One morning I notice some unusual activity along the bank of the canal, many many police standing looking over the bank. Some of them have riot helmets and bamboo shields, traffic is totally jammed on the road. As I make my way into the thickest part of the jam I see that it is a big bobcat that is causing the problem, backing up into the traffic lane. The driver is dropping its big front bucket over the side of the canal to crash into the flimsy roofs of these little box like cubicals and crush them, while the inhabitants struggle to pull out sleeping mats and bedding. It was all over in about a half hour or so.

By evening some inhabitants who had pieces of sheet metal and larger sheets of wood left to work with had reconstructed an approximation of their dwelling. Others had constructed tents of builders plastic to shelter themselves on the bit of floor remaining in their dwelling. I guess the bobcat couldn't get its bucket down far enough to punch through the floors of these dwellings so people were rebuilding on them as fast as they could get the framework back up. A sidewalk vendor helpfully pushed his cart up the street from the market and offered useful things like twine, hammers and other kind of building supplies and tools for sale just across the road.