly difficult, especially around the holidays. You can’t really express joy when fear is screeching in your ears.

Somehow that separates us into the Lucky Few and the Poor Fools. The Lucky Few may think, How unlucky to be them. So they turn away in embarrassment. Indeed, it must be so, that they are ashamed to have it all: a home, family, food, money, and good health. The Poor Fool does not envy you; only asks you to have compassion. Listen to me. Pray with me, if you can. But don’t pity me for I am richer than you think, for I have hope.

If I am hopeful, surely it’s foolish to hope, because hope is all you have when you are beaten down. But you live to fight another day. If I am hopeful, but it’s foolish to hope, because hope is trying when there is nothing left to try. If you had never tried, you would never know you could succeed. If I’m hopeful, and it’s foolish to hope, because hope is going for a desperate cure even though the odds are against you to begin with. But at least you took the chance.

I’d rather be a fool and have hope. You are not alone, if you have hope. Listen to hope singing.

Merry Christmas to all and Walk Good in the New Year,

Andy, Jo Anne, Taranee, and AJ

In Quest of a Cure

Dear Ones:

This week Andy flew to Israel with Titi to meet the doctor in Tel Aviv who has agreed to perform a haploidentical stem cell transplant where the donor is only a partial match. Lek and Nicky went, of course, and so too did Mimi, the back up donor.

Andy is the donor. The literature says the transplant process is actually more painful for the donor than for the recipient. But Andy is willing to do this; he never had to think twice about it. To give this gift is to give the gift of hope to his brother. I cannot think of a better gift during this holiday season. As Taranee said, going to the Holy Land for a stem cell transplant you cannot get closer to God than that.

Getting out of Bangkok required meeting and satisfying every single expert's conditions; the doctors, the airlines, and security--even the Toilet Police. The first requirement was making sure Titi was healthy enough to travel. That meant getting his butt checked--his hemmorhoidectomy scar hadn't quite healed yet, that he had all his antibiotics and pain medications, and of course, there was El-Al to contend with, the most security conscious airline in the world, and now, probably the most stringent in terms of allowing the critically ill to fly with them. Their conditions: first, the patient's red blood cell and platelet counts must be within normal ranges; second, he must be on continuous oxygen, though he never needed it all the time he was in the hospital. This oxygen machine, which makes oxygen, had to be shipped in from Israel since there was no machine in Bangkok. El Al's final condition: a physician must accompany him on the flight. Of course the family agreed to everything; these are desperate measures to save a life, for without the transplant, Titi has only months to live.

Lek is a marvel at logistics. She orchestrated the move out of the hospital to the airport. She thought of everything, including offering seafood noodles to us as a pre-flight meal. Up until an hour before departure from the hospital, Titi was getting platelets. They look curiously like butterscotch sauce, not like blood products at all. When he left the hospital he was wearing a surgical mask to travel in an ambulance that would deliver him directly to the airplane. Two of the family's drivers carried the passengers to the airport. YJ drove his Citroen van because it was big enough to accommodate all the luggage, especially the two suitcases of food Lek packed for the stay in Israel. With all that she prepared, she could easily withstand a siege anywhere. Among other things, there was a rice cooker and Mama noodle packets. I am quite sure she also packed pork products. Since Israel follows Jewish dietary laws, she was right in thinking pork might be hard to find. To find out about the Toilet Police and to follow what's happening in Israel, you can read Andy's blog by clicking on the link Letters from Israel in the menu bar on the right.

Half a world away from Israel, Thailand's governance is in quest of a cure for what ails it: a lack of credible leadership. We have our fourth prime minister in a year, the 27th in a direct line of prime ministers dating back to 1932. The opposition Democrats were able to cobble together a coaltion to form a government. Abhisit Vejjajiva is a soft spoken pol born in Britain and educated at Oxford. Of course, the western-educated literati think he is just fine. But he is not PM of Britain. Aware that he has his skeptics, especially in the Thaksin strongholds of the north and northeast, he thought it politic that his first walkabout should be in the Isaan region. To complete just one term in office he needs to be a man for all political reasons.

I have stayed behind in Bangkok because AJ is coming home this week. YJ and Mikey also stayed behind. YJ has the additional responsibility for the two old ladies at home: Mama Wang and Mama Hong. Mama Wang is no trouble, a gentle soul with a sometimes clear-eyed gaze that pierces the veil of Alzheimer's; unlike Mama Hong, full of fight, who sometimes takes the notion that she wants to go home to Taiwan now. She's frustrated by the lack of mobility compounded by the inability to speak either Thai or English.

