Are you aware that parts of the country is submerged? Yes? No? Sort of? It's been a busy month on our newsfeed. Bodyslam's frontman Toon is raising millions from his cross-country run, gaining praise (and criticism) from the good cause. And what else is on the news? The shopping tax break? The junta's new set of questions?
Amidst all of these high-profile stories, the flood rarely gets the sufficient airtime, media coverage or people's attention it deserves. Once the news of the floods appears on our Facebook newsfeed, we swipe away with disinterest the way we do with boring Tinder profiles.
The 2017 flood -- while not as bad as 2011 that saw Bangkokians wading through water and hopping on boats -- has been going on for months. And while we hear occasional words that the water level is decreasing, that the situation is getting better, we also hear of the people's struggles.
Last week, an 82-year-old woman in Ayutthaya province was found dead on her boat. Her community is badly flooded and she was bringing firewood home. It was speculated that she fainted from exhaustion on the way home and eventually passed away.
Also in Ayutthaya, an 87-year-old man drowned in a flooded rice paddy while fishing, with the authorities speculating that his boat toppled over in a deep water area and that it was too far for him to swim to shore.
The flood is affecting people of all ages. Schools in different regions struggle to keep water out of their classrooms so young students wouldn't fall behind after the semester started on Nov 1. In Nakhon Sawan, a school in Khwae Yai tambon decided to begin its term last week despite water clogging in certain parts of the campus. The water level was reportedly safe for the school to operate.
Over in Ang Thong, a school in Pa Mok district used a roadside pavilion as a makeshift classroom as the school is still under 2m of water.
It is estimated that, in October, more than 300,000 people in more than 20 provinces were affected by the flood. So far, there have been donations, water pumps and food sent into the affected area. The cabinet has approved 4.7 billion baht to help farmers, with each of the affected families being allocated 3,000 baht as relief.
Floods, to many, are nothing but a yearly mishap that they take for granted unless faced with the problem themselves. To others, it's a matter of life or death. The same thing can be said of our hospitals and healthcare system, like the one the Betong-Mae Sai run is trying to help, though that is getting more attention than the floods.
Like the hospitals, the annual disaster is another of our national problems that have been swept under the carpet by the state, waiting to be discovered, dug up and laid bare for the public to seek solutions on their own. When people feel as though they've had enough, they wake up -- like Toon and those who donated money towards the run and flood relief, to do something about it. Deep down, they may realise this is not going to solve anything in the long run (pun not intended). But what else can we do to help?
The government says it's doing the best it can, as always. It sent help and the prime minister suggested that people should take up fishery in the meantime. Is that another way of telling people to make the best out of a disaster because no one is going to save them? That they just have to save themselves? That, year after year, their houses and schools will still be under water for months with no proper precautions taken to save them from such a fate?
And so people learn to improvise, adapt and overcome to survive both the rush of water and botched healthcare system -- and the junta goes back to focusing on other agendas, like discussing the possibility of setting up a political party, the upcoming election that may be postponed again and its own never-ending shopping spree, all the while a rock singer is doing a cross-country run to gain 700 million baht that the junta could easily allocate if it chose to not buy another submarine.
I guess it's not fair to just blame it on the junta alone as these problems -- both the floods and healthcare system -- have been ongoing for years, pre- and post-coup. I do wonder if they feel anything reading about Toon, with their hands clutched around their purses and a shopping catalogue in the other hand. We witness people's kindness when trouble arises, but it is also a reflection of failed state management in various dimensions that even a cross-continental run won't be able to help.
Are you aware that it's flooding? Are they? In the end, we may just have to rely on the Buddhist verse -- Atta hi attano natho -- to get us by. We save ourselves. No one else will.
Melalin Mahavongtrakul is a features writer of the Life section of the Bangkok Post.