The day I returned home

Greeted by sad sights, lifted by happy reminders
Huen Sawang Home,
by Khlong Phra Udom Canal,
Lat Lum Kaeo, Pathum Thani.
15 November 2554 (2011)
Dear Friends
I wrote two letters from Hua Hin. But the third one I penned at home _ the very place that I had run away from when floodwater swamped it.
I'd never imagined that I would have to flee from my own house. I had survived two floods during the past 14 years living in this house which I intended to make the place where I would die.
My neighbourhood was a typical waterside community. Villagers grow rice and run orchards. They have been living with floods for over a century. I wanted to be like them, able to live with the water. I researched the natural elements _ water, earth, wind and fire, so I would be able to live my life in harmony with them, and built my house accordingly. But I could not realise that dream as I simply could not live with water if that meant massive amounts of floodwater, like that which I now encountered, the one that forced me to run for my life, away from my beloved home.
I left Hua Hin at 5am on a mini bus, and arrived at Victory Monument by 8:30am. I took a taxi driven by a grouchy cabbie who whined all the way. But he brought me to the destination on time. I was helped by two friends _ Khun Venus Asawasittithavorn, director of the Corporate Communication Department at Siam Cement Group (SCG), and Dr Soengkiet, director of Sathaban Loek Si Keow (Green Globe Institute). They provided me with flood relief items for neighbours in my community. They arranged a car and a boat for me to travel to my flooded home. Only the car could not reach my home.
We started our trip on time, with more than 10 young volunteers from SCG and the Green Globe Institute. All the things the flood-ravaged community dwellers had asked for were ready. It took four hours to reach my home.
The owner of Prop Bar who is a friend of mine sent meals packed in boxes. Film director Nonsi Nimibutr also dropped by with a batch of barbecued pork and sticky rice. We had 200 meal boxes to deliver to flood victims.
We needed a villager to drive the boat to pick us up at the mouth of Khlong Phra Udom. It took another two hours to reach our destination.
With huge heaps of meal boxes and donated items, the boat driver had to do a second sortie to bring all the donated items to the residents. But there was only one boat and it happened to be a small one. We had to make a detour at the floodgate in order to get into a rice field. The fields had disappeared, replaced with a swamp, which expanded beyond the horizon.
Never before in my life had I seen such a huge amount of water. We spent more time on the boat, travelling along what used to be a road rather than the canal, which was clogged with swathes of water hyacinths that barred any type of boat from getting through. It was a short route but we had to go out of the way and ride on the flooded fields instead. Water had spilled from the canal and consumed houses and temples.
From the mount of Khlong Phra Udom, I passed about eight temples until I arrived at my village. From Khlong Phra Udom, I could see Wat Thong Koong, Wat Prode Kade, Wat Tha Kwien, Wat Saphan Soong, Wat Thong Sa-ard and the intersection of Highway 345. It would take around 10 kilometres had we travelled by car.
Canal water had deluged rice fields, turning them into huge swamps as far as the eye could see. We could only make out the roofs of houses, not the structure below. In scores of villages, floodwater submerged the first floor and had began to rise to the second. The floodwater had slowly crept up to the roofs of hundreds of houses by the canal.
Where had the massive floods came from? Floodwater was the outcome of water management at the wrong time. Problem-solving without preparation could create a problem like this. If we had paid full attention to the finer details of water management, we would be able to muster any amount of water. We would always be ready. But I didn't want to be a whiner, at least for now or if words came to my throat, I would again become the same old boy with foot-in-mouth disease.
But I was too sad today. I dropped by my home to pick up Jao Loi, the cute cat who had floated along the bed of water hyacinths many years ago. At that time I had to row my boat to collect it. I bathed Jao Loi, fed it milk and we became friends for six years. Jao Loi was adorable enough to win the heart of my soulmate. We had bonded ever since.
At first when I arrived home, I could not bring myself to walk into the rooms where I'd failed to keep the books from the water. I moved some volumes up high but not high enough. The flood rose to 2.5 metres. It was impossible to move things up to the second floor in time as the water rose very fast. The engulfing flood was the same sheet of run-off from Nakhon Sawan province that had inundated Bang Bua Thong, Bang Kruay, Salaya and then Nakhon Chaisri. Flood in these places was indeed the same giant blanket of water.
I finally reached my home, then slowly walked into my library. Judging from the level of the stains on the walls, the water had receded by only 30cm. It was hard to differentiate the flood in my home and canal water as it was the same blanket of murky water. But the flood was not from the canal _ it was runoff that had flowed through fields. Initially the runoff level was higher than the canal. But floodwater and canal water gradually merged before running down to the sea. It is always the nature of water to run to lower ground.
Closets and beds were encrusted with mud. Paintings were saved simply because they were hung on the wall _ too high for the flood to reach. Some floodwater still remained in the low-lying kitchen. My comfy minimalist-style bedroom was no longer the place to sleep. I may have to tear down the home I have been living in for over 14 years.
It was dusk by the time I walked to the library. As I opened the door, I simply could not bear the sight in front of me. Thousands of soaked books, including those on the table, had decomposed, reduced to pulp. A century-old piano was close to crumbling. Chairs floated and bobbed in a corner of the room.
The floor that I stomped on was full of soaked books, which had disintegrated. I had to walk back as my heart sunk. I could no longer hold back my tears. How could I love these books that much? But why shouldn't I? Without those books I would not able to write. Knowledge and views of the world were gleaned from these books that now rested under the deluge. I had lived frugally and saved money in order to buy those books. I took all my books every time I moved to a new place. Ironically, when I'd found my permanent home, these books were destroyed by the flood.
Books that I loved so much had gone with the flood. They were there in front of me, but it was not possible to take them back. It might have been better to lose them in a fire, at least I would not have to look at them this way.
I had been surrounded by books since I was a child. I felt close to them, more than anything else in this world. I handled them with care, cherished them as if to pay gratitude to them for making me the person I had become. A man, not merely a being. Indeed, I never believed that you could become a complete person without being a reader.
Tears could pour at any moment. Yet I managed to hold them back. I started writing this letter at dusk and came to the last sentence when the moonlight shone on the rippled skin of the massive blanket of floodwater. The view of the moon from my home never let me down and I never missed a chance to gaze at it every night. Even in the darkest, moonless night, I just watched the sky and asked the darkness where the moon had gone.
The moon was waning tonight. But the tender moonlight helped me forget about the loss of my books. The moon was telling me not to cling on to those books. There would be millions of books waiting for readers.
I once berated a woman that she could not perform her duty simply because she had never read any books.
Tonight the moon seemed to assure me, helping me sleep and wake up tomorrow.
My thoughts are always with you, my readers.