All Buddhaed Up - Pt. II
"Welcome back to Urine and Cat Vomit Avenue," said Digger jokingly in reference to Khao San Road as our overnight train crawled through Bangkok's bleak back alley tin roof slums to the heart of the steaming city.
After wrapping up our work and commitment in Khao Lak, we hopped aboard the tourist track to Chiang Mai, over into Lao to the ancient capital Luang Prabang, and down to Vientianne where we met an old British ex-pat friend formerly associated with the UXO Lao program.
Time for temples, long walks and attempting to see and absorb other parts of the region before returning home, hitting a few spots we'd visited before. Digger left last night, excited about returning to his girlfriend, his apartment, and his new job at Takua Pa High School, north of Khao Lak, where he'll be teaching English the next six months to Tsunami kids through the World Childhood Foundation, a 25-year old NGO founded by the Queen of Sweden.
At one point back home when we were first discussing our mission I told him, "Dig, if you're willing to do something for somebody first, then what you want in life will come to you."
It's true. All I had hoped for him occurred, the international contacts, the exposure to human suffering, the blissful buddhas...... He ain't coming home, just yet. She's a Brit, by the way. You were probably thinking Thai, right?
We ended up doing exactly what we thought we might... some construction, some maybe teaching English, some making the people laugh.
Aer, the Burmese boatbuilder who has three wives who keep him up all night, was up in one of four boats under construction, teasingly making reference to our dreadlock work buddy Nate's not having quite a full load, by winding his finger around his ear a couple of times, then slowly passing his hand in front of his face with a motion of screwing in a lightbulb.
That, and Nate's trying to speak Indian for 'Good' ('Uhhhhhhh!'), 'Bad' ('Hngrrraw'), and
'Exceptional' ('HiieeeyaaaAA!'). Not really words at all, but just sounds. He never got it right. But it sure kept it light around the project work site.
One day when things didn't begin quite right for the boathouse project director Scott, dubbed 'Captain America' by the Aussie Terry for his gung-ho attitude, I shared with him what had just been told me the night before by Helen from Sweden, who had received it from her grandmother, she said: 'Sometimes we can't fairly expect others to hold the same standards we set for ourselves.'
That was with respect to the application of an American work ethic to Thailand, where, uh, ha, you just can't. CANNOT! One hears that word frequently over here, and I'm surprised that it hasn't yet appeared on a T Shirt on Khao San Road.
The Muslim boatbuilders were tickled by the Christian God shouting down angrily, "NO! YOU CANNOT!" to my whimpering and fearful request for two wives, God thrusting down an angry pointing finger, after saying pleasantly, "Yes, You May," to my Muslim brothers up there in the boat, a joke communicated pretty much by sign language.
We were discussing 'serious' one day during an interlude in the power tools (the planer was horribly loud, and the boatbuilders used it a lot, shaping out the ribs and planks of the boats), and I think I remember somebody saying they tried serious for about fifty years. Maybe it was me. Or maybe it was Terry, who was partially credited with coming up with a list of 'Degrees of Asshole', which really sounded funny coming off an Austrailian tongue.
Of course, 'Supreme' was at the top, followed by 'Complete & Toe-ul', then 'Perfect', 'Genuine', 'Certified', 'Flaming', and 'Royal'.
I'm not sure how the topic came up, but maybe that day we were talking about the boss.
Who was really a great guy, by the way. In fact, whatever their motives, they (the volunteer corps) were all good folks. You can imagine who might show up. People from all across Europe, and backpacking hippies from all over SE Asia. Mostly young people in their 20s.
"I haven't met anyone from Mexico, yet," Digger said one night. 'Not one.'
No Mexicans. That got us thinking about the import labor and tortilla thing. "Hey Conchita! I got a yob! You can wear flip-flops on the yob...an' the weather's jus' like at home!"
Dig's Thai co-teacher asked, "You can make Enchiradas?"
That's okay. They take great delight in us trying to speak Thai. Everybody gets made fun of, and it's only the genuine and certified who'll take it too serious.
_______
One last night before boarding the plane. Went down to Khao San road for a walk-through. Heard someone from a nearby table yell my name as I traded in a copy of 'Off The Rails in Cambodia', worth about 100 baht used, to the African 'map man', acquiring a laminated copy of the world.
'Small world, huh?' I said to David and Nikki from England, two actual friends from Khao Lak with whom Digger and I had dinner on occasion. They too, were headed home, up against a non-extendable visa and flight deadline. We talked about non-coincidence and reflected on the time spent down south as we sat and watched the circus freak show passing up and down the street, laughing at the new arrivals, white and pastey from northern latitude sun-deprivation, loaded down front and back like pack mules, looking for a five-to-six-dollar-a-night room.
Who would wear a T shirt that reads, 'Eat more rice, bitch'. ? Saw a guy wearing one. There's far, far worse. They've got anything and everything, every rude statement imaginable for sale in your size. At about six or seventeen different shops.
Then there was Roger, a wired, paranoid Nam-vet who never went home and kept calling all the Thai, even the women, 'Charlie'.
"Hey, Charlie," he'd say to a waitress. "Hey, Charlie," he'd call out to a cab driver.
"They're ALL Charlies," he exclaimed. "Didn't you read the papers? They WON!"
"We're not in Vietnam, Roger," I tried to reason. "The Thai weren't even...the Thai were on our side, for God's sake. They weren't V.C."
"You don't think so?" he asked. "Watch this," he said, approaching a crooked old man who was wearing a khaki pith helmet.
"You fight against the French?" he asked the old man. The man looked up vacantly at the big foreigner, smiled a toothless grin and sort of nodded his head, extending his hand.
"SEE?"
It was hopeless. They're all Charlies. Everyone in Asia. Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao. China. Thailand. Everybody was Charlie. "They won in Vietnam. They won in Cambodia. They won in Lao. And they won in China," he said. "What makes 'em not Charlie?" he asked.
"Their granddaddies was Charlie, their momma was Charlie, and their dad was Charlie, so what does that make 'em?" he asked.
