The Little Village That Could

I have just had one of the most incredible and humbling experiences of my life. I returned yesterday from a four day homestay in a village that was completely destroyed by the tsunami. The village is still in the process of being rebuilt close to the sight of the old village, but much farther away from the sea. It is sad to hear the stories of how the children used to play in the sea, but now never return to the sight of their old village. There was one temporary school built where the new village is being constructed, but even this was too close to the ocean for the village's comfort. The new school, funded by a German man, is built at the farther possible site from the sea and up a hill, but still within walking distance from the village. The village, which consisted of around 200 people lost 47 villagers, 17 of whom were children. For those of you who need to refresh their math skills, that's about one fourth of the community. Yet somehow, the villagers all seem happy and capable of moving forward and making the best of what they have and have received from others willing to help them. The agency that I did this through, Andamen Discoveries, is one of the best organizations I have heard of in relation to the tsunami. Instead of coming into the village and simple building one building or giving one lump sum, the agency asked the villagers what they wanted to do to help improve their community. A group of older women have gotten together and created a soap-making business and Andamen Discoveries has helped to promote the soap internationally. This is very important, because other companies have come into the village and offered means of creating business, but not helped to promote the business outside of the community. For instance, coca-cola has this big fancy sign in front of an abandoned building boasting about how they are always helping others. The building was a bakery that was funded by coca-cola, but they simply built the building and moved on their way. Obviously, the community itself does not need nor can they afford to buy baked goods and the village has never learned the way of taking their goods outside of the village. Now there is just a tacky coca-cola sign boasting about a failed donation. Another request of the village was to establish a homestay for tourists so that people can come into the village and see the many things that they are still in desperate need of and share the word to the rest of the world. Though the village has never depended on tourism as a means of finacial stability, there was a resort close to the village before the tsunami and people would occasionally wander through the village and buy homemade goods from the villagers. Now this homestay has been established as a means of supporting the families who host the tourist as well as establishing a continuous flow of volunteers who can help with many of the things that still need to be restored as a result of the destruction. We (I met up with my Belgian friend in Phuket before the homestay began) arrived in the village in the evening time and met my "parents," my two "siblings" and the adorable litter of wee little kittens that roamed the house. Before supper we were taken to the sight of the old village by the beach, and it was a very sad and somewhat haunting feeling. The only sign that there was ever any buildings here is a concrete square on a patch of grass that used to be a basketball (or some other sport) court at the village school. Now there are signs everywhere with tsunami warning and there is a big sign with a tsunami evactuation route located on it and every hundred feet or so there is a sign with an arrow pointing the way of the evacuation route. We stayed on the beach and watched the incredible sunset, and it was a very quiet moment of reflection and memories for the villagers who had accomanied us. We shared supper together with out family on the floor and then it was time for our 'cultural experience.' The village (and many villages around the area) is Muslim, so my 'mother' and Pink, the village hostess, helped dress me in traditional Muslim garb. I was covered from head to toe, and boys, let me tell you, I am one hot Muslim--photos soon to come. The next morning we woke up and were taught how to make traditional Tai pancakes, which are pretty similar to crepes, but made from a dough that has to be made the night before rather than a batter. The woman who taught us how to do this used to sell the pancakes every evening in the village, but now cannot because she has many new obligations as a result of the tsunami. My favorite little boy, Hareem (Pink's son) joined us for the demonstration and gobbled down most of the pancakes. Following this demonstration and delighful meal, we were taken into the community center and taught how to make batik sarongs. I got a little overzealous and made a very detailed daisy pattern and had a little trouble tracing my pattern with the wax after I had created the pattern. However, I was pretty satisfied with the finished product and the ladies seemed relatively impressed by my first attempt. Following our batik lesson, we returned to our house for lunch and then set out to plant some baby mangroves to help restore the mangrove forrest that was damaged during the tsunami. We were showed many crazy water creatures along the way and taken to the point where the fresh water from the mangrove forrest meets the ocean--a strange sight. We passed the location of the former village and there is absolutely no sign that any building ever exhisted there. While we were riding our boat through the mangrove forrest, there were many boat remains stuck high in the trees, left over from the destruction of the tsunami. We also stopped for coffee in a little hut where the fishermen wait for the tide to be right before they go out for the catch. Tui, our guide/translater from Andamen Adventures, helped us share a conversation and what they were most surprised about was how small I was as an American. Their concept of Americans is large people and they did not believe my age or nationality at first. After this trek, we returned to the community center and had a little English workshops with the children. This turned out to be quite crazy because they were not in school and wanted to run around. We danced the hokey-pokey for a while and then played duck duck goose