Showing 1 - 10 of 12
The lost scavenger
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 13/05/2018
» From the second floor window of their flat, Pretty Molly sees her slum scavenger husband returning from a day of foraging. Her snippy stray mongrel barks excitedly as Pretty Molly begins shouting out the window to him.
Getting to graduation with leaps, rebounds
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 22/04/2018
» Dressed in graduation cap and gown, pink ribbons in her hair, Miss Pu Glin posed for her first-ever official photo looking regal and confident. She even had a hint of swagger.
Klong Toey's future finest
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 01/10/2017
» He's 10 months old now, Master Tack. Happy, good-natured, smiles a lot, not afraid of stray cats and scavenger dogs. They like him; he likes them. It all works out. At night he doesn't cry. You'd love him. A great baby. Well, not totally "great" just yet, but give him time. He will grow up to be one of Klong Toey's finest. Just watch.
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.
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.
Just for a while
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 06/07/2014
» Miss Tang: she’s one of the happiest girls I have ever met. And you can just close your eyes and visualise her — a super kid at the top of her game of life. Hasn’t lost a battle yet, although she’s been battered and bruised much too often for any teenager.
Slum pioneer swept away to victory
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 01/06/2014
» Auntie Boon Mee looks and carries on in life pretty much how you’d expect a high-class Klong Toey slum pioneer woman to look and carry on.
A sprightly angel and a sacred tree
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 09/03/2014
» Lovely Miss Sprite. Angel of the week — second year of kindergarten — winner of the colouring contest — elegantly going on five years of age. She has a voice pitched between the song of an angel and a chirping baby bird sitting on the edge of the nest, not quite ready to fly. Likes to put a leaf behind her ear — picked from that Sacred Tree behind their slum shack. Her mum used to do that too. Lovely features, she has a smile that could stop any herd of wild elephants that might be visiting the neighbourhood. As for her innate beauty? You would immediately pick her out of a crowd. There was a problem: orphan girls fetch a pretty price. But we dealt with that.
Miss Mott's Slaughter House survival
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 17/11/2013
» This is the harsh story of our own Miss Mott and the home-grown, inbred violence and drug savagery that seeped into Klong Toey's Slaughter House a few years back. Miss Mott was Slaughter House-born in the Year of the Rabbit _ the most gentle of creatures _ destined never to hurt anyone or anything but with predators all around.
Ms Teacher Lady
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 06/10/2013
» Let me tell you about an old-time Klong Toey revolutionary: a slum kindergarten teacher. Still going strong in her seventh cycle of years _ that makes her more than 72. But don't dare ask her if her beautiful hair is turning slightly grey, even around the edges. No guns, no knives, only pencils and paper and nursery rhymes. You'd say: ''What? A kindergarten teacher revolutionary? You're daft.'' But that's the gig. As long as she can remember, that horrible proverb rattled around in her head _ not enough children to tend our water buffalo. Even as a little girl, she told her mum _ that's not right. And schoolmarm mum said: ''You're right my daughter, so you change that.''