"We're at peace now, Rodger," I insisted. "Have been for thirty-five years. This ain't the 'Nam."
"Yeah," he replied. "Tell that to the Hmong. Why do you think there's still a steady flow of hill tribe people into Minneapolis?"
He said he had some business 'up around the mountains', but who knows what he was doing slogging around Bangkok.
Others would tell their story right away, like the two from Seattle who joined Digger, Mel, and me at our table for 'trivia night' at the Lamuan Seafood Restaurant, where a dozen teams of eight or so took part in a night's fun, and which we had successfully avoided for its sheer lunacy except for the last night in Khao Lak, so we went ahead with our team, 'Four Yanks and a Brit', and won the damn thing just for spite, missing in eight rounds of eight questions only 'how many strings does a violin have?', and 'what disease does Stephen Hawkings suffer from?', and one other, taking home 600 b. in prize money.
Anyway, these two hippies sat down, and to the question, 'Where are you from?', he responded, "We were over in Cambodia, then we did Vietnam, then we did Lao, and then we came over here after finding out about the volunteer center on the net."
I wondered what he did to those countries, but didn't ask. "Where is your home?" I asked pointedly.
"Seattle," he said.
"See, I told you," said Digger, right there in front of them, to which they both responded with questioning looks that never got the benefit of being dispelled.
So, there's this whole mass of yuppies from the U.S. who are over here, 'doing' Southeast Asia.
'Have you ever done the International Space Station?'
DUDE! That would require an education!
_______
I just asked the blue uniformed girl here in the back office of the hotel how you spell 'surprise', and she brought me a Sprite, which they all pronounce 'Sa-prite'. Then when we got the question clarified, she said, 's...a...l...s...u...r...a...i...l.'
delightful people, the Thai.
There was more I wanted to convey this entry, like the girl at the Buddha market in Bangkok who could make a perfect imitation of a gecko, but another person wants the machine, and there's only one machine available, and suddenly the office is crowded with six or seven folks sitting around a big plate of rice and pattapao, and I've got an early flight in few hours. Gotta go home for a dance of gratitude. A lot of people to thank.
Four. Four strings on a violin.
Thank you.
Love, vic.
- end
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Run To Ranong / Made It To Here
Run To Ranong
Unless you've got special star status, an appointment with the princess, or a six month work visa, you've got to make the 'visa run' every thirty days if you want to remain in the country. Minimally, you can cross over a border into any adjacent country, then return immediately. Good to go. Another month.
One could go anywhere in the world, even the International Space Station, but here the closest choices are Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, or Myanmar. From the Isthmus of Kra, our closest choice is Myanmar, a trip made twice so far, whereupon entry our party was immediately descended upon by a crowd of begging children and viagra and valium peddling young men with opium eyes, kicking the asses of the urchins competing for our attention. A carton of cigs for 200 baht in Burma, same same five bucks.
The two-hour one way trip is a leisurely day away from the work site, but 'at the end of the day,' as the Aussies are keen to say, the trip ends up requiring a full day's patience, as any traveling can be for an Oversized, Supersized American double XL ass in a Thai bus or motor chariot, whereas one often will see a 'Thai Family Of Five On a Honda', and just yesterday at Cape Pakarang camp, there must've been 40 Thai off-loading out of the back of a tinyass Isuzu truck.
That's just the way it is, same same the impracticality of lace-up shoes in a culture of flip flops, where footgear is left on the doorstep of all homes and most businesses, and where constantly wet feet and sand are a fact of life, like gumbo on the rez.
Down at one of the reconstruction sites where Thai workmen were shoveling up another batch of concrete, the sea waves breaking behind them, just for chuckles I asked them, "Where you guys getting your sand?"
For a buried crab, the whole universe is sand, inna?
_______
After five solid days of rain without a speck of sun, this week the god of intermittant torrential downpour let off in preparation for Buddha's birthday and our ceremonial launching of the first boat out of the boat house. After a prayer offering, flowers, incense and brightly colored silk scarves tied to the bow, and hefted onto the launch ramp by two dozen Thai, Burmese, and a few volunteers, the blue boat 'Hope' slid down into the small canal to the delight of two or three hundred there for the photo op and the following beach party that ran late into the night with multinational karaoke blaring away, big feed, and beer under an almost full moon.
"Forty-one to go," said project manager Scott in a celebratory high-five, grinning with tears in his eyes, wanting a cold beer, still dripping wet from planting the the forward end of the ramp in the canal, up to his chin in tidal water while seven others set the ramp just finished a minute ago, at 6:05, for the six o'clock launching, so they said, that happened closer to seven.
Whathisname gets the boat. The guy that 'Yeshua Nate', the guy with the three-foot long dreadlocks, rides around with in his side car, along with the four kids who survived the tsunami. Sorry I can't give you his name. He lost his wife, a son, and a leg. And his fishing boat. Comes around the boathouse on one leg and a crutch, bringing his kids and Nate, who, spreading his peace and love and open use of ganja, manages to repeatedly demonstrate how to take one step forward, three steps back, helping drive that nail in just a little bit further with a two-pound sledgehammer until the board splits.
I had to smile and say politely, "Thank you, Nate. Thank you for doing that," instead of saying like I did last week, "Why the fuck did you do that? Why did you keep pounding on that son of a bitch until it broke? Come down off the ladder, Nate. Put the hammer down."
I caught myself talking to him as one would a small child. The tone of a dad to a five year-old son in a machine shop. How arrogant of me to presume any knowledge of carpentry. What lacking of humilty to stop a saint from undoing three days work with his new skill saw toy.
The strong language required an apology, to which he replied,"No problem. It's forgotten," just like a puppy.
After witnessing the hurt in his face, his eyes reddening and plunging him into a momentary sinkhole of sadness, it appeared the Burmese boatbuilders had a better approach. They stopped him by using sign language, waving their hands and shaking their heads and taking their power tools out of his hands.
