Showing 21 - 30 of 46
A fire fails to destroy community's spirit
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 30/07/2017
» It was early morning, still dark, and "old granny", as the neighbours nicknamed her to distinguish her from a younger granny also living alone in the next-door shack, was saying her morning prayers by candlelight.
A slaughterhouse love story
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 02/07/2017
» She's a slaughterhouse kindergarten teacher. Her whole life through and through. And her husband was a boy who grew up just over the footbridge crossing the canal to the other side, next to the temple. And her face becomes more beautiful day by day. Serene might be a better word. Her whole life of 48 years. She has been teaching slaughterhouse kindergarten children since her middle teens.
Money can't buy Miss Tip's love
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 07/05/2017
» We never knew mum when she was young and not yet ravaged by cheap booze and hard hot years under the Southeast Asian sun doing unskilled sweatshop labour, living wherever there was work on the decks and holds of rusty out-of-date cargo ships in the Bay of Bangkok.
Master Gaw finds refuge
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 05/03/2017
» That wasn't like Master Gaw. He was the toughie of the second kindergarten class, as rough and tumble as any four-year-old boy in our Klong Toey slums. Not afraid of ghosts that might lurk in a dark corner or under the bed. The kid feared nothing.
Gone to the dogs
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 29/01/2017
» It's not one of Klong Toey's finest hours. In fact, it's an ugly moment -- a monster moment. Stray dogs attacked and almost killed a two-year-old child. This all began at midnight in a particularly dark alley of Klong Toey in Bangkok. Auntie Dang, a 62-year-old grandmum, got the call to go to work. "Come quickly," the voice on the mobile phone demanded. "The game is about to start. We need a dhon tang."
The broken wings of a fallen bird
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 24/04/2016
» Galong, born with Down's syndrome, was of indeterminate age. He lived on the streets and worked as a "doorman" at a low-budget karaoke joint near the Pratunam market. Always a proper gentleman, he greeted us, shook our hands and in his gravelly voice asked, "How are you?"
Tragedy of a street kid success
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 29/05/2016
» Why tell this story? Why take the effort to try and remember an 18-year-old street kid who drowned in the Chao Phraya River, half snockered on drugs? So, even though dying and drowning were the last things from his mind, drown he did, die he did. And it was kind of his own fault.
A dance to fix a granddad’s broken heart
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 20/03/2016
» She said, “I think I was dreaming. I was sleepy, but I mean, I sort of remember, and it wasn’t scary. Mum in heaven whispered ‘Ahh — ree — sah — rah ... my daughter, you’ve got to mend granddad’s broken heart and stop the pain in our family. Please do this for me, and I shall rest in peace. I didn’t mean to, but I hurt him so much.' ”
A hair-raising tale from Klong Toey
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 11/10/2015
» The "three grandmothers" is the most famous story in the old part of the slum known as the Klong Toey slaughterhouse. The kindergarten kids love the story and ask the teacher over and over to "tell us again" before their afternoon nap at school.
Branching out in Klong Toey
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 09/08/2015
» There’s a really big tree with roots all over the place and beautiful deep green leaves shaped like a Valentine’s Day heart. It's a nice tree, but it’s slightly unkempt. However, Auntie Gung and our children say it’s fine for a sacred tree to be unkempt. And this is a sacred tree with a sacred spirit, or angel. It's called a dhon pho tree in Thai and it’s in the back of the Klong Toey slum flats.