It will be a quiet Christmas and New Year's without Andy and Taranee. Andy and I will also miss two anniversaries we have always spent together; the day Malika died and our wedding anniversary. Lek, bless her, with all that she had on her mind, even remembered to shop for a gift for our anniversary-cum-Christmas. She gave us a soy milk maker. She remembered that I once asked her how she made the soy milk for Titi, and she knows Andy likes it too. You're never too busy to show you care to the people you love.

Walk good this Christmas and the New Year too,
Jo Anne

Resolution?

Dear Ones:

An immunologist in Israel has agreed to perform the stem cell transplant for Titi. How do you fancy Christmas in the Holy Land?

However, Titi has developed a hemorrhoid and the doctor here is concerned it may become a source of infection as his immune system becomes compromised. Titi's white blood cells, which deal with infection, have been crowded out by the cancer cells. It's important for him to be in a healthy condition for the transplant, so he has had a procedure to take care of the hemorrhoid. Now he's a real pain in the butt!

All he wants is his life back, he says. Lek says she wants him back the way he was. Nicky needs his father. Cancer has taken over their every conscious moment. Sleep is blessed oblivion. I don't tell them that things will never be the same again. If the transplant is successful, survival will be on a day-to-day basis. In effect, cancer becomes a time-marker. There is life Before Cancer, and then, life After Diagnosis. You wonder how much you can take without breaking, and it surprises you that you can still bend, even with all this weight.

On the continuing political crisis: the courts decided that the ruling People Power Party is guilty of electoral fraud and must be dissolved. That means Somchai Wongsawat is out of a job after 77 days as Prime Minister. His deputy is Acting PM. Still the country faces a leadership crisis. The next-in-line for the Prime Minister's post is not well-known for having iron-clad moral leadership skills. So far this year the country has gone through two prime ministers, is currently on its third, and about to get its fourth. I wonder if that qualifies as a Guinness world record?

The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has announced it will now graciously depart from Government House and the two airports they have occupied. They have reached their objective, they say, even though it was a judicial "coup" of the pen that removed Somchai from office. It was an opportunity to save face, I suspect. A recent public opinion poll says most respondents think the PAD have "embarrassed the country." To understand this comment you have to realize that in Thailand a collective consciousness is valued. The actions of a few can have repercussions on social harmony. So it is important to balance how much boat-rocking you can do without actually inconveniencing the other people sitting in the same boat. It's not easy.

A lot of people were inconvenienced. They say 100 flights are leaving Suvarnabhumi each day to move 350,000 tourists stranded in Thailand. Taranee's flight home was cancelled just 3 days before the PAD announced they would withdraw from Suvarnabhumi. She immediately started looking at flights again. Incredibly, a seat that cost US$1,500 two weeks ago is now $4,300. Go figure. It looks doubtful Taranee will come home for the holidays.

At home, the nay chang is proceeding with the home improvements at a brisk pace. The repaved front yard looks pretty good. Today he installed a big new window to enclose the laundry area. I will still get plenty of sun out back but without having to contend with anything that flies, climbs, slithers, and crawls. I won't miss the tokays too much.

Walk good,

Jo Anne

Waiting

Dear Ones:

It's now confirmed that Titi's particular leukemia is what we feared; that untreatable mutation his doctor warned us about. His only recourse is a stem cell transplant. Though no one in Thailand has ever done a stem cell transplant of this type, Titi is willing to try it. He has refused to go to the States where he says, he will only be a number to the doctors there. So he has asked his cousin, a doctor at Ramathibodhi Hospital, and his classmate, the head of the hospital, to help put together a team of specialists. His hematologist found a donor in Taiwan so we are waiting for everything to be assembled. Meanwhile, Titi is getting weaker and he is fighting an infection.

Since I last wrote, there have been many thoughtful messages from family and friends who offered their support. Some of that support has even come from strangers and we are immensely grateful for their kindnesses. One such kindness was from a woman who is undergoing CML treatment herself. She offered to send Titi a supply of Gleevec (imatinib), because it worked so well for her. I was very touched by her offer of help but unfortunately, Titi's CML is Gleevec resistant.