All without saying a word. Amazing. The non-verbal body language said, 'No. Don't. Don't tighten that bar clamp for us. Don't hit that. Don't do that. Don't use the planer on our boat. Stop.' They never asked him to get out of their way, or to stop climbing around in the boat they were trying to build.
_______
How do those elephants manage to stay off the road? Most of the time they're grazing freely when I pass them each day, sometimes with their looks to be Burmese trainers aboard, lumbering down the side of the road in single file, clomping along with their heavy, steady gait, suprisingly fast. When the wave hit, people say the elephants took a bunch of children to higher ground, and took off to the mountains with tourists aboard, ignoring their trainers.
All the animals made it, people say. No cats found. No dogs among the dead. Just people. 'Tsunami Dog', adopted by the family that runs the restaurant where we lunch, lost his former family and lays around in the road, looking to get hit, it looks like. The chicken-on-a-stick lady who drives the charcoal vendor on wheels with a sidecar, gives him gizzards every day. Apart from laying in the road, disinterested in the swerving trucks and motorcycles, he seems happy for the gizzards and to be alive.
______
During a break in the boathouse construction when the power 'went down', as it does nearly each afternoon, Mr. 'K' said, "C'mon. I show you my farm."
We went for a ride to the southern end of the cape with Eeb and another Muslim guy who always wears a face mask around the boathouse. We passed another devastated resort just in the process of being rebuilt, onto his land, a grove of coconuts littered with sea and building debris.
You have to listen to him closely. He's speaking English.
"My rest-a-rant, here," he points at a foundation remains. Hard to imagine what it looked like. Something like a postcard setting, I suppose. Setting sun, tropical paradise, restaurant, dive shop, coconut palms, tailor shop, tour guide...
He lost all his businesses, his son, father-in-law, sister-in-law, and several employees. Already told you. What does it matter, the numbers? On the job, you'd never know. Just like the guy with one leg to whom the first boat was given. You'd never know until they tell you. Or someone else tells you.
He told me twice, making certain that I understood, although I wondered how he could know. "Right here," he said with a detached nonchalance, as if identifying a nighttime constellation, pointing to a spot of ground fifty yards from the beach where the waves crashed on the beach. "My son. He made it to here."
- end
Unless you've got special star status, an appointment with the princess, or a six month work visa, you've got to make the 'visa run' every thirty days if you want to remain in the country. Minimally, you can cross over a border into any adjacent country, then return immediately. Good to go. Another month.
One could go anywhere in the world, even the International Space Station, but here the closest choices are Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, or Myanmar. From the Isthmus of Kra, our closest choice is Myanmar, a trip made twice so far, whereupon entry our party was immediately descended upon by a crowd of begging children and viagra and valium peddling young men with opium eyes, kicking the asses of the urchins competing for our attention. A carton of cigs for 200 baht in Burma, same same five bucks.
The two-hour one way trip is a leisurely day away from the work site, but 'at the end of the day,' as the Aussies are keen to say, the trip ends up requiring a full day's patience, as any traveling can be for an Oversized, Supersized American double XL ass in a Thai bus or motor chariot, whereas one often will see a 'Thai Family Of Five On a Honda', and just yesterday at Cape Pakarang camp, there must've been 40 Thai off-loading out of the back of a tinyass Isuzu truck.
That's just the way it is, same same the impracticality of lace-up shoes in a culture of flip flops, where footgear is left on the doorstep of all homes and most businesses, and where constantly wet feet and sand are a fact of life, like gumbo on the rez.
Down at one of the reconstruction sites where Thai workmen were shoveling up another batch of concrete, the sea waves breaking behind them, just for chuckles I asked them, "Where you guys getting your sand?"
For a buried crab, the whole universe is sand, inna?
_______
After five solid days of rain without a speck of sun, this week the god of intermittant torrential downpour let off in preparation for Buddha's birthday and our ceremonial launching of the first boat out of the boat house. After a prayer offering, flowers, incense and brightly colored silk scarves tied to the bow, and hefted onto the launch ramp by two dozen Thai, Burmese, and a few volunteers, the blue boat 'Hope' slid down into the small canal to the delight of two or three hundred there for the photo op and the following beach party that ran late into the night with multinational karaoke blaring away, big feed, and beer under an almost full moon.
"Forty-one to go," said project manager Scott in a celebratory high-five, grinning with tears in his eyes, wanting a cold beer, still dripping wet from planting the the forward end of the ramp in the canal, up to his chin in tidal water while seven others set the ramp just finished a minute ago, at 6:05, for the six o'clock launching, so they said, that happened closer to seven.
Whathisname gets the boat. The guy that 'Yeshua Nate', the guy with the three-foot long dreadlocks, rides around with in his side car, along with the four kids who survived the tsunami. Sorry I can't give you his name. He lost his wife, a son, and a leg. And his fishing boat. Comes around the boathouse on one leg and a crutch, bringing his kids and Nate, who, spreading his peace and love and open use of ganja, manages to repeatedly demonstrate how to take one step forward, three steps back, helping drive that nail in just a little bit further with a two-pound sledgehammer until the board splits.
I had to smile and say politely, "Thank you, Nate. Thank you for doing that," instead of saying like I did last week, "Why the fuck did you do that? Why did you keep pounding on that son of a bitch until it broke? Come down off the ladder, Nate. Put the hammer down."
I caught myself talking to him as one would a small child. The tone of a dad to a five year-old son in a machine shop. How arrogant of me to presume any knowledge of carpentry. What lacking of humilty to stop a saint from undoing three days work with his new skill saw toy.
The strong language required an apology, to which he replied,"No problem. It's forgotten," just like a puppy.
After witnessing the hurt in his face, his eyes reddening and plunging him into a momentary sinkhole of sadness, it appeared the Burmese boatbuilders had a better approach. They stopped him by using sign language, waving their hands and shaking their heads and taking their power tools out of his hands.
