(no subject)
my head is spinning from the articles, photos, and footage of tsunami memorials that have taken over the media during these last few days. i'm remembering too much: the days following the disaster, when the phone calls and e-mails poured in, when my students made jokes and laughed at any mention of words like 'tsunami' and 'phuket,' when teachers were expected to wear mourning colors of white and black - not because hundreds of thousands of people had died, but because the king's grandson was among them. i'm remembering new year's eve, wondering who had the audacity to defy the national request for a cancellation of celebrations by setting off fireworks, staring into my glass and thinking of the friends i'd met over the last months who were supposed to be spending christmas on the andaman coast, wondering if they were alive. and the following weeks in bangkok: makeshift memorials set up on the corner of khao san road, flyers and photos of family and friends plastered on the gates: have you seen my daughter? more images of corpses, a laptop screen showing the footage of the waves crashing, over and over and over. tourists cicrling the display like vultures with camcorders. "we were there."
i had never experienced culture shock quite like that. but still i couldn't have understood; i imagined there was some beauty to be found in a world swallowed by waves, nature overcoming all. i still can't understand what it must have like. my friends went south in february to set up projects working with children, and the stories they came back with were devastating: aid money pouring into the tourist industry while the small fishing villages along the coast were neglected, had not even begun to rebuild themselves, because they couldn't provide the sort of income that foreign travelers coming to phuket would and were therefore expendable. still it all felt very far away, as my life continued to move forward, hardly affected by the catastrophe.
it wasn't until i made my way down to koh phi phi, months later, that the absolute destruction and magnitude of the tsunami began to sink in. beaches still littered with the remains of palm trees. entire buildings wiped out, huge empty stretches of sand where houses once stood. hotel resorts filled with rubble and dust mixed with broken flip-flops, sunscreen bottles, swollen books. video footage capturing people running, screaming, crying, sinking. stories of death and horror by those who had experienced it all firsthand. but alongside those stories were hard work, smiles, and friendly words from every resident of the island, and the optimism and hope i discovered as i joined the hundreds of volunteers working to clear the rubble and rebuild the island were far more powerful than the destruction that had first greeted me there.
it’s impossible to capture all that occurred, both on december 26, 2004, and in the months that followed, in photographs and articles reproduced and burned onto the consciousness of spectators all over the world, but there, in the simple tasks of pulling weeds, painting walls, putting the pieces back together, working silently alongside residents in an attempt to heal the wounds of a community nearly destroyed - but not quite - by nature, i saw hope in those tired faces, faces that have witnessed more horror and destruction and pain than anyone should have to confront in a lifetime. they have seen their lives ripped apart before their eyes, but they are still waking, still smiling. they are inspiration in its rarest form.
i had never experienced culture shock quite like that. but still i couldn't have understood; i imagined there was some beauty to be found in a world swallowed by waves, nature overcoming all. i still can't understand what it must have like. my friends went south in february to set up projects working with children, and the stories they came back with were devastating: aid money pouring into the tourist industry while the small fishing villages along the coast were neglected, had not even begun to rebuild themselves, because they couldn't provide the sort of income that foreign travelers coming to phuket would and were therefore expendable. still it all felt very far away, as my life continued to move forward, hardly affected by the catastrophe.
it wasn't until i made my way down to koh phi phi, months later, that the absolute destruction and magnitude of the tsunami began to sink in. beaches still littered with the remains of palm trees. entire buildings wiped out, huge empty stretches of sand where houses once stood. hotel resorts filled with rubble and dust mixed with broken flip-flops, sunscreen bottles, swollen books. video footage capturing people running, screaming, crying, sinking. stories of death and horror by those who had experienced it all firsthand. but alongside those stories were hard work, smiles, and friendly words from every resident of the island, and the optimism and hope i discovered as i joined the hundreds of volunteers working to clear the rubble and rebuild the island were far more powerful than the destruction that had first greeted me there.
it’s impossible to capture all that occurred, both on december 26, 2004, and in the months that followed, in photographs and articles reproduced and burned onto the consciousness of spectators all over the world, but there, in the simple tasks of pulling weeds, painting walls, putting the pieces back together, working silently alongside residents in an attempt to heal the wounds of a community nearly destroyed - but not quite - by nature, i saw hope in those tired faces, faces that have witnessed more horror and destruction and pain than anyone should have to confront in a lifetime. they have seen their lives ripped apart before their eyes, but they are still waking, still smiling. they are inspiration in its rarest form.