which turned into dog dog cat and then finally monkey monkey snake. Before supper, Tui, our guide from Andamen Adventures, had to leave us to go to Phuket to receive an award for her company and we were joined by Tony, the attractive (aside from his snaggle tooth--those of you who knew me as a wee one, imagine my front teeth before braces) boy who had picked me up at the airport. Tony was supposed to take us shrimping, but complained about the mosquitos and said he was too tired, so we stayed and played with the kids who lived nearby. I cannot explain to you how adorable they were. It is very interesting playing with children with whom you cannot communicate and not being in the teacher position. It involves a lot of laughing and chasing and tickling and pointing and being climbed on. The next morning we were allowed to sleep in an extra thirty minutes (woke up at 8:30) but to no avail because the roosters and monkeys started crowing and screaming in the wee hours of the morn. I was actually quite dissapointed that I had not spotted a monkey yet, so I asked Tony if he would take us into the animal santuary that the village has set up to protect their wildlife. People who have adopted wild animals as pets will bring the animals to the sanctuary when they realize they cannot be tamed and the employees work hard to reintroduce the animals to the wild. I loved all the monkeys and tried to scream back when they spoke to me. I don't think they understood me. I was then satisfied that I had seen my monkeys, even if they were still in a cage. However, we jumped into the back of a truck to go down to the beach and were forced to stop because there were a dozen or so monkeys on the road, including little bitty babies!! I cannot tell you how excited I was about this! I love monkeys and I have never before seen them in the wild. Once at the beach, we waited for our longboat to arrive and were then transported to a nearby island where we spent the morning cleaning the beach of the rubbish that had washed up since the tsunami. We picked up many lonely shoes, which was haunting to me because I imagined where and who the shoes could have come from... We had also stopped at a squid trap on the way and collected four large squid to barbecue for our lunch. I obviously immediately picked up the biggest and got inked all over. On the beach, Pink took the bucket of squid into the ocean and washed most of the ink away and then placed the squids between two sticks to roast alive. Cha (another village hostess) peeled me off a piece of fresh squid, and I ate the animal that had inked me not one hour before--very tasty! After cleaning the beach, we went out for a little snorkeling and Tony pointed out impressive fish and an eel. We got back to the village during low tide and got stuck in the shallow mud and the boat driver swam in and got a little row boat to come pick us up and deliver us to dry land. On the way back we spotted ANOTHER monkey on the shore, crashing shells together trying to get the meat out. We also had the luck to see two or three dolphins surfacing nearby, and there were these wonderful little fish that swam next to the boat and continuously leapt out of the water and looked as if they were simply skipping on the surface of the water. We got back on mainland and spotted more monkeys and I chased after them for a photoshoot and then we went home for a lovely supper of snails in coconut milk. Another night of mosquitoes and another morning of crowing roosters and screaming monkeys and wonderful breakfast (the Tai eat rice and leftovers for breakfast, but our mother prepared us traditional tai desserts every morning). Our last adventure was to return to the community center and have a soap making demonstration. We were allowed to melt the soap fat in a big pot and add the natural scents to the stew, and then we watched as Pink spread the concoction into a baking tray to let it dry. It takes up to a month for one batch to dry to the point that it is ready to be cut and shaped. Next, we got out a dry tray and cut out shapes with cookie cutters and poked holes in the shapes and strung them on little strings to make soap-on-a-string that will be shipped to other countries for distribution. All the while, Tui was translating a conversation between the women and Helene and myself. Two of the women shared their stories from the Tsunami. One of the women had been working in a factory inland and returned to the village to find it destroyed and her husband missing. Her brother found her husband's body in the cashew forrest located where the new village is being constructed--probably a mile away from the sea. The other woman was not in the village either (I am not sure where she was) but her son survived by climbing a tree. The women were so sweet and open and asked us many questions about our own lives and countries. Every product that is used in this process is created by women who needed a source of income after the tsumani. The string and fat (from oil, not from animals) comes from another village and the rest is done in our village. There are also some nice homemade boxes that are crafted in another village and some coconut soap dishes made by the village men. I did not buy any of the products at the time, because I could not travel with the amount that I want to order. I hope to order a large quantity of their goods once I return home and take them around to local shops and encourage them to make orders for the future. I documented the entire process through photographs and will create a little book of photos to take with me to show how much work these women put into their business. If anyone reading this blog is interested in helping me, please let me know. I do have the website for the company, but not handy at the moment. We had our last lunch and then said our good-byes and we returned to the Andamen Adventures office for a debriefing and I showed Tui a few websites that had free English worksheets and flashcards that would be useful for future English lessons. Finally, Tony drove us to Khao Lak where I had a very discouraging encounter with the dive company that I had booked my tour through. I don't want to get into the details now, but I will write more about Khao Lak tomorrow. Helene has just appeared and told me she is starving, so I will end this now and quickly go and change clothes so we can go out for supper.