All without saying a word. Amazing. The non-verbal body language said, 'No. Don't. Don't tighten that bar clamp for us. Don't hit that. Don't do that. Don't use the planer on our boat. Stop.' They never asked him to get out of their way, or to stop climbing around in the boat they were trying to build.
_______
How do those elephants manage to stay off the road? Most of the time they're grazing freely when I pass them each day, sometimes with their looks to be Burmese trainers aboard, lumbering down the side of the road in single file, clomping along with their heavy, steady gait, suprisingly fast. When the wave hit, people say the elephants took a bunch of children to higher ground, and took off to the mountains with tourists aboard, ignoring their trainers.
All the animals made it, people say. No cats found. No dogs among the dead. Just people. 'Tsunami Dog', adopted by the family that runs the restaurant where we lunch, lost his former family and lays around in the road, looking to get hit, it looks like. The chicken-on-a-stick lady who drives the charcoal vendor on wheels with a sidecar, gives him gizzards every day. Apart from laying in the road, disinterested in the swerving trucks and motorcycles, he seems happy for the gizzards and to be alive.
______
During a break in the boathouse construction when the power 'went down', as it does nearly each afternoon, Mr. 'K' said, "C'mon. I show you my farm."
We went for a ride to the southern end of the cape with Eeb and another Muslim guy who always wears a face mask around the boathouse. We passed another devastated resort just in the process of being rebuilt, onto his land, a grove of coconuts littered with sea and building debris.
You have to listen to him closely. He's speaking English.
"My rest-a-rant, here," he points at a foundation remains. Hard to imagine what it looked like. Something like a postcard setting, I suppose. Setting sun, tropical paradise, restaurant, dive shop, coconut palms, tailor shop, tour guide...
He lost all his businesses, his son, father-in-law, sister-in-law, and several employees. Already told you. What does it matter, the numbers? On the job, you'd never know. Just like the guy with one leg to whom the first boat was given. You'd never know until they tell you. Or someone else tells you.
He told me twice, making certain that I understood, although I wondered how he could know. "Right here," he said with a detached nonchalance, as if identifying a nighttime constellation, pointing to a spot of ground fifty yards from the beach where the waves crashed on the beach. "My son. He made it to here."
- end
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Whose Refugee Where
Whose Refugee Where
No need for moisturizer down here. Nobody complaining of cracked and dry skin. Open sores and raw skin ulcers, yes, but not dry skin.
Just missed a torrential downpour, warm and dry at the cafe Arthit, the system up, then down, now up again after a second cup of strong coffee. A mere splattering upon leaving the jungalow, south to Lam Kaen for petro in a drizzle, log truck spray up the mountain, sunshine at the top, then ominous black clouds coming back down the other side.
Nodding at the impenetrable torrent lashing at the street, "A nice day for the beach," said Kathy, the wife of Kirt, ceramic water filter makers from the north of Thailand seven years and previously from, I had to pry it from them, Colorado, embarrassingly, yes, I could have guessed, Boulder, no shit? yes, before that. Then Portland. Yes, I could have guessed.
Eventually, the propulsion toward revelation would have emerged naturally, but then, who knew how long the rain would last. Forgive me for asking.
Waiting for the system to pop back up, they gave me a quick run-down offering under the outside awning on what they're doing for the refugees, to counteract any stereotypical impression that may have been formed by their admitting their time spent in Boulder.
And weren't the summer music festivals in Lyons just wonderful?
Once you've acheived, or ascended Boulder and explored its multitudinous transcendental higher healing holistic helping therapies, then where can you go to feel good about yourself? Aspen? Costa Rica? South of France? Nepal? Northern Thailand? The Rez? There must be someplace.
Michael, from Belgium, says Morroco. Festival in the Desert.
Maybe the International Space Station.
And the t-shirt that says, 'I've been to the International Space Station, and You Haven't.'
________
Digger says we should initiate a Mexican infrastructure. Start up a Mexican restaurant, which is badly needed here, and before you'd know it, they'd be competing with the Burmese over jobs, the low-paying and menial nature of which the Thai refuse.
"Same same U.S. America," we tell the Thai when they talk about the influx of Burmese.
A huge vaccum would be felt in every American city north of the Rio Grande. Tens of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans immigrating to Thailand with their extended families, Spanish replacing English as the lingo of commerce.
Enchiladas, Burritos, and Tex Mex.
"You should tell Lupe," said Digger. "The weather's about the same. Lots of low-paying jobs. They'd love it."
_______
I should tell you something about the projects.
There's the housing, the major efforts toward housing the thousands of displaced people. There's three that are directly affilated with the Vol. Ctr., I think, then others up and down the line, run by Thai, Japanese, and the 'Happy Clapper' Southern Babtists, as they are dubbed by the Europeans, from Oklahoma or South Carolina or somewhere, who always occupied a table for twelve or more at the restaurants and wore yellow T-shirts proclaiming their volunteer service and their faith. Big brown cross on the back.
They managed to piss off people from a number of nations around the world with their prosletizing, Bibical analogies, impatient pushy Jesus, and guilt trip in the busom of a billion buddhas, telling orphans the reason their parents are gone is because they failed to accept Christ in their lives.
"It seems exploitative with ulterior motives attached to the help," said Myra. "If their God is so weak he can't control the universe without their active help, then I'm not interested."
And the Mormons are starting a church down in Phuket, the advance team said. And a family of four Quakers, or Amish, pity the kids, all of ém wearing that hot, black, long, traditional garb, settled into Lam Kaen refugee camp, Helen said in astonishment, going to try to make it on 20 baht a day, Digger said.
"It takes a minimum of 600 baht to renew your visa," said Mel. "Per person. What will they do in thirty days? They'll be kicked out of the country."
They planned to come here and live in the camps with the refugees. "Don't they know the camps are for the refugees?" she asked.
Maybe they are.
______
Then there's the arts & crafts project, the English language project, beach clean-up, landscaping, the wood shop, underwater diving cleanup, the web site, the big, 4 Kali community development project organized by some people who lost their daughter, and the boathouse/boatyard/boatshed project at Pakarang.
