Getting Sick Of Dogooders

[Pormax 444]

Well Jim I too live in a rural Isaan village in Buriram, 20kms fom the nearest town. I do believe that in this area people are very poor and could do with, and would welcome, some help even if only from the government. I would say that 90% of the village have large bank loans and while these might be paid off when the rice is harvested they will have to borrow again early next year. Work here is very hard to find that is why so many villagers leave their childen with grandparents and go down to Rayong, Bangkok etc to work. No I am not talking bars here but building sites working 8 hours a day for 300B. My wife's 2 sisters and cousin are doing just that. My wife's sisters have 3 children who go to school and this alone costs her 250B a day. The word 'poor' though is of course relative. They might not think they are poor because this has been their way of life for years and you don't hear them complain that much..

Agreed material wealth does not bring happiness and the villagers seem (on the outside anyway) to be content with their lives. I am sure though as I said before if help was there, they would galdly accept it and be very grateful, and if people want to offer help advice or whatever that is up to them.

As far as good education is concerned, yes I do believe that children are better educated in the Cities. Here 'in the sticks' the teaching is very sub standard.

In my home country (UK) there are also many problems with run down areas, gang warefare, drug taking, shitty unkept homes etc but one has to be honest help from doo-gooders there should not be given because with the welfare state in the UK there is no need for it. If there is no work you get money for housing and food and they still have the 32" Plasma TV screen and other mod cons and run a car. A lot different than here.

No rural Isaan is not a living hell, I love it here in my village, but I also accept that much more could be done and should be done for those in rural areas. I am sure there are many places in the world a lot worse off than rural Thailand.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Pormax

[billd766 26,156]

I live on the other side of Thailand in Khampaeng Phet province near the Mae Wong national park.

There are not that many "poor" people here and not everyone has a pickup truck but most have a motorbike,TV, mobile phone, somewhere to live, be it ever so 'umble and nobody is starving.

Not that many are very rich either and most of the kids go to school though not all of them finish the full course.

Most seem to be fairly happy and have enough for cigarettes, lao kao etc and some of the women come to play cards with my MIL. Nobody wins or loses that much though they take it very seriously and I think that over a month they come out roughly even. I used to wonder to myself if they had anything better to do and after a while I worked out that they actually didn't have anything better to do.

In my western way of thinking I can always find things to do, go online, play games on the computer, read a book, do odd jobs around the house and land but the can't because they don't have a computer or they can't get an online connection, they don't read books but they do watch TV, eat and talk to each other and boy do they talk.

Fortunately we don't get any do-gooders coming this way I am glad to say.

I heard JW's are in your area soon. .............................

I will set the attack cats on them and burn fiery crosses at the gate.

[glennb6 638]

james,

I don't need to wait until tomorrow morning and I'm not changing addresses, and that's a hell of a damning comment I'm therefore making on the ussa. Also the more I talk to other ausies, brits, westerners, the more they say the same thing about their respective homelands. I do live in an 'extra special' village and know that there are better ones around.

[bergen 306]

Great topic Jim!!

[jay-uk 3]

Some 10 years ago I would have been guilty of feeling that rural Isaan was full of poorer Thais but the coin has flipped and the west is getting poorer and the east richer. Any SE/Asian countries on the door step of China will enoy an increase in trade relations and farmers enjoy an increase in food prices. The UK has just had its worst yield for farm crops for many years and prices are on the rise as a result. If food continues to be in short supply around the world affected by weather, increasing population, change in diets and ever increasing use of land for biofuels then farming may not be such a bad past time in future for the next generation of our kids IF they get to enjoy higher prices for their crops in time. The world's in a strange way but my take is that the poor farmers will not be so poor for very much longer. Others argue different and i might be wrong but i used to think about saving to put my kids through uni but think differently now as many with degrees are struggling to find a job even at mcdonalds in the west. So what was the point of all that eductaion if no jobs exists at the end and the economies are on a decline for some time. Its the west in need of help right now!

[Suradit69 14,771]

I spent 25 years working/living in a rural African setting for a US based charitable organization. There are a lot of frustrations, satisfactions, failures and successes, from both the stand-point of the donors and the recipients of aid.

Initially most people involved in this sort of work are long on both enthusiasm & ignorance. You can’t live in the US or Europe or Australia (or for that matter much of Thailand) and really have any meaningful understanding of life in an environment where disease, superstition, war, tribalism are relentlessly weighing you down and aspirations are either set at little more than just surviving from one day to the next or set at some unrealistically high level that leads inevitably to disappointment.

Also inevitable, those raising funds for charity or those choosing to actually go into these areas, will over-estimate their understanding of what’s really needed and under-estimate the knowledge possessed by the targets of their charity. I saw a lot of money go to waste either through ineptitude or corruption ... on both sides of the giving-receiving relationship.

Usually among the do-gooders ignorance fades in time to be replaced by an informed understanding or else a debilitating cynicism. Some people manage to remain enthusiastic while others pack it in and leave or else they settle in to exploit the situation to suit their own agenda while carping about everything endlessly. In some respects it mirrors the enthusiasm turned to cynicism of some long-term expats residing in Thailand.

When it comes to “saving the world,” the indigenous population often is better situated to know what is really needed and how to implement realistic improvements. Foreigners, whatever their educational or practical background, dumped into a culture and physical environment totally different from anything they’ve ever experienced, are almost always going to fail to some extent and quite often manage to generate bad feelings locally and for the funding source.

