PATTAYA, Thailand – Imagine that, out of the blue, you get a phone call. This call takes a strange turn and you are offered the “opportunity” to live on the street with the homeless – the derelicts, the alcoholics, the mentally shot, the addicts. You will take with you almost no money or possessions with you. You will be out there for three days and three nights. And you have to be out there on the street in three hours’ time…
Do you say yes?
This is what happened to club member Ren Lexander. At the time, Ren was still going by his original name of Garry Sargeant. He was offered the mission of living with the homeless and writing an article about it for a national newspaper in Australia. It was March 1987, International Year of Shelter for the Homeless.
He said yes.
He slept on a bench in Sydney’s Central Railway Station. He slept and ate in a refuge for the homeless. He drank with the Aboriginals. He ate garbage. He was threatened. He watched homeless Aboriginals bash up whites in King’s Cross. He became good friends with a young Aboriginal couple – and slept with them in a park.. They even lent him a blanket to help him make it through the cold of the night.
After three days and nights – shattered, exhausted, overwhelmed – Ren walked straight off the street and into the newspaper office to write a newspaper article that had to come out the next day. The words poured out of him… too many words.
The Editor who commissioned the article finally came into the office. She took over the computer terminal. Ren slumped to the floor in exhaustion. But he started to realize that she wasn’t editing the article, she was rewriting it. He dragged himself off the floor to sit beside her and stop her doing the same thing to the second half of the article. Then it was suddenly whipped off to typesetting.
When the article came out, Ren was disgusted by the first half of the article. He threw it across the room. And he wasn’t alone. The people who worked with the homeless did not like the article. But Ren immediately wrote the book on his experiences, Three Nights on Nowhere. It was published by a major publisher, Fontana.
Among other things, the book resulted in two segments on National TV. To do these segments, Ren had to go back to where he had been before. One of the workers in a refuge insisted on shaking his hand. They were so happy with the book. “Usually when social work students come to do work experience, they are in a state of shock with what they see. But now they are coming in literally holding a copy of your book and they’re just fine.”
Ren’s talk highlighted the diverse reasons behind homelessness, including mental illness, addiction, and family strife. His journey on the streets was not just about survival but also about the connections he made with the people he met, particularly within the Aboriginal community. He drank with them. He bonded and became great mates with one of them, Mick.
The audience was visibly moved by Ren’s narrative, which was not only a personal recount but also a call to SEE the homeless and not look away.
Take the journey with Ren visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orFMJcjvLrQ for the video of his talk to the Pattaya City Expats Club (PCEC) on 2 October. You can read Three Nights on Nowhere Street for free at: https://renlexander.com/three-nights-on-nowhere-street/three-nights-on-nowhere-street-book/
After the presentation, everyone was brought up to date on upcoming events. This was followed by the Open Forum portion of the meeting where the audience can ask questions or make comments about Expat living in Thailand, especially Pattaya. To learn more about the PCEC, visit their website at https:/pcec.club.
