hard (debris) rain by 36

i want to spit as i type this. as i think this.

did i innocently wish for it to manifest into something so tangibly wild that it wiped out and left just burnt air and corrugated tin debris? and yes, maybe charcoal wood, to draw with, if you wish.

spit. thu thu thu.

i have no (other) picture to draw.

but this:

she billowed and was strengthened further by the wind that bangkok's been experiencing lately. she was dressed in amorphous gray and didn't stop. she hid her bright red-orange core from the school's puny hose and when the fire brigades came (after 20 minutes of difficulty), they couldn't reach her core either.

everyone eventually ran out of water, the school and the fire-trucks-- so what do men fighting fires do?

yes. they take the chlorine water from the kiddie pool.

and they send determined teachers to encourage others to carry whatever container(s) of water they can find to pour onto a fire 30 feet tall and completely unreachable even for the firemen.

all my 36 hazard-prone kids ran out of the primary building. screaming, just like hollywood movies and thai soap operas had instructed them to. now, the only thing was, it wasn't just my 36, but other peoples' 36s too. all sorts of 36; small, big, rotund, ruddy, lanky, pimply, tall, short.

they'd never had any drills they'd feigned and practiced before. they didn't know what to do. but run. our first instinct (?).

and the teachers and admin were as clueless as the 36 hazard-prone students. with the students out of the way, teachers started relocating all the important stuff they could find in the main office. along with important documents and printers and copiers and phones, other important objects included upholstered metal chairs, school bags that were new and sealed in plastic bags, a model house made by ice-cream sticks and students' school bags hurled from two floors up, unzipped.

spit. thu. thu. thu.

i don't know if i innocently started the fire.
1) by not wanting to teach today
2) (especially) by not wanting to step in for a relief lesson for a fellow teacher
3) by referring to my students as the 36 hazard-prone time and again (in this blog)-- did i really wish for a hazard to happen so that the school would quit stuffing children in a small room, to the point of no return, especially during a hazard such as the one we encountered today?

what have i done? spit. thu. thu. thu.

i don't want to desensitize this fire with pictures because there are people i know who's houses were burnt down today.
the lady who cleans all our toilets, the one i laugh with.
the lady at the kitchen who cooks for everyone.
and many other school employees.

i tried not to take pictures, but these ones are for those who know of the houses that clutter right behind the school precincts. and especially for the visually inclined,broken by the media, who need to see how big and bad an event is before they rate it and ration their emotions out.

i wish to see the roti man soon. my roti man who told me he lived near the mosque behind the school with his wife and his newborn. i didn't see him on the street selling his rotis today. i hope his house was one of the ones spared.

my blog doesn't reach far. but those who happen to stumble upon it, are in bangkok and decide to do something about it, please donate food (preferably non-perishable), money or clothes at sarasas ektra school, in yannawa district. or email (muna.grg@gmail.com) or leave me a message on the comment box below on how i can get in touch with you.

well, tomorrow we clean out the damaged parts of the school and put all the things we took out back into the offices. the model ice-cream stick house, included.

the hard rain continues. inside my computer and outside of it.


"Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
'Bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along.
Seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired an' it's torn,
It looks like it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born."-- Bobby