Pele, part 3
in which I get to the point of the story
You can read this part on its own, but here’s part 1 and part 2 if you’re interested.
My life on this Thai island, I must admit, is flamboyantly silly. Today, for example, my major objective is to get a crystal-sound-healing-bath-thing. I'm not sure what it is or if I want it, but my friend Brittnee recommended it, so I go.
Brittnee is the reason I am on this island in the first place. I met her in Chiang Mai in 2017. Brittnee is like an IRL mermaid, rare and glamorous and gorgeous. It's been a pleasure to watch her step more and more into her power over the years. May all my friends flourish with abundance.
Pele is my dutiful chauffeur on these silly adventures. He's pulled up in the songtaew, and I sit in the front with him.
"Is no problem," he says as I pull the seatbelt to its buckle, which I then remember does not exist. "Is no problem."
I'm reminded of my dad's story of renting a car in Belize. He complains that there is no seatbelt and the woman renting him the car says, "You know what I do for a seatbelt? I pray to Jesus."
The crystal-sound-healer-lady has instructed me to meet her at the gas station near the waterfall. This phrase means something to Pele, and we head off.
On the way, he asks me to help translate something. It's a series of texts from a guy who needs help moving to Bangkok. What's the guy saying about the computer chair?
I read through the messages. The guy is offering to pay him 50% of what Pele asked for in exchange for a bunch of used stuff. I tell him to reply "sorry, cash only."
By this point I've grown attached enough to Pele to feel protective. From the texts I can tell this guy is not in his right mind and that dealing with him will be a hassle. Pele explains he is trying to help a friend who's trying to get the guy out of his rental.
Pele agrees to pick me up at 5, once I'm thoroughly gonged and cleansed in crystal energy, or whatever. But 10 minutes beforehand he calls to let me know his brother is going to pick me up instead. Ok, no problem. Some time passes and he calls and says his brother can't pick me up, but he'll be there as soon as he finishes with this other client. I don’t mind, I’m enjoying chilling listening to the waterfall.
Pele is upset when he picks me up. "So sorry. My brother, I don't know what is wrong with his head sometimes. He asks me to take people all the way to the other side, and I say ok but can you take my client. He says yes but then he says no. He cares about his client but not mine."
I assure him it's really no problem. I ask him if his brother is older or younger. "Older," he says and pauses. "But he's not really my brother. Years ago I had problem with my family. He took me in, he gave me everything. He gave me a taxi to drive, he made space at his house so I can have a room. He is my family now."
"What was the problem with your family?" He dodges the question and I don't push it.
It’s my last day and I need to get to the ferry. I could have ordered a shuttle from the guesthouse, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to ask Pele my last question.
We drive in silence for a while. It starts raining incredibly strong, like buckets of water coming down from the sky. The motorbike drivers seem to have instantly donned bright plastic ponchos, as if they had anticipated it would rain right then. I'm staring out the window wondering what right I have to call Pele my friend, I’m just another privileged white girl client. But I ask him my question anyway.
“How did you learn such good English?”
“From you.”
“From me? Because I talk so much?”
“No, from tourists.”
“Ah.” English’s lack of a plural ‘you’ has struck yet again.
“I never study. When I was 12, my parents split up and left me in Bangkok. I see the tourists and I want to learn to work with them. I work in hotel and listen. I listen and I talk to tourists and I learn.”
I try to imagine this, learning English from simply paying attention. I have so far learned two words of Thai and still manage to get them confused, occasionally humiliating myself by saying "hello" when I mean "thank you."
I focus on his learning English because it is what is within my ability to mentally grasp. I do not have the life experience to comprehend what it means to be abandoned by your parents at age 12 in Bangkok.
We get to the ferry and he carries my suitcase through the rain. I thank him for everything and say I'll see him when I'm back on the island, or possibly sooner if our trips to Bangkok line up.
As we part ways I envision him back on his jet ski. He's grinning in the sun, giving his tours, talking to more privileged white girls and occasionally sharing enough to make their worlds just a little less soft and a little more meaningful.
So that’s the story.
But the point I want to make here is actually not about Pele or the random hand we’re dealt at birth. The point—and I feel like I’m rick rolling you a bit here—actually comes back to Four Thousand Weeks, which I've already spent multiple posts extolling. Burkeman writes:
“The food delivery service Seamless has run advertisements—tongue-in-cheek ones, but still—boasting that it lets you avoid the agony of talking to a flesh-and-blood restaurant worker; instead, you need only commune with a screen. It’s true that everything runs more smoothly this way. But smoothness, it turns out, is a dubious virtue, since it’s often the unsmoothed textures of life that make it livable, helping nurture the relationships that are crucial for mental and physical health, and for the resilience of our communities."
I'm not arguing that we should or even can reverse tech’s evolution, but I can't help but wonder who I would have known in Lisbon had I developed a friendship with a taxi driver instead swiping stars on a thousand faceless Uber drivers. I'll bet my taxi driver friend would have showed me the best spots in Lisbon and taught me about Portuguese culture; would have helped me assimilate into the culture instead of isolating in the expat bubble.
Having to call a person instead of an Uber would have been far more expensive and inconvenient, but I can't help but feel poorer as a result of having used an app instead of having built a relationship.
"thoroughly gonged and cleansed in crystal energy, or whatever" 💯