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This has been another different week in Bangkok. This time it is because of the great tragedy that is the floods in Thailand. They are the worst in decades and they are approaching Bangkok. There is just a huge mass of water that needs to get out to sea and guess what is the way? People, their homes and communities and, of course, Bangkok.

I am not swimming and by no means suffering in any real way. What I experience of this shared Thai tragedy is only minor but still real. It is the experience of living in a city that lives under the expectation that something terrible will happen but not knowing where, when or how, and to what extent. Basically nature is a powerful force and is at work. I respect that. What does make this tragedy worse is the lack of information from reliable sources combined then with local talk and gossip. That is a deadly combo for giving rise to unneeeded panic.

It tells me that we need to listen more and talk less.

I still work around Bangkok and do my business. I continue my work, helping urban refugees. As I dealt with some of them recently, it struck me just how overcome they are by their own continuing plight. Urban refugees in Bangkok live in survival mode, even if that. Being illegal and unwanted in Bangkok, they have to deal with so many terrible issues. Their life is just full-on dealing with the daily questions that face them -
how will I pay the rent?
will there be food for the table for the family?
will we be caught by the police?

So when I have to meet with them in the midst of the great unknown that is the flood crisis that is facing Bangkok, I realise that they are hardly even aware of such a huge tragedy facing the wider community. They are just stuck in their own little worlds as it is just too hard to deal with anything else. This for me spoke heaps.