December 26 2006. Phuket was hit by a giant wall of water, the most disastrous tsunami on record. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.
We're continuing our work this week doing some English lessons at the hospital with their staff. Some are medical professionals, some are back office people, but all are quick to describe that day and that time for them.
Today a student was telling me that he watched it happen from up on a lookout point above a popular beach. There was a bit of an earthquake earlier in the day but no one thought much of it. As my student was watching from above it all, he described that the water got sucked out from the beach as if the tide had changed quickly. So with all the fish, crabs and other little creatures left stranded in the sand, dozens of people ran out to pick them up. Then suddenly there's this loud rush of water and a dark wall, a giant wave of water speeds at the people. There was no time to get away. In particular my student remembers a very small foreign girl, maybe 3 years old who disappeared in the undertow.
My student, who works in the marketing department of the hospital says that he became a nurse that week at the hospital. Every able bodied person was expected to help in the overflowing hallways. The hospital was also a centre for trying to locate and reunite loved ones. There's a Tsunami memorial at the hospital with photos of the hospital during that time. The places where we teach were filled with mats on the floor for the injured.
The official number is about 5000 died in this area that day. But actual numbers are much higher because of the 1000s of Burmese illegal workers who lived along the coast that were wiped out. But with no official papers, they aren't considered. One of the most difficult things for Thai people is that they never found the bodies of the dead. In Buddhism, you must cremate a body or it will haunt your family forever.
Also in Buddhism, you don't express emotions because they are a connection to a physical body which you are trying to escape to get to Nirvana (literally, Nirvana means "nothingness"). They also have a sense of fatalism, or "it was meant to be" and don't mourn death as we would in Canada. They consider it the person's fate.
With this in mind, another tsunami story...
During our retreat in Phang Nga province we visted the official Tsunami Memorial. This province was the worst hit by the water, and although touristy, has many fishing villages along the coast. As we were singing worship songs in an open gazebo by the sea last Friday, 5 mischevous boys joined us under the roof to check out these weird foreigners. Our host Cynthia said that based on their language, they were the children of sea gypsies, i.e. pirates.
As we continued an older woman with a little boy came along and joined to listen to our singing. She made eye contact with me and started to make motions and use a few English words to communicate something I didn't understand, but she kept saying "Suu Na Meee" in the mix of it all. I asked Cynthia to translate and the story emerged.
She comes from the fishing village we could see from where we sat. She lost her husband, 3 sons, and many other friends and family in the tsunami. This boy with her was her grandson and one of the only people left in the family. They come here to remember. She pointed to the large scar across her head. She described the blood that made her unable see as she sloshed through the rubble that day looking for her family. Even her clothes had been torn off by the force of the water.
She began to weep openly (remember this is not a Thai thing to do) as we asked if she had heard about Pra Yezus (Jesus) and if we could pray for her. She was very willing. So us in English, Cynthia in Thai all prayed aloud at the same time for this woman and her grandson. I cried too. So did some of the pirate boys. We gave her the book of John in Thai, then she asked if we could come visit her house. Thai people do not invite others into their homes normally, not even close friends, but she said that she's alone and no one ever visits her. We agreed to come shortly, but when we began wandering thru the town to find her we weren't able to, so we gave up after an hour of asking the villagers. Really disappointing not to find her again.
Please join me in praying for this widow. There's a church started by World Vision in this area. Pray that they would begin to be with her in her pain and loneliness.
This woman changed me.
Isaiah 1:17 "Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows."
Shalom,
Jo.