It is peculiar how I feel; both abandoned and excluded. Abandoned, because medicine can do nothing more than offer a distant hope. The doctors leave us alone for other patients they can help. Excluded, because Titi is not a member of that select group of lucky survivors who can put cancer behind them. Curing cancer is such an uncertain business, and there are no guarantees.

Meanwhile, the political circus has reached new heights of brazen behavior. As you've no doubt heard on the news, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has occupied Suvarnabhumi Airport, halting all flights in and out of the country. Our school principal went to the Philippines for a conference on Monday. She cannot get back in the country. Two Canadian friends who are visiting Thailand are in a similar predicament; they cannot leave. The Malaysians from Proton who came to Bangkok for the Motor Show are also stranded.

I can't say when the situation will be resolved. Everyone is waiting. On Wednesday November 26 the army chief publicly advised the Prime Minister to dissolve parliament and to call for new elections. He insisted that there won't be a coup. He even suggested the PAD remove themselves from the buildings they have occupied. Since August they have staged a sit-in at Government House and they have also taken over Don Muang, the domestic airport. However, the PM says he is staying put, and the PAD says they're not moving, no how, no way. In the face of such pigheadedness, I am trying to decide which is the larger principle at work here; trying to best serve the country or their own interests.

Walk good,

Jo Anne

Alternate Routes

Dear Ones:

On Thursday, I came home from school in a heavy tropical downpour. As I entered the tollway, it was slick with water and my windshield wipers swished water away furiously. Still, visibility was poor, and I wondered since I couldn't see the road ahead clearly, shouldn't I get off at the nearest exit? Then I thought, I'm committed. There is no exit between here and Srinakarin Road. There are only alternatives: Suvarnabhumi airport, Bang Na, Onnut. I thought how apt this metaphor is for traveling the cancer road.

Titi has been tolerating the chemo surprisingly well. This is the beginning of his second week after chemo and so far so good. His counts have been steadily dropping but, amazingly, he's not as weak as when he was first admitted to the hospital after three weeks on the sprycel. For exercise he paces his room and the doctor has said he can walk the corridors outside the sterile room provided he wears a mask. The chemo is coy. We can't see what it is doing inside. Every day, he wonders--is this IT? What could happen to me today? To him each new day is an apprehensive event. I cannot imagine what that fear must be like. No one talks about it but it is on all our minds. Patrick, Andy's cousin in Washington, DC, has given us some new leads to pursue and a doctor-friend of his to contact. Possibly, Titi could join a study for a new experimental drug in Singapore. We haven't exhausted hope yet.

I greet Titi, how are you? In reply, he hands us his complete blood counts to read, but it lacks syntax. It is another language; terse, encoded. Anisocytosis. The medical jargon puts me off. Coincidentally, I have just finished reading Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam, a Canadian doctor. One of the characters, Dr. Chen, cures a woman's hiccups by having her drink rapidly through a straw while pressing on the tragus of both ears. (The tragus is the triangular fold of flesh in front of the opening to the ear canal). It works. A miracle. But he can hardly explain why it works. It reminds me of the children I teach; some of them do well in spite of me. At the parent-teacher conference last month, a parent asked solemnly, Will my child pass the test to transfer to Ruamrudee? We are a feeder school for Ruamrudee and there is nowhere else these parents want their children to be than at Ruamrudee. But there is no method to make such a miracle happen. It can't be cured like the hiccups. The students' parents cautiously negotiate the intricacies of their children's education in English, and I try to keep the jargon to a minimum; they are also ESL. In reading Lam's book I felt like a visitor to another dimension that is at once familiar (it's Toronto) yet strange (it's a hospital). It makes a glossary absolutely necessary: PEA, lytes, and my favorite, bigeminy. By the way, none of these terms have anything to do with a green vegetable, a light fixture, or a mia noi (minor wife). Professions, like disease, keep the uninitiated at arm's length.

Meanwhile, Mimi manages her mother's care with awesome efficiency. I think it's because she knows how to delegate, and if she doesn't know something, she knows someone who does. She's one of those people who communicates by the FWD. You don't hear from her but she's got you on her mailing list. Her speciality is the health warning. It is risky to send health warnings to the techno-literate. We will invariably want to show that we know more than you. The latest FWD was a cancer scare about bottled water "from Johns Hopkins." I recognize the tactic. Use a famous medical research facility to lend credence to the so-called warning. According to the article, PET bottles leach chemicals into the water when the plastic is heated or frozen. I immediately went to my favorite urban legend website, Snopes. com and checked it out. It discredited the frozen bottle issue. I asked Titi, who has a master's degree in chemistry, and he said that we shouldn't keep PET bottles in the car in hot weather because heat causes chemicals in the bottle to leach in the water. Like all urban legends, there are half-truths that suck you in. I've linked some sites of interest to my blog so you can check them out yourself.

