When I look back, I see what happened and what had been. In Thai politics today, the yellow shirts and the red shirts still have not resolved their differences. Rather closer to family, Titi has left us behind in this world and we still miss him terribly; and though Mama is brimming with good health it is no use to a mind ravaged by Alzheimer's. And there is still apprehension, perhaps inevitably, for the future. The year 2010 is uncertain for many of us who do not have jobs or who will soon be out of work. Let us have hope, then, that determination will keep us going forward, one step at a time, eyes ever on the far horizon.
This letter was written Monday, January 1, 2007.
Dear Ones,
For New Year's, Andy had planned a sumptuous Chinese banquet dinner at one of the best Chinese restaurants in one of the hotels in Bangkok. Andy, AJ, Taranee, and I were all dressed and ready to go at 6:30 p.m. when the neighbors from across the street, Koong and Khun Sanan, stopped us and said, you shouldn't go, haven't you heard about the bombings?
Right away, we checked the internet and the TV stations. CNN didn't interrupt their regular programming but the Thai stations were carrying live reports. According to the bangkokpost.com and the nationmultimedia.com, at sundown on New Year's Eve, 6 bombs were detonated around the city. As a result, two people died and at least a dozen were injured. One bomb went off at Seacon Square, the mall near us, and another went off at a police box at the freeway entrance nearest our house. Luckily, no one was hurt by those two explosions, but other people weren't so lucky at the Victory Monument and the Klong Toey Market. The Bangkok Governor cancelled the New Year's celebrations at the plaza at Central World. So, reluctantly, we decided to stay in and not go out. We didn't go hungry though, as I made us a light supper of turkey hash on toasted home-made whole wheat bread.
This morning when we woke up, we found out that other bombs had detonated after midnight. This time, some foreign tourists were injured. We're still at home and don't feel like going out, especially to any place crowded. We're scheduled to go over to Mama's house to have New Year's dinner with her and with Mimi, YJ, and Mikey. Titi, Lek, and Nicky went to Chiang Rai for the holiday.
The bourse is closed for New Year's and will not re-open until January 3rd. Andy is expecting the stock exchange to suffer huge losses as a result of the bombings. No one has claimed responsibility. Despite the four-year-old insurgency in the Muslim majority provinces in the south, there have been no bombings in Bangkok--until now. However, the newspapers have suggested that those responsible could be the supporters of the former prime minister. They have denied it. Needless to say, the mood in the city is uncertain. From feeling relatively safe, Bangkok residents are beginning to understand what life must be like for those people living in the southern provinces, where nearly 2,000 people have died in the insurgency.
And so 2007 begins on a somber note in Bangkok. The end of 2006 was not all a loss, as we counted our blessings. Taranee and AJ are here safe with us to spend the holidays. However, Andy's mother suffered a stroke in early December but has made a near-complete recovery. She had to spend Christmas in the hospital so the family rallied around her and celebrated Christmas at the hospital with her. We made her room feel like home with photographs of the family and a little Christmas tree that we decorated with glass balls and a gilded poinsettia for a star. Taranee, Nicky, and I made tiny origami cranes and boxes for its branches.
We decided not to have a Christmas party this year but I made roast turkey with all the fixins' anyway, and packed up dinners for Titi and his family, and Mimi and her family. I also packed a small dinner for Mama. On Christmas Eve we all met in her room laden with gifts for the gift exchange. Mikey put on his Christmas elf hat and handed out pink piglets on a toggle chain. His mother explained that they were favors from China for the Year of the Pig. Mimi saw them at a wedding and asked the bride where she got them. It took her a month to order them from China. Each precious piglet had a tiny silver button in its head so that when you press it, the little pig grunted, "ribbit!"
While the pig-frog amused everybody, Andy played Santy Claus and handed out gifts to everyone, even the nurses were included. We left Mama in good spirits to go to the Christmas Vigil mass at Holy Redeemer Church on Soi Ruamrudee. It was crowded, and the overflow had to park in the Bangkok Assurance building's parking lot. That night there was a guitarist and a cantor instead of the Lady Slide's wavering soprano. We all sang, we wish you a merry Christmas, and indeed, we all felt warm and hopeful. We didn't have the Christmas breeze as we had in Jamaica, but the weather had turned suitably cool--in the 70s and 80s.
After Christmas, Andy, the kids, and I went to Haad Jao Samran (Master of Relaxation Beach) for two days of sun. We got a two bedroom villa at Fisherman's Village, a boutique resort in a small town that is not yet a tourist trap. It is still a sleepy fishing village; no high rise hotels have been built yet. Though we had American breakfast in the morning, we preferred to eat dinner at Grandmother's Restaurant where the seafood was fresh and the service was friendly. Andy liked the waiter's ingenuity. When he complained that the dipping sauce wasn't to his liking, the boy brought another him one; you'll like this one, he promised. Andy was impressed; he should sell cars, he decided.
Mama came home just before the New Year's holiday began to continue her convalescence with a round-the-clock nurse and visits from the physical and occupational therapists. Somehow Titi and the driver Nate managed to carry her upstairs to her room. (I didn't ask, I didn't want to know.) The children went all out to make her homecoming as comfortable and as stress-free as possible. Mama, for her part, calmly accepted her limitations including the accoutrements that come with being an invalid: the hospital bed, the wheelchair, the hated walker, and the porta-potty chair. Mimi found her a hospital bed that has all kinds of bells and whistles including the miraculous ability of managing NOT to look (so much) like a hospital bed.
So New Year's celebrations are going to be low-key, like Christmas. But we are going to count our blessings again. We are all happy and healthy. This evening, we will go over to Mama's for dinner with Mimi and her family. For dessert, I have baked a cheesecake topped with glazed fresh mango and kiwi.
Maybe 2007 has begun with uncertainty, but we will not lose hope that there will be peace and harmony again in the Land of the Thai.
Walk good,
Jo Anne
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