My big brother left home when I was very young.
After finishing school, he left to find a job in Bangkok. He found work at a factory. He fell in love with a lady who worked there. Later he married her and had two babies.
I rarely saw them because mother did not take me to visit them.
The first time I came to Bangkok, it was to see my big brother. My mother and I travelled from the Sisaket station to Bangkok by train. The journey took almost ten hours.
We bought third class tickets for the train. Sometimes the seats were full and we had to sit on the floor. It was very hot and crowded with people selling things all the time. The train stopped at every station. My mother held onto me all the way.
When we got to Bangkok the first time, we took a tuk tuk to my brother’s place. He and his wife lived in a small room at the factory. Not long afterwards they quit their jobs and came home to stay with us.
For a few months, they stayed in our house. Then they moved to grandma’s farm and worked in her big rice fields. (Actually they didn’t like my father.)
He and his family lived with grandma for two years, then returned to work at the same factory in Bangkok.
They worked there for thirty years. Then one day his wife found another man.
The family was broken. He got a divorce and gave the house to the wife and children. He quit his job and had nowhere to go. He felt very bad and decided to go home.
At the train station a stranger came up and offered him a job on a boat. He worked there for a long time. But he never got paid! This was not legal.
The police were looking for boats like these.They took my brother off the boat and arrested the captain.
After that my family lost contact with him — for four years. Now he lives in Lampang Province. I saw him last year. Me and my brother are not close. However, he is a good person.
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