Sometimes I wonder if I have forgotten anything. I feel like I have so many balls in the air and I'm afraid to drop one. In addition to all this, we decided to go ahead and renovate the front of our townhouse. Six months after the new road was built, the Nay Chang has finally arrived at the end of the road. Literally, for he is now in our cul-de-sac. The road improvements prompted a flurry of home improvements. And as a result, the Nay Chang's business is roaring. Starting at mid-soi, Nara and Reto put in a new driveway, tile bordered with a gravel slurry. The neighbors disapprove of their design; the slurry will turn black, they say. No good. Everyone is now an expert on home improvements! Across from Nara, Mrs. Chang and her next door neighbor poured cement for their new driveways and rebuilt the common wall. Mrs. Chang lives in Taiwan now and makes infrequent trips to Bangkok. She left her front yard dull cement. Why spend more money since I'm hardly here, she reasons. But she will not sell her house. Her neighbor however, decided on mosaic tiles and columns for an added Moorish effect. The workmen worked their way towards us, to the herbalist next door. Though he lives in China he will come back, he says. Someday. Mrs. Chang and the herbalist think alike. Even I understand them. We Chinese need these havens. It is programmed in our genes to make sure we have a place somewhere in the world where we can feel safe. But safe from what?

Now that we have the Nay Chang's undivided attention, we negotiated his time, his fee. Over the weekend he got his advance from Andy and immediately went on a walkabout. He said he had to go to a wedding up country but he will be back at the end of the week. True to his word, he came back on Friday. I met his wife, his business partner, when I came home from school that afternoon. Her name is Oy, and it means Sweet. The Thai never use their formal given names, preferring nicknames. Andy tells me the Nay Chang's name is Ma, which means Horse. I am afraid to say it because if I get the tone wrong it might be Come instead, or worse, Dog. To be called a dog is an insult to a Thai so I've decided it will be safer to call him Nay Chang, which means Mr. Fixer. If I happen to mispronounce chang I would only be calling him Elephant, nothing worse.

Living here is necessarily filled with such calculations. What we can afford to renovate. What to call the Nay Chang. How well we can manage cancer. There are many alternate routes. The important thing is to keep moving, don't get stuck, and don't drop the ball.

Walk good,

Jo Anne

What's worth fighting for?

Dear Ones:

My cell phone rang just as I arrived at the Pattaya Bowl.

When I saw that it was Andy I held my breath. I was on a school trip and he would never have called unless it was important. It must be about Mama, I thought. My mother-in-law is in the end stages of Alzheimer's.

I was in Pattaya with my seventh graders and the rest of the RIST middle school. We had just arrived at the bowling alley in two buses. Six teachers and 57 students streamed out onto the sidewalk and gathered in tight little knots in the lobby of the bowling alley. It was October 3, 2008 shortly before 10 a.m. The day was sunny and it promised to be another hot and humid day in Thailand.

I steeled myself and answered the phone, certain it was bad news about Mama.

Instead he said, "It's Titi," referring to his younger brother. His voice sounded normal. Even casual.

"What's up?" What could be so bad?

"Titi has terminal leukemia," he said to me. "He needs a stem cell transplant."

I don't remember what I said in reply. I know I was in shock. Ten words. It's funny what you remember on the day you hear unexpected news. Mars, the activities coordinator, screamed at the students above their noisy chatter to go and rent their shoes. It's effective because every single student sauntered obediently to the shoe counter. Mars has none of the lower vocal registers so this makes the children afraid of her.

I wandered around the bowling alley taking videos of the kids giving each other high fives for strikes and pouting when the ball rolled disobligingly into the gutter. Meanwhile, another part of my mind was digesting the information. I was thinking, this can't be happening again. I went through this crucible before, how can I be tested again? That familiar feeling of dread crept over me. First, there is the disbelief. I must be dreaming. I will wake up soon.

I texted Andy. Did you say Titi??? He texted back. Yes.

