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Published: December 27th 2006
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I am going to remember mostly the evenings. I can sit in the symphony of crickets, cicaidas and geckoes…the sound of my heartbeat playing the bass in the background.
I find peace here….in the daily lives of people and the faces of the children.
There is only one other person I know who has ever found that peace…he also found it here and I pray he can one day make it back.
Enough for elusive commentary.
I have bruises on my legs I noticed today while Malie and I had pedicures and leg massages and Miles played with the hair models and buckets of beads as he waited.
Yesterday on the return home from Ban Nam Kaem, I almost missed the vehicles leaving to go home. I was off taking the pictures you see. I nearly threw Malie and Buus into the back of the truck as it slowly pulled out of the parking lot and jumped on top of the pile of drums. The drums are the instruments that we danced to on the march and they are a gift from one of the sponsors for the children’s Christmas.
The drums are so important
to the culture here and not many are able to see the meaning behind them. I had the luck of being around this morning as the drums were being welcomed.
The village elders (two of them) were called and a monk from the local Wat. The had the children gather around and place the drums in a circle in front of them. The elders said a few things and placed a bowl of yellow flowers, a bowl of talcum, a bowl of water and incense on the top of the largest drums. After the monk said some prayers and the children chanted back his words, incense was lit and the water poured over the drums. One day I will write a book and call it “The Path of Waters.” It intrigues me the role that water plays in this Thai culture in so many ways.
I have no idea what the flowers were for, but the children each in turn came up and wai-ed the drums and took a flower and rapped it on one of the drums as they passed. I will have to ask someone the meaning. The elders rubbed the talcum into the drums stretched
hides and the ceremony was over.
The pile of drums in the back of the truck, myself and the kids and two of the drum players held on for dear life as we sped back up the main road towards Phru Teow after the ceremony and dancing at Ban Nam Kaem.
My knees and butt are brusied beyond recognition after hanging on to the tailgate of the pick up while holding onto a variety of shapes of drums….Lol…life in this country rocks.
I am now writing this blog a full day later. Since that drum-truck trip, we have left to Ban Niang again to return the motorcyc and stay with Sang. The memorial ceremonies continued this afternoon and culminated with a long awaited visit from the Princess of Thailand at the village here.
At 10:am this morning the children and I walked down the path to the beach. We went barefoot with a handful of temple incense. I asked the kids to squat for a moment in the quiet and think about all the things we had learned here. Then we lit the incense, waied the sea and left a small mound of sand holding the
sticks. We left nothing more than out footprints and our prayers.
The rest of our day was mostly quiet and we relaxed a little today. The kids played by the pool at Sang’s place and we went to Khao Lak to return the motocyc and have our dusty feet attended to.
The memorial for the Tsunami finished with the evenings visit from the Princess. All I know is that we stood, we sat, we stood, we sat again and we waited in an odd reverent stasis. She was here only a half hour and I couldn’t see her, let alone understand the garbled Thai that came to us through loudspeakers. The gathering contained about 500 people, many, many of them survivors-both Thai and falung- returned to see the second anniversary here.
I met a few today as Malie and I walked along the beach and Buus busied himself with everything sand and sea. One man was scarred all over his body. He told us his wife passed away after being rescued. His scars were from the debris inside the courtyard of the hotel that was inundated with the wave. One family brought their children back after they
all survived. The youngest daughter, maybe seven, refused to touch the water. The woman who gave massage on the beach had a hand deformed from improper medical care after wards. She said the hospital in TakuaPa (the same Miles was cared for at) was so crowded the day and weeks after that the car park was made into a makeshift ward. She had no choice but to accept what care she could.
As the speeches finished we noticed behind us, a quiet whistling sound emanating from the trees. A soft sort of hushing like the sound a mother might make to a child while cooing it to sleep.
We looked up above the canopy of the jungle (the ceremonies were held in a palm tree grove just up from the beach) to see two lanterns float above the canopy.
We all headed towards the treeline and the beach beyond.
Hundreds of lanterns were being loosed into the sky…each carrying a memory, a prayer for loved ones lost. The children clearly knew what to expect, though I had no idea…
For an hour we prayed and sang and set the lanterns free. The kids and I were included and we had the responsibility of holding the lanterns as the flames heated the air inside enough to help it rise. This symbolic gesture tied us to the family that is Ban Tharn Namchai. Hand on the rim of the lantern to help the prayers find the sky. As we finished with the lot of our own…those representing each family connected to the orphanage that has seen loss, we were told to make a promise, much like a new years resolution.
In this beautiful evening I have promised to live my life. I have promised to continue to look for life beyond the routine of my own.
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Leah
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I love your journal and look forward to reading each new entry. I feel as though I am leaving as well and am deeply saddened. Your pictures are absolutely beautiful! Have a safe trip home.