Lasalle Chantaburi School facing new challenge

The Community, teachers and students at Lasalle Chantaburi School in Thailand have, like the rest of the world, had to a face the difficulties associated with Covid over the past 18 months, but in recent days have had to deal with an added challenge of flooding, as Br. Mario Zammit explains.

Last week was exam week at the end of this year’s first semester, and the teachers came in this week to pull together the normal loose ends of the semester before they take a one-week break before they return to prepare for the second semester which is officially due to start on 1 November.

As a matter of fact all teaching last semester was done online. The students, 12 to 18 year-olds received their first Covid jab at the beginning of this week. However, with the number of new Covid-19 cases being still in the hundreds in our town, and considering the number of conditions laid out by the Education and Health authorities, the re-opening is still quite uncertain!

And now, quite unexpectedly, a new problem has surfaced. Normally, by this time of the year, we should have seen the end of the rainy season, but not this year.

Formerly, the school was used to regular inundations from water flooding in from the higher surrounding areas, until a huge canal was engineered which runs by the side of our property and leads to the sea. For the past ten years we have been flood-free.

But, three nights ago we had such a heavy and long downpour that it turned the whole of the school campus into one enormous lake. We had feared that the nearby canal had not been able to cope and over-spilled onto us, but actually, all our water landed on us straight from the sky.

Nowhere else in the whole of Thailand was such a downpour recorded during those few hours. Huge water pumps have been going non-stop all this time but big parts of the property are still under water. And, another storm is forecast within the next few days.

The teachers, the Brothers, the school workers and the young men in Miguel House have spent hours clearing the semi basement and moving everything up to the first floor. A huge job of cleaning and washing stuff, like uniforms from the clothes shop and musical instruments from the music room, is underway.

Now we wait with bated breath for the next deluge, but at least the most vulnerable part of the building is empty.

By the way, we are lucky that the Brothers’ house is built on columns, the ground floor being an open garage. We still have to wade through water to reach the stairs leading up to the house.

We wonder what the next couple of weeks have in store for us.