After you get through the disbelief, you find yourself wondering, how did I miss this? Titi knew in December, after his company physical, that he had an elevated white cell count. According to Mimi, no one, incredibly, advised him to follow up. He did not know it was so serious because he felt fine. So he did nothing. But Mimi is an unreliable witness. She always protects her little brother; she insists it was not denial. So it wasn't until he had seen his family doctor in April that he was diagnosed with leukemia. Even Lek asks, why did he wait so long? Titi did not tell us, for the lamest, most idiotic reason: he didn't want to bother us. Bother us? Andy and I know that any recriminations now are meaningless. The important thing to do now is to help him get well again. Attitude is everything.

Initially, his hematologist put him on an experimental drug which worked wonderfully, but now his leukemia is no longer responding to it. He went from the chronic stage of CML (Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia) to the accelerated stage to the acute stage called the "blast phase" in a matter of weeks. Titi now needs a stem cell or bone marrow transplant. Andy and his sister Mimi readily submitted to tests to see if they would be compatible donors. They were extremely disappointed to discover they were not. The odds of survival are terrible, even with the transplant. But I know from Malika's experience, that getting hung up on the numbers is not productive. We have to take each day as it comes.

Now Titi is in a sterile room at the hospital just 5 minutes from his house. To enter this room, all visitors have to be masked and gowned. On Sunday, he began a week of chemotherapy in an attempt to get his leukemia back up to the chronic stage. We are hopeful. Meanwhile, the hematologist is consulting the donor registries in Asia to find a match. A sample of his blood was sent off to Italy last week to find out if it is a particularly virulent mutation of CML.

Lek and Nicky stay ovenight in the family suite next door to Titi's sterile room. The suite is equipped with its own bathroom and is furnished with a sofa (not a bed, unfortunately), a table and three chairs, a microwave oven, a TV and a refrigerator. There is an IV stand for hanging up the hospital gowns. Most of the comforts of home.

Nicky is a resourceful child. He has brought a ping pong paddle and an orange ball to amuse himself. He tries to see how many times he can hit the clock on the wall with it. He plays magic tricks with his uncles, and when he's bored, plays with his Gameboy.

Lek weeps, looking drawn and tired. Her brothers and sister and some of their children have come by the hospital to offer their support. She is afraid. Afraid that Titi has given up, she says. She will not say aloud what is really her greatest fear. It might come true.

Everything has happened so quickly no one has had much time to adjust. Indeed, we are riding the cancer roller coaster. A familiar ride, as it happens, for Andy and me. At this time of year, Malika's spirit is so very near, I feel her gentle touch. She would have been 26 years old at the end of October. I am surprised to find my memories have grown dim, but the emotions have not lost their edge. A long time ago, we found another hospital a familiar place, where we laughed, cried, hoped against the odds, coped with disappointment, winced at the doctors' relentless honesty, and learned to accept with gratitude the kindnesses of strangers. In this replay, nothing has changed substantially, only the drugs are different: imatinib, dasatinib, and sprycel. Melodious names, magnificent sounding, filled with hope--for other people.

Titi, the center of all this concern, looks fine. He complains only of feeling weak and sometimes dizzy. When he was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday night, he had fluid in his lungs, probably because of the sprycel because all tests for infection have been negative. He has a good appetite. Lek's cook makes special food to bring to the hospital, food that will build his strength up. Titi does not wish to read, do crossword puzzles, play Scrabble, or do any of the things Andy and I enjoy as diversions. Lek's brother suggested relaxation through meditation but Titi would rather medication. Inexplicably, he zonks out in front of the TV watching cable or bad action movies on DVD. We have fallen into a routine when we go into the sterile room, masked and gowned. Chat awhile, then all conversation ceases as we watch the TV screen in comfortable silence. One of the videos starred a moving tree stump that looked a lot like Steven Seagal trying to emote his way through Bangkok. Ah well. One must humor the patient.

The political circus that I wrote about in the first blog has continued. Joining the PAD protests is Chamlong, a former Bangkok governor who has better street cred than the pampered businessman Sondhi; Chamlong led the May 1992 demonstrations against the junta. Since I last wrote, Samak had been forced to resign for violating the constitution. To everyone's consternation, his party immediately re-nominated him and he accepted. However, he was supposed to decline; the re-nomination was to save his face. (Remember, this is Thailand.) When the time came for parliament to confirm him, none of the coalition party leaders showed up for the vote so there was no quorum. Amazingly, the rule of law sometimes works here. Samak down--and out. Nevertheless, the PAD continues their protest because Samak's successor is Thaksin's brother-in-law. I had started to write a follow up blog about it which I had titled "What's worth fighting for?" All that seems irrelevant now. I decided to keep the blog title though, because for us, this battleground has shifted.

