Meth: a Ticking Timebomb Gone Viral

STD's in Thailand

For the last six months since I met Nada, I've noticed something was off. I couldn't put my finger on what was going on, and although I did ask her several times, she denied anything was wrong. What was bothering her she had suppressed and pushed to the back of her mind, but when in an intimate relationship, any skeletons will bubble to the surface and rear their ugly heads sooner or later.

About a week ago, Nada decided to confess and tell me that she is in debt to the tune of around 600k baht (US$18000). Our relationship is now being affected by an STD (a sexually transmitter debt) It isn't a huge amount in my world, but for a relatively poor, forty-seven-year-old Thai woman, it is an almost insurmountable sum...especially considering she only has seven months to come up with the money.

The back story is long and complex and I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say Nada trusted someone (a close family member) she shouldn't have, and took a loan for 200k baht, mortgaged against the house and large block of land her mother left her when she died. That was ten years ago and for the past eight years, no repayments have been made to service the loan.

Of course, I questioned EVERYTHING. Why would she let this situation get so out of hand (allowing the interest to triple the initial loan amount)? Why did she risk everything when she should have said no when asked to loan her family member the money? Questions that don't bring any resolution or help me understand how she could end up in such a predicament.

I can only see things from a Farang perspective. It appears to me that logic goes out the door when dealing with the mindset of a Thai. Add to this the house she borrowed against, which is at high risk of foreclosure, she decided (before informing me of the debt) to renovate, at a cost of over 100k baht.

At first, I smelled a rat. Why she would think it a good idea to do home improvements when she should have instead used the money to pay off some of the debt she owes, still baffles me. Perhaps she thought that I (her soft-hearted Farang boyfriend) would save the day...or that after eight years of promising to pay back the money, the family member would suddenly have a change of heart and do the right thing (as unlikely as that is).

At least now I know what has been causing Nada's sadness, and after much consternation, I have helped come up with a plan that might save Nada from losing her house and land. I could, if I chose, pay the debt for her. But that isn't going to do me, and therefore, our relationship, any good. Luckily, Nada does have other assets (a ten rai, working rubber plantation that she fully owns) that she can borrow against. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul isn't usually a good plan, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

One option I suggested was to simply allow foreclosure and start afresh. The trouble with that is Nada's seventy-nine-year-old papa lives in the house and last year, he had a motorcycle accident that fractured both bones in his lower leg. He still has external fixations in place and is a long way off being fully rehabilitated. Becoming homeless at this point in time is not something anyone wants to see happen.

There is a part of me (my heart) that wants to help Nada financially, but my head is telling me no. At one point, I suspected a scam. Nada couldn't produce a contract for the loan and the question of why she would spend money on renovations made me suspicious (and to a degree, still do). But then, she did prove she had transferred 200k from her account to her relative's account ten years ago, and even for a Thai, this appears to be way too elaborate of a scheme to pull off.

In any case, it's not my responsibility to save anyone but myself. It is possible that she can save her property, and her papa can live out his life in her house in Isaan. She will be paying the debt for many years to come (if she can pull it off) and I will support her emotionally (and to a degree, financially) all the way.