You can't really call it a boatshed. Some call it a cathedral, and others call it many things. As having 'funding up the ass', as James said yesterday, this long-term and ongoing project (as many are) was established early after The Wave with independent funding from a variety of sources with the intention of rebuilding the three dozen fishing boats lost in the immediate area.
"Just remember one thing," I was forever telling Terry, from Austrailia, with actual, measurable carpentry skills, in a British-accented language he could understand. "You're not building Her Majesty's Royal Buckingham Palace."
To which Terry would reply, "You're not building the fucking Taj Mahal."
It's been called that, too. The Taj Mahal. Lots of people have asked when we're going to finish it.
We've got Thai and Burmese boatbuilders working alongside us since the roof, and T-shirts I'll show you later, and a web site. Three bays with three boats going, one painted and complete, and all sorts of folks coming around to check it out.
"This is my house," I told those people from Seattle, who emerged slowly from their rented land rover like they all do, eyeing the massive, impressive structure sitting in the bay of the Cape, and addressing me, probably because of my size, obvious foreigner, smile, and recognition of their arrival. Upon prior inquiry they most probably had been told to speak with the project manager, Scott, from North Carolina.
"Scott?"they ask.
"I've got three boats in my living room right now," I told them, "but that's only temporary. They'll be out of here soon."
When they realize I'm just bullshitting, I tell them, "You'll probably want to talk with Scott, the project manager. I'm just the applied physics consultant."
- end
No need for moisturizer down here. Nobody complaining of cracked and dry skin. Open sores and raw skin ulcers, yes, but not dry skin.
Just missed a torrential downpour, warm and dry at the cafe Arthit, the system up, then down, now up again after a second cup of strong coffee. A mere splattering upon leaving the jungalow, south to Lam Kaen for petro in a drizzle, log truck spray up the mountain, sunshine at the top, then ominous black clouds coming back down the other side.
Nodding at the impenetrable torrent lashing at the street, "A nice day for the beach," said Kathy, the wife of Kirt, ceramic water filter makers from the north of Thailand seven years and previously from, I had to pry it from them, Colorado, embarrassingly, yes, I could have guessed, Boulder, no shit? yes, before that. Then Portland. Yes, I could have guessed.
Eventually, the propulsion toward revelation would have emerged naturally, but then, who knew how long the rain would last. Forgive me for asking.
Waiting for the system to pop back up, they gave me a quick run-down offering under the outside awning on what they're doing for the refugees, to counteract any stereotypical impression that may have been formed by their admitting their time spent in Boulder.
And weren't the summer music festivals in Lyons just wonderful?
Once you've acheived, or ascended Boulder and explored its multitudinous transcendental higher healing holistic helping therapies, then where can you go to feel good about yourself? Aspen? Costa Rica? South of France? Nepal? Northern Thailand? The Rez? There must be someplace.
Michael, from Belgium, says Morroco. Festival in the Desert.
Maybe the International Space Station.
And the t-shirt that says, 'I've been to the International Space Station, and You Haven't.'
________
Digger says we should initiate a Mexican infrastructure. Start up a Mexican restaurant, which is badly needed here, and before you'd know it, they'd be competing with the Burmese over jobs, the low-paying and menial nature of which the Thai refuse.
"Same same U.S. America," we tell the Thai when they talk about the influx of Burmese.
A huge vaccum would be felt in every American city north of the Rio Grande. Tens of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans immigrating to Thailand with their extended families, Spanish replacing English as the lingo of commerce.
Enchiladas, Burritos, and Tex Mex.
"You should tell Lupe," said Digger. "The weather's about the same. Lots of low-paying jobs. They'd love it."
_______
I should tell you something about the projects.
There's the housing, the major efforts toward housing the thousands of displaced people. There's three that are directly affilated with the Vol. Ctr., I think, then others up and down the line, run by Thai, Japanese, and the 'Happy Clapper' Southern Babtists, as they are dubbed by the Europeans, from Oklahoma or South Carolina or somewhere, who always occupied a table for twelve or more at the restaurants and wore yellow T-shirts proclaiming their volunteer service and their faith. Big brown cross on the back.
They managed to piss off people from a number of nations around the world with their prosletizing, Bibical analogies, impatient pushy Jesus, and guilt trip in the busom of a billion buddhas, telling orphans the reason their parents are gone is because they failed to accept Christ in their lives.
"It seems exploitative with ulterior motives attached to the help," said Myra. "If their God is so weak he can't control the universe without their active help, then I'm not interested."
And the Mormons are starting a church down in Phuket, the advance team said. And a family of four Quakers, or Amish, pity the kids, all of ém wearing that hot, black, long, traditional garb, settled into Lam Kaen refugee camp, Helen said in astonishment, going to try to make it on 20 baht a day, Digger said.
"It takes a minimum of 600 baht to renew your visa," said Mel. "Per person. What will they do in thirty days? They'll be kicked out of the country."
They planned to come here and live in the camps with the refugees. "Don't they know the camps are for the refugees?" she asked.
Maybe they are.
______
Then there's the arts & crafts project, the English language project, beach clean-up, landscaping, the wood shop, underwater diving cleanup, the web site, the big, 4 Kali community development project organized by some people who lost their daughter, and the boathouse/boatyard/boatshed project at Pakarang.
You can't really call it a boatshed. Some call it a cathedral, and others call it many things. As having 'funding up the ass', as James said yesterday, this long-term and ongoing project (as many are) was established early after The Wave with independent funding from a variety of sources with the intention of rebuilding the three dozen fishing boats lost in the immediate area.
"Just remember one thing," I was forever telling Terry, from Austrailia, with actual, measurable carpentry skills, in a British-accented language he could understand. "You're not building Her Majesty's Royal Buckingham Palace."
To which Terry would reply, "You're not building the fucking Taj Mahal."
It's been called that, too. The Taj Mahal. Lots of people have asked when we're going to finish it.