Walk good,

Jo Anne

Are we a democracy or what?!

Dear Ones:

On Tuesday morning, Jean-Jean, in my seventh grade home room was absent. In my grade 12 English class, Boon was absent. Absences are unusual at our school where we enjoy 99% attendance rates. Other classes reported absences too. Curiously, the majority of the absent students were Thai. What could have caused this unusual degree of absenteeism? For the past two weeks, a group called the People's Alliance for Democracy had stepped up their anti-government protests. They have occupied Government House for several days. Confrontations between pro- and anti-government supporters have become more violent and one person has died. In the face of protests, the Prime Minister has refused to step down.

Later that day, the administrators called an emergency meeting with the faculty. I expected the announcement that came: out of concern for the escalating political turmoil the school will be closed Wednesday and Thursday this week. They advised us to give our students enough homework to last three or four days. However, school may reopen on Friday, they said, so check the school's website for the latest announcements. I left school right after the students. I live on Sukhumvit Road, the upper end, so it was unlikely I would meet any demonstrators. Nevertheless, I worried about the trip across town since I live 23 km away from the school. I got home without any problem, feeling somewhat aggrieved to be so inconvenienced by democracy. The baht has slipped, the SET has dipped. Why does democracy have to be so messy?

Since December's national elections, some people, particularly the elite and the middle classes, were disappointed to see the return to power of the Thai Rak Thai, deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra's old party, now reincarnated as the People Power Party. Thaksin was widely admired among the poor since he promised to better their condition with innovative ideas such as the 30 baht health scheme and the One Tambon One Product initiative. Others were less admiring, particularly since Thaksin's other policies seemed to be self-serving; for example, after he made capital gains tax free he immediately sold his company, the largest telecommunications company in Thailand, without paying a single baht in taxes on the profit. The sale made him a billionaire—not a mere baht billionaire, a US dollar billionaire.

After the coup toppled him from power in September 2006, Thaksin decided it would be prudent to remain abroad until the time was right to return. He came back from foreign after the December elections to face charges of corruption and abuse of power. It was an emotional moment for him and all his supporters. He found a clean spot on the floor of Suvarnabhumi airport to kneel down and kiss the tiles. Reality, however, was a kick in the teeth. In August his wife was found guilty of tax evasion. To console themselves, the entire Shinawatra family (mum, dad, 3 kids) went to Beijing for the Olympics opening ceremony carrying a suspiciously large amount of luggage, according to witnesses. But people shrugged. The Shinawatras probably needed all those winter clothes because summer in Beijing is not as sultry as summer in Bangkok. Instead of returning to Thailand after the fireworks, the whole family took off for England, causing everyone here to finally realize why they needed the winter clothes. Thaksin petitioned the British for asylum. That meant he forfeited the US$400,000 bond he had posted as bail. That's chump change to billionaires, apparently. Of course, his Thai assets have been frozen since he de-camped for London, forcing him to sell his English football club for £30 million.

Adding to the chaos is the Election Commission's announcement that the People Power Party must disband for alleged vote buying. It's now Thursday, the second day of our little holiday from democracy and it's still a stand-off. The Prime Minister is still refusing to step down. He says he is the elected Prime Minister and he has the people's mandate. He says he wants to serve the nation. That's why he proposed amending the constitution to prevent the dissolution of political parties for corruption, the very thing that has since happened to his own party. It's not a democracy unless it works to your advantage. For their part, the PAD has proposed a "compromise" suggesting two names as replacements for the current Prime Minister and proposing a quota system for parliamentary representation with appointed rather than elected senators. Their reasoning: democracy doesn't work. At least the PAD is honest about its agenda.

How will it end? As Mr. Henslowe said in Shakespeare in Love, "I don't know. It's a mystery." I have just checked the school's website where I read the terse announcement: "School Open as Normal." The message was deliciously ambiguous; the school will open as usual or the school will be normal when it opens. The ambiguity is like the tense stand off between the government and its opponents. We are faced with reading competing views of what constitutes a democratic norm. In any case, we must get used to governance via revolving door. Three governments in two years. These days that seems normal.

Walk good,
Jo Anne