Tsunami Volunteer Centre, Thailand

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Sawat dee kha

By far the most rewarding experience of all my travels has been volunteering in Thailand with Macquarie University. As most of you know I came to Thailand to volunteer with the Tsunami Volunteer Centre (TVC) in Khao Lak - a tsunami relief organization which helps rebuild Thailand’s tsunami affected areas. For the last two weeks I’ve been stationed in the Phang Nga province where Thailand’s highest number of deaths and heaviest damage occurred.

As I hitchhike through Khao Lak or walk through the streets or stand on the beach looking out to the Andaman Sea all I can think about is the 11 meter wave that caused havoc on that fateful day in December. Remnants of the tsunami past still stand in Phang Nga as a constant reminder. One kilometer from the beach and just outside my hotel balcony stands a steel police ship- shamefully sitting at the foot of the hills that people ran to for safety. It’s an image so confronting and daunting that anyone who encounters it quickly understands the sheer magnitude and violence of the tsunami. At first I wondered why the Thai left such a violent sight - an arrogant illustration of our defenselessness and vulnerability to nature and a reminder of all who perished. But when I walked up to it, slid my hand over the rudder and looked up to see the Thai flag gently swaying against the wind - I understood. They had left it there as a symbol of the communities endurance and strength and ability to survive and move on.

Every Thai person within Phang Nga or every long-standing volunteer at the TVC has a story about that fateful morning. Behind every smile in Phang Nga is a story of survival and courage, heartbreak and loss but also of hope, spirit and renewal. We were honored to be invited to Pi Dang’s house (a village leader featured in the best selling book ‘Wave of Destruction’) where she told us of her plight against the imperialists and corrupt Thai government over land rights post-tsunami. After the tsunami hit Pi Dang came back to her village, Lam Phom where she found police and government officials fencing off the village so they could sell the land to property developers. They were so callous that they wouldn’t even let her look for the dead bodies of her daughter and mother. From that moment onwards she swore that for the sake of her family and for her dignity that she would fight the government. And after taking the matter to court for over a year she was successful in securing the land for her fellow villagers and the TVC is now helping to rebuild Lam Phom. Her strength and resilience is testimony of the wider Thai community when dealing with the aftershocks of the tsunami.

At the moment we’re volunteering at one of the many housing projects that the TVC has funded with the EU, the UN and many aid agencies from around the world at Ban Nam Khem. My poor little body is being put to the test of strenuous physical labor at the village by cement rendering houses, shoveling sand to level the ground and mixing cement. We also have commitments in the evening as we teach English at the tsunami orphanage, have meetings with the other volunteers from around the world and have briefings about post-tsunami problems with Elders and Village Leaders from all the tsunami affected communities around the Phang Nga region.

By far the climax of the trip was being invited to attend the opening ceremony of the village Ban Nam Khem and watch the villagers (that I sweated and worked with on the construction site these last 2 weeks) receive the keys to the home that I helped build. When Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister handed over the deeds to the villagers and they looked over to us and smiled, giggled and waved - I knew that even though I was merely shoveling sand earlier that day from one spot to another - we had made an impact on their lives, we had made a difference. That they were not just receiving keys to a home but were being handed a new beginning, a fresh start, a new life.



And more importantly we were not just moving sand. We were moving mountains.



Cheers, Natalia.

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Photos

The Thai Team
Canoeing and Swimming on James Bond Island

TVC Volunteers
The day the villagers received the keys to their new home

United Nations
Round table discussions with key organisations within the country