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Chalerm told me about when he was born. At the time the family were poorer and they were landless farmers in the hills above the village where they lived now. This was before Thailand’s economic boom that gave the area electricity, factory jobs and roads. Since Chalerm was born the province had gone from ox charts to motorbikes. Back then they were 3rd world destitute. They lived in simple huts in the forest, tended cattle and grew what they could. There was no road and the walk to town took hours.
Chalerm’s mother had enough of Chalerm’s father, who was out womanising and had not been home for six months. The father didn’t support the daughter he already had with Chalerm’s mother. She was two years old. Chalerm’s mother didn’t get along with her in-laws either.
Chalerm’s mother gave birth in secrecy and alone. When she had recovered she put the newborn baby in a tree and left. She wanted to go home to her own village and could not carry two children through the forest. She never came back.
When Chalerm’s grandmother found the baby it was dehydrated and weak. Ants were crawling over it and Chalerm showed me where on his belly the ants had penetrated his skin, making a wound.
The grandparents doubted if the baby could live but gave it cow milk and cared for it. The baby survived but when the father came home he had no interest in the child. He sold it to his uncle, the grandfather’s brother, for 100 baht.
But when the father left again to find work in the city the grandmother bought the baby back. Her husband wasn’t too pleased having another child to feed but accepted it. From then on the grandmother was Chalerm’s guardian.
Chalerm told me this story in small bits and I was shaken when I had heard it. I told it to Farang D who was shaken by it too. Farang D then told Chalerm’s story to some of his friends and the news spread. There were three kinds of reactions.
The first was: - A baby in a tree? Sure, and the buffalo died and the brother had a motorbike accident and granny needs an operation. It is just another soi 4 scam story! People who didn’t know Chalerm said this. They assumed it was a sob tale designed to get money from a gullible foreigner.
The second reaction came from Farang D’s boyfriend Golf and his brother Ball, the doctor. These sheltered middle class Thai boys refused to believe any of it. In their version of Thailand mothers didn’t abandon their babies, fathers were responsible and there wasn’t any poverty. They were in denial about the realities among farmers and working-class people. A Thai family behaving like this simply wasn’t possible.
The third reaction was from people who knew Chalerm. They knew he had integrity, that he wasn’t a barboy and that he came from a humble background. They believed him.
- Chalerm doesn’t manipulate me for money, I said. - He is honest. I don’t see any reason why he should make this up.
- The ants and the 100 baht sale are the most dubious details, said Farang D. - But even if you subtract that the rest might be true.
- This is the truth as he has been told it by his grandmother. Maybe she exaggerated to make herself the hero. But if anyone has a spine in that family it is the grandmother. Not the useless men.
- Thai families are often like that. The women hold them afloat, said Farang D.
- I knew they used to be poorer and live in the hills, I said. - Chalerm told me that earlier. If you leave a baby behind in a tropical forest, where are you going to put it? You can’t leave it on the ground or in a small open hut where animals can get to it. To hang it up in a tree is logical.
- Even in a tree ants are going to find it.
- The 100 baht sale could be realistic too. A symbolic sum to get rid of a motherless child.
- When he was born 100 baht was worth more, I said. - Maybe a weeks salary.
- In any case it is a hair-rising story, said Farang D. - I feel for the boy. But such things happen in the villages. This is not the Thailand of tourist brochures.
Meanwhile Chalerm had gone to his mother’s province with his neighbour as guide. I was anxious to hear from him.
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