We've got Thai and Burmese boatbuilders working alongside us since the roof, and T-shirts I'll show you later, and a web site. Three bays with three boats going, one painted and complete, and all sorts of folks coming around to check it out.
"This is my house," I told those people from Seattle, who emerged slowly from their rented land rover like they all do, eyeing the massive, impressive structure sitting in the bay of the Cape, and addressing me, probably because of my size, obvious foreigner, smile, and recognition of their arrival. Upon prior inquiry they most probably had been told to speak with the project manager, Scott, from North Carolina.
"Scott?"they ask.
"I've got three boats in my living room right now," I told them, "but that's only temporary. They'll be out of here soon."
When they realize I'm just bullshitting, I tell them, "You'll probably want to talk with Scott, the project manager. I'm just the applied physics consultant."
- end
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Everything Bass Ackward
Everything Bass Ackward
I finally realized why all those Thai were yelling at me, and why every day those maniac motorists were swerving all over the road, honking and flashing their lights. They were all driving on the wrong side of the road!
First of all, everything's ass backwards; the sentence structure, the shower hose on the bottom of the toilet tank so you have to lean wayyyy the hell over to get your hair and back, and the traffic. You look over to the left-hand lane, and there's people going in the same direction, but in my lane, there's oncoming traffic passing on either side, a bit unnerving, especially the buses and concrete trucks.
Just hold a straight line, they say. No wonder I perceived it as so chaotic.
- end
I finally realized why all those Thai were yelling at me, and why every day those maniac motorists were swerving all over the road, honking and flashing their lights. They were all driving on the wrong side of the road!
First of all, everything's ass backwards; the sentence structure, the shower hose on the bottom of the toilet tank so you have to lean wayyyy the hell over to get your hair and back, and the traffic. You look over to the left-hand lane, and there's people going in the same direction, but in my lane, there's oncoming traffic passing on either side, a bit unnerving, especially the buses and concrete trucks.
Just hold a straight line, they say. No wonder I perceived it as so chaotic.
- end
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Angry Dragon Wring Out The Sky
Wring Out The Sky
No wonder why the houses are set upon stilts. The monsoon has begun, last night in torrents, then cats and dogs, bringing down huge tree limbs, branches and leaves on the road, then slowing to a downpour this morning, offering a chance to escape the bungalow with the ponds filled to overflow and precipitously approaching our steps. Ponchos and rain slickers in high demand. Good days for reading or watching somebody's playoffs, if you have a tv.
Thai workmen at the hydraulic controls of three enormous Japanese Komatsu praying mantis digging machines on tracks have spent three weeks scooping out red dirt, then gray clay to excavate the ponds near our bungalow to accomodate the water needs of the refugee camp atop the hill, an ant-line succession of dump trucks carting off the soupy mix, leaving a muddy red tire trail out onto the highway and the road to our bungalow as a cratered nerve-wracking challenge. After being near sucked dry, the ponds are now filled from two days of steady rain.
_______
A couple of weeks ago I asked Kong what the monks at the temple had to say about the tsunami and the shocking loss of life here at Khao Lak.
"Angry dragon," he replied with a nervous laugh, then went on to say "It's natural," making a circular, winding motion with his index fingers of the earth turning.
With the onset of the rainy season, the sea has churned itself up into a turbulent greenish gray froth pounding the shoreline, doing little to dispell the belief among the Thai that the souls lost to the sea are seeking company to join them in afterlife, since the death last week, week before of the Thai solider in the waves, and the drowning yesterday of another Thai citizen, out in the water at the wrong time, the wrong season, the wrong weather.
______
Mother's Day
Someone just said something about emailing mothers for Mother's Day. Easy to lose track of such holidays. Happy Mother's Day, all you moms out there, and all the surrogate moms and godmothers who've adopted animals or the children of others.
vic
- end
No wonder why the houses are set upon stilts. The monsoon has begun, last night in torrents, then cats and dogs, bringing down huge tree limbs, branches and leaves on the road, then slowing to a downpour this morning, offering a chance to escape the bungalow with the ponds filled to overflow and precipitously approaching our steps. Ponchos and rain slickers in high demand. Good days for reading or watching somebody's playoffs, if you have a tv.
Thai workmen at the hydraulic controls of three enormous Japanese Komatsu praying mantis digging machines on tracks have spent three weeks scooping out red dirt, then gray clay to excavate the ponds near our bungalow to accomodate the water needs of the refugee camp atop the hill, an ant-line succession of dump trucks carting off the soupy mix, leaving a muddy red tire trail out onto the highway and the road to our bungalow as a cratered nerve-wracking challenge. After being near sucked dry, the ponds are now filled from two days of steady rain.
_______
A couple of weeks ago I asked Kong what the monks at the temple had to say about the tsunami and the shocking loss of life here at Khao Lak.
"Angry dragon," he replied with a nervous laugh, then went on to say "It's natural," making a circular, winding motion with his index fingers of the earth turning.
With the onset of the rainy season, the sea has churned itself up into a turbulent greenish gray froth pounding the shoreline, doing little to dispell the belief among the Thai that the souls lost to the sea are seeking company to join them in afterlife, since the death last week, week before of the Thai solider in the waves, and the drowning yesterday of another Thai citizen, out in the water at the wrong time, the wrong season, the wrong weather.
______
Mother's Day
Someone just said something about emailing mothers for Mother's Day. Easy to lose track of such holidays. Happy Mother's Day, all you moms out there, and all the surrogate moms and godmothers who've adopted animals or the children of others.
vic
- end
Friday, May 06, 2005
Just From The Waist Up
Just From The Waist Up
About a month ago, Kong showed me his passport, an unsmiling man with shaven head and sapphron robe. He had the look of a refugee from a totalitarian regime. He'd said earlier that he'd been in the monastery, ten years, but it looked like a recent photo.
And a couple of weeks ago at dinner, he made a joke about monks engaged in turf wars when he crossed his arms in an authoritarian manner, cocked his head back and asked in gruff condescension, "So, howwwww long have YOU been in the monastery?"
