Let's Have Fun

When I first walked into Theparak 5, a slum that snakes along Thailand’s state-owned railroad, I saw a billboard rising above the entrance. It showed young people leaning over their scooters, with a city rising against a bright blue sky in the background. “LET’S HAVE FUN,” read the sign. Cars passing on the road would have seen the billboard, but not the tin-cement-reclaimed plastic homes nestled together below. I was struck by the pairing of “LET’S HAVE FUN” and a community still working to ensure that they won’t be evicted by the railroad company, that their recent three-year leases will be renewed, and that they will have access to affordable water and electricity. But in the next twenty-four hours, I found that “let’s have fun” was not as out of place as I thought.

My host sister Juan was 12, and she liked to have fun. Her best friend from next door practically lived at her house, and other neighbor kids gathered in the narrow street. One round youngster carried a plastic “sword” at all times and ineffectively attacked people at unpredictable times. Another drew small, careful pictures on a balloon. Another led me into a nearby library and repeated the English words back to me as I read her the story of Fluff’s disappearance from Apple Tree Farm.

From the minute we arrived, the 12-year-old friends were proposing games. We played badminton, volleyball, basketball (with someone holding an actual basket), and Simon Says. We sang songs, we played a more violent version of monkey in the middle, we wove through lines of poles as we ran. When we smacked a badminton birdie onto a roof, they knew just how to bang the tin to send it flying back down. “What should we play next?” they’d say, abruptly throwing down their rackets.

Life in the slums is not all games. Our host parents sat inside the windowless house all day, weaving baskets to sell. Our host mother rarely smiled or left the house. But playing Marco Polo in a fifteen-by-fifteen foot part of the house, the only part open enough to really move in, I couldn’t stop laughing. As I reached for people hiding in the same places they had hidden the time before, I realized how much fun people can and do have, no matter where they live.