On the other hand, dumping money into local hands is nearly always a recipe for disaster. Equating poverty & lack of education with stupidity is a mistake. People who manage to survive grinding poverty quite often are clever in surprising ways, especially when it comes to creative allocation of externally sourced funds. I recall a primary school headmaster who found numerous foreign funding sources for the same three classroom addition to his school. Each of the several organizations sent out delegations to inspect the same three classrooms that they believed they alone had paid for. The headmaster kept his new LandRover parked out of sight.

I will say that the most effective organizations on the ground where I was were the Catholic Church, the Salvation Army and a few other fairly low-key religious groups. I know the former has had a lot of bad press because of abuse of some people they served, but in most cases very good, dedicated people did meaningful work in education and provision of medical services that would otherwise have been unavailable. Their workers tend to be totally fluent in the local language, live frugally themselves and absorb local people into the operations they undertake.

The Salvation Army ran a hospital in a remote area near where I stayed as well as operating a secondary school and a residential facility for lepers. Aside from being in a remote area it was also an area in which a military conflict went on for a number of years. They didn't blow their own horn much and the number of people they were able to positively impact was relatively small, but it would be difficult to fault their work.

I know we used to regard with dread the newly arrived “do-gooders,” whether individuals who were out to save the world or, even worse, groups that would descend on us for a few weeks, bringing along shipments of expired drugs or other useless rubbish that US companies “donated” for the tax write-off or else they came in order to do “good works” like paint buildings or dig ditches or whatever and bond with the locals. They usually ended up being more of a burden than providing any useful help and their much ballyhooed donations were often worthless. Still, at one time we were all newly arrived and full of ourselves as well.

I would say, based on my experience, looking at inviduals affected, a lot of good can come from the efforts of do-gooders. Lives were saved, useful skills were gained, self-sustaining productivity was created. Looking at the big picture, it’s hard to say whether the overall effect was positive, negative or of no consequence in the greater scheme of things. Sometimes the process has as much or more value than the results.

I agree with the OP in that a lot of the noise generated by do-gooders can be irritating, ill-conceived and will probably either be non-productive or sometimes even counter-productive. But the world would not be a better place if there was no concern for others or no willingness to make some personal sacrifices for others or no demonstration that we care about others.

If nothing else, some well-meaning, overly enthusiastic do-gooders can provide a bit of entertainment in areas with poor television reception.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Suradit69

[jamescollister 973]

There have been some good replies to this topic, very interesting. It is my birthday and the wife has bought me a bottle of whiskey and I am drunk. Tomorrow I will tell the story of the NGO who built a fish pond out this way. Jim

[lizardtongue 307]

I have tried living in the sticks I am afraid to say that it wasn't for me! But good luck to all of you who are content with your life.

The consensus of opinion appears to be that the rural Thai are not poor but happy living their way of life (The real Thailand perhaps?), the only negative comment I have is that if this were to be totally true, why is it that I continually read/hear stories of Westerners being asked for money etc etc from these so called contented Thai people?

[jamescollister 973]

I have tried living in the sticks I am afraid to say that it wasn't for me! But good luck to all of you who are content with your life.

The consensus of opinion appears to be that the rural Thai are not poor but happy living their way of life (The real Thailand perhaps?), the only negative comment I have is that if this were to be totally true, why is it that I continually read/hear stories of Westerners being asked for money etc etc from these so called contented Thai people?

Still awake and not sober , that;s for sure. Think Thais ask for money the same way as anyone does when they see a sucker will to give.

Don't know where you are from, but willing to bet there is a line of banks, investment companies happy to take your cash. Jim

[IsaanAussie 1,684]

I remember Robin Williams doing a routine about his kids and how he worried about their future. Two thoughts entered his mind as he dreamed about it. He could imagine his child thanking the Nobel Academy for the peace prize, but also asking the question "Do you want fries with that?".

I agree with many others, great topic Jim.

IMHO, rural Thai society is at a turning point. Thailand is changing into a developed nation and with it our western "unsustainable" lifestyle is touching more of them. For those of us who except that cultural differences exist and that just because we have those differences does not make one viewpoint right or wrong, just different, enjoy the easy going lifestyle here in the "bush" before the world swallows it up.

[somo 789]

There have been some good replies to this topic, very interesting. It is my birthday and the wife has bought me a bottle of whiskey and I am drunk. Tomorrow I will tell the story of the NGO who built a fish pond out this way. Jim

Happy birthday Jim

[Lickey 195]

The more you help the under-priveliged, the less they help themselves, proven time & time again in Africa.

[theslime 388]

There have been some good replies to this topic, very interesting. It is my birthday and the wife has bought me a bottle of whiskey and I am drunk. Tomorrow I will tell the story of the NGO who built a fish pond out this way. Jim

Hey Buddy Why don,t you go over and see how the Charcoal Makers live in your Issan Idyll.

[theslime 388]

The more you help the under-priveliged, the less they help themselves, proven time & time again in Africa.

Got any specific cases? Jesus must have got it all wrong.

[Suradit69 14,771]

The more you help the under-priveliged, the less they help themselves, proven time & time again in Africa.

I would disagree both with your statement and the alleged proof, although it's a convenient excuse for not sharing or caring.