The Unfortunate and Sad Side to Life in Thamuang

I tend to write optimistic blogs about my life in Asia and Thamuang in particular.  I am sometimes cynical, sometimes grumpy but rarely have I had the need to write about sad news.  The truth is there isn't a lot of sad news to write about, but when something comes along, it is all the more shocking.

The other day news came in that a young boy, about 16 years old, had been missing from his home for a couple of days.  Apparently he lived with his grandmother and his parents worked in Bangkok where the money is better.  These circumstances are quite common for many families in most Issan villages, and indeed was the case with Khamma for two or three years.  Money is necessary for food, education and housing and there isn't much of it growing rice year and year out.  Families are forced to live apart and youngsters have to adapt quickly to a life with grandparents and basically fending for themselves.

In many ways this is good because the children contribute to daily chores like cooking, shopping and cleaning and working in the fields.  Everyone, regardless of age, has to chip in to make the home operate.  However, children do feel the pressures.  After all children are children wherever they are in the world.

Keeping up at school is difficult.  Class sizes often consist of 45 to 50 kids and the teacher has to accommodate them in two or three rooms.  This obviously has its affect on academic progress and as kids reach their mid teens they are often difficult to control - just like any kids.

Sadly this poor boy decided to leave home and did not tell anybody.  His body was found two days later in the river about five miles downstream.  He apparently took his own life because he could no longer handle the pressure.

The village follows certain procedure in these situations, because according to Buddhist tradition the body cannot be cremated, but has to buried.  And so it was that he was buried in a cemetery along with the victims of road accidents.  Apparently unless the death is one through illness or old age the body is not cremated.  I don't know the reasons other than it seems to a superstition.  There is no time wasted either.  The boy was buried the next day and apparently without his parents being there.  Very very sad and a reminder that pressures do exist in seemingly idyllic locations.