• THAILAND

  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.

• THAILAND

  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.

• THAILAND

  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.

• THAILAND

  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."

• THAILAND

  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Southeast Asian sun doing unskilled sweatshop labour, living wherever there was work on the decks and holds of rusty out-of-date cargo ships in the Bay of Bangkok.

• THAILAND

  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.

• THAILAND

  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.

• THAILAND

  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.

• THAILAND

  Eight cats, 10 dogs and a motley crew

  Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 26/11/2017

  » She's a gentle mum, an Auntie Mum who is now of an auntie age. For 64 years she has lived in our Klong Toey slum. Her name is Pu Glin, a common name from days gone by. It means the fragrant aroma of sweet flowers.

• THAILAND

  Christmas legends of Klong Toey

  Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 24/12/2017

  » Our kids love to tell the story year after year, Christmas after Christmas. Tell their version, the way their grandmothers and great-grandmothers told them. These are the oldest Catholic people still alive in the slums. Way back in the old Catholic slaughterhouse area of Klong Toey, you can hear the living legends told.

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