That was just after we witnessed a dog starting some shit outside the restaurant with another trespassing canine, running him off, then pissing on the boundaries of the perimeter he was defending.
Kong brought it to our attention there at the table, then pantomimed the hypothetical monks, bringing together his two hands like chattering teeth, sniping back and forth at one another.
He'd evidently spent enough time to know the politics and pecking order of a monastery.
So it sort of caught me by suprise when yesterday morning I saw him pulling into the parking lot of a beauty parlor some 25 k. from here, across from the turnoff to Cape Pakarang where the boat house project is located. He told me was going to see his girlfriend.
"GIRLFRIEND!!???" I asked in astonishment, shouting with angry Head Monk authority, "A MONK CANNOT!"
Behind his wrap-around sunglasses, he laughed and said, "I am a monk only from the waist up."
- end
About a month ago, Kong showed me his passport, an unsmiling man with shaven head and sapphron robe. He had the look of a refugee from a totalitarian regime. He'd said earlier that he'd been in the monastery, ten years, but it looked like a recent photo.
And a couple of weeks ago at dinner, he made a joke about monks engaged in turf wars when he crossed his arms in an authoritarian manner, cocked his head back and asked in gruff condescension, "So, howwwww long have YOU been in the monastery?"
That was just after we witnessed a dog starting some shit outside the restaurant with another trespassing canine, running him off, then pissing on the boundaries of the perimeter he was defending.
Kong brought it to our attention there at the table, then pantomimed the hypothetical monks, bringing together his two hands like chattering teeth, sniping back and forth at one another.
He'd evidently spent enough time to know the politics and pecking order of a monastery.
So it sort of caught me by suprise when yesterday morning I saw him pulling into the parking lot of a beauty parlor some 25 k. from here, across from the turnoff to Cape Pakarang where the boat house project is located. He told me was going to see his girlfriend.
"GIRLFRIEND!!???" I asked in astonishment, shouting with angry Head Monk authority, "A MONK CANNOT!"
Behind his wrap-around sunglasses, he laughed and said, "I am a monk only from the waist up."
- end
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
What Would It Be
What Would It Be
And then
What would it be
to see the world
and ourselves
outside our skin
I gave a walking monk
a ride today
and he rode awhile
about a mile
then tapped me lightly
signaling his stop
- end
And then
What would it be
to see the world
and ourselves
outside our skin
I gave a walking monk
a ride today
and he rode awhile
about a mile
then tapped me lightly
signaling his stop
- end
Saturday, April 30, 2005
The Rest Is Jungle
The Rest Is Jungle
Despite our everyday use of of the footpath to our bungalow on the edge of the jungle, the vines continue to advance on the walkway and the bungalow itself, threatening to consume it if not assiduously maintained.
On the way up here from Phuket, we identified the trees we knew. 'There's rubber, and coconut, and pineapple, and magnolia. Bamboo.'
"What's that?" I asked our driver, pointing out at the mass of green and vines.
"Jungle," he said. "The rest is jungle."
Hot, steamy jungle, sucking up the water after a rain and immediately returning to oppresive heat. It seems to have settled down at night, cooling off to allow us sleep, and the creatures out there seemingly more quiet. Only the ghosts are roaming.
The Thai won't swim because they believe all those ghosts out there, in their confused desire for company, will pull them out to sea. They won't eat the shellfish, either, believing that they've been feeding upon the flesh of the dead.
So many posters still up of the missing. So many matter-of-fact stories of lost family members and uncounted Burmese. At times it seems as if we're all PTSD counselors. There's nothing to say, no advice to offer, not even a tear. Just to sit with them in their space. They say they can't sleep.
Two of seven, Voy said, astride his motorcycle, on his way to Phuket to identify the bodies, he said. Two of seven family members had been recovered. Michael, too. A Swiss man who lived here running a restaurant for fifteen years. His Thai wife wasn't the person they found, it turned out, he said, after a day trip to Phuket to examine photos, clothing, and dental records.
Housing projects going on up and down the road. The Germans are impressive, going at their 40 home project, with villagers now living in the completed homes in Thap Tuan. Under a tin roof boat shed in Bang Niang, a production line of six long tail fishing boats are being turned out by Thai carpenters.
Our boathouse project at Cape Pakarang continues with Muslim Burmese boat builders working alongside us, laughing and telling man jokes and what that bitter green leaf they chew will do for you. They tease Aeer, who has two wives who don't let him get any sleep at night, and were as concerned as Scott about the overnight theft of some of our tools from the wooden tool shed, sprung open at the lock with a pry bar, and replaced now with a large metal cabinet that a Thai welder modified on site, today causing a burn on Kon's foot after he stepped barefoot on a red hot scrap of reinforcement iron. Flip flops are bad enough on a construction site, but barefoot is really asking for it.
Four nights a week I continue with individualized tag team English lessons for a bright and enthusiastic nephew Op, along with the translator help of his uncle Pon and the encouragement of his parents, whose restaurant he helps run, sitting around an outdoor table with a coke and his relatives and other interested parties who come and sit, mostly quietly, but sometimes offering an explanation or clarification in Thai.
It's fun to hear him hesitantly work out useful, everyday phrases like, "What...ahh...you...looking...at?" to which Digger suggested adding when I told him, "hab you got a probrem?"
"Tell him he'll always get a reaction from people," laughed Digger, who has a 14 student English class of his own up in Nam Kaem through the Mercy foundation that he co-teaches with Melanie from England.
Special emphasis on 'h', 'l', 'r', 's', and 'x' for nephew Op.
They can't say 'David' or 'Vic'. Digger is 'Davis', and I'm 'Wick'. We'll repeat our names, and they'll say it the same way. Davis. Wick.
Emphasis is always on the last syllable when speaking English. That's 'Mon-KEE', 'Lay-DEE,' 'Ti-GER', and 'soona-MEE'.
The word is the same in Engish, Japanese, or Thai. Same same meaning. Big Wave.
They're selling the Tsunami CD in the shops here now, taken from an amatuer's vantage point atop a scenic overlook of Khao Lak, and where his girlfriend screamed in vain at the unfortunate tourists walking in wonder out among the uncovered seabed as the wave rolled in, "RUN! RUN! NOW! QUICK!"
Some of the people said it was sick, but I bought a copy.
The sun is finally headed toward the horizon, casting reddish rays through the sliding glass doors of the low speed internet cafe. Going to head over to the beach to watch it drop into the sea.
- end
Despite our everyday use of of the footpath to our bungalow on the edge of the jungle, the vines continue to advance on the walkway and the bungalow itself, threatening to consume it if not assiduously maintained.
On the way up here from Phuket, we identified the trees we knew. 'There's rubber, and coconut, and pineapple, and magnolia. Bamboo.'
"What's that?" I asked our driver, pointing out at the mass of green and vines.
"Jungle," he said. "The rest is jungle."
Hot, steamy jungle, sucking up the water after a rain and immediately returning to oppresive heat. It seems to have settled down at night, cooling off to allow us sleep, and the creatures out there seemingly more quiet. Only the ghosts are roaming.
The Thai won't swim because they believe all those ghosts out there, in their confused desire for company, will pull them out to sea. They won't eat the shellfish, either, believing that they've been feeding upon the flesh of the dead.
So many posters still up of the missing. So many matter-of-fact stories of lost family members and uncounted Burmese. At times it seems as if we're all PTSD counselors. There's nothing to say, no advice to offer, not even a tear. Just to sit with them in their space. They say they can't sleep.
Two of seven, Voy said, astride his motorcycle, on his way to Phuket to identify the bodies, he said. Two of seven family members had been recovered. Michael, too. A Swiss man who lived here running a restaurant for fifteen years. His Thai wife wasn't the person they found, it turned out, he said, after a day trip to Phuket to examine photos, clothing, and dental records.
Housing projects going on up and down the road. The Germans are impressive, going at their 40 home project, with villagers now living in the completed homes in Thap Tuan. Under a tin roof boat shed in Bang Niang, a production line of six long tail fishing boats are being turned out by Thai carpenters.
Our boathouse project at Cape Pakarang continues with Muslim Burmese boat builders working alongside us, laughing and telling man jokes and what that bitter green leaf they chew will do for you. They tease Aeer, who has two wives who don't let him get any sleep at night, and were as concerned as Scott about the overnight theft of some of our tools from the wooden tool shed, sprung open at the lock with a pry bar, and replaced now with a large metal cabinet that a Thai welder modified on site, today causing a burn on Kon's foot after he stepped barefoot on a red hot scrap of reinforcement iron. Flip flops are bad enough on a construction site, but barefoot is really asking for it.
Four nights a week I continue with individualized tag team English lessons for a bright and enthusiastic nephew Op, along with the translator help of his uncle Pon and the encouragement of his parents, whose restaurant he helps run, sitting around an outdoor table with a coke and his relatives and other interested parties who come and sit, mostly quietly, but sometimes offering an explanation or clarification in Thai.
It's fun to hear him hesitantly work out useful, everyday phrases like, "What...ahh...you...looking...at?" to which Digger suggested adding when I told him, "hab you got a probrem?"
"Tell him he'll always get a reaction from people," laughed Digger, who has a 14 student English class of his own up in Nam Kaem through the Mercy foundation that he co-teaches with Melanie from England.
Special emphasis on 'h', 'l', 'r', 's', and 'x' for nephew Op.
They can't say 'David' or 'Vic'. Digger is 'Davis', and I'm 'Wick'. We'll repeat our names, and they'll say it the same way. Davis. Wick.
Emphasis is always on the last syllable when speaking English. That's 'Mon-KEE', 'Lay-DEE,' 'Ti-GER', and 'soona-MEE'.
The word is the same in Engish, Japanese, or Thai. Same same meaning. Big Wave.
They're selling the Tsunami CD in the shops here now, taken from an amatuer's vantage point atop a scenic overlook of Khao Lak, and where his girlfriend screamed in vain at the unfortunate tourists walking in wonder out among the uncovered seabed as the wave rolled in, "RUN! RUN! NOW! QUICK!"
Some of the people said it was sick, but I bought a copy.
The sun is finally headed toward the horizon, casting reddish rays through the sliding glass doors of the low speed internet cafe. Going to head over to the beach to watch it drop into the sea.
- end
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
Timid Taiwanese, Treacherous Timber & Thai Tattoos
Timid Taiwanese, Treacherous Timbers & Thai Tattoos
Arriving at the boat house project site around ten o'clock in two oversized, double-decker, scenic-liner, air-conditioned tour buses and wearing their blue and white school uniforms, seventy Taiwanese schoolgirls showed up for volunteer work, took photos, and hung out in small groups in the shade of coconut palms until their permanent departure shortly after lunch.
They all seemed terribly frightened of conversation or something else, and clearly didn't appear dressed for work at a construction site, with their tall white socks and all. Our project manager, Scott, had them scour the surrounding grounds, gathering coconuts, downed deadened palm fronds and tsunami trash into several large piles.
We supposed they wanted to say they took part in the relief effort. Like everyone else on this site, other projects, and the planet, they were here, and then they were gone.
________
We were wishing we'd been wearing hard hats and more than flip flops on the project when that 400 lb. 2x8 coconut catwalk plank that Gee, from France, and I were transfering between overhead trusses, balanced on two pieces of scrap 2x4s, came crashing down in spectacular fashion, splitting open my scalp and causing the crew to finally turn down the Simon and Garfunkle on the portable boom box and momentarily shut down the power tools.
I remember Gee saying, "It's too short," as we had both ends in the air, a fatal error in our estimation of the distance between the support beams.
"That's quite an eggshell," said Gita, the fourth-year pre-med student from California, inspecting the laceration and swelling above my right ear.
"Don't you mean, 'goose egg'? I