A Redemptorist priest has lived in some of Bangkok’s poorest slums for almost forty years. His name is Joe Maier. He was sent to Klong Toey. He asked to stay there overnight and says prayers there instead of travelling back to Holy Redeemer Church, near many embassies and the city’s busiest urban park. He never left Klong Toey again. He moved in.

Simply put, if you don’t want to know how people really live and what horrors and evils the world endures, don’t read Welcome to the Bangkok Slaughterhouse: The Battle for Human Dignity in Bangkok’s Bleakest Slums by Father Joe. The last chapter opens with the words,

“All of your stories are so sad,” a friend said. “Are there any happy stories in the Bangkok slums?”

He’s from a nice neighborhood, doesn’t know Klong Toey, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and told him the happiest story I could think of at the moment…

… about a woman who learned from her uncle to be strong, who stayed away from AIDS, who needed to get rid of her unfaithful live-in boyfriend, whose later husband fell into taking and then selling amphetamines with her children in tow, and who seized the opportunity of his jail time to get her life on track, become a school teacher in the slums, and pay her way out of debt.

This is to say nothing of the faces of children, dying of AIDS in a hospice or stories about what it really means when entire communities are squatters and must be squatters on government land.

This is poverty, but it’s first and foremost as stories about human beings that these stories have any meaning. It’s not about economics. It’s not about theories. It’s not about pet ideas. It’s not about pontificating or even preaching. It’s about what poverty does to people, and just how hard it is to survive on a moral fibre when the world has it in for you. And, of course, it’s about redemption in all its forms: God’s salvation, as well as buying your way out.

The Human Development Foundation and Mercy Centre both help and develop a partnership with the poor. They are not there to do something to the people of Klong Toey. They’re there to do something with them. I enjoy this book. It’s very challenging. It’s a kind of guidepost for contemplative prayer in the muddy world.