As we were waiting for our long tailboat at Taling Chan, I found myself so enthralled by this one girl. She was the only girl with a bunch of other boys who were just hanging out on the side of the canal. She was perhaps a young teen, with wild unkempt hair. She eventually broke apart from them and started swimming over to the middle where a rope hung from a small bridge that quite honestly, I did not notice until she started to climb it.
The water is a deep shade of sewer green. People who live along the kilometers of these streams and canals use the water to bathe, wash clothes and dishes, wash their pets, urinate, defecate and catch fish for food. With no trepidations, she repeatedly scurried up that rope, swung herself up in the air and let go...splash! My friend saw what grabbed my attention for a good 15 minutes, and remarked 'ignorance is bliss'.
I am pretty sure that the folks that live around the canals are fully aware of the vast uses of the water, including the girl. But with knowledge, there is power, and the power to decide that despite what others may think about your choices, the choice to enjoy such moments is liberating in itself. I know nothing about her and what hardships she may have to endure, but from where I sat across the canal, she seemed to have captured the simple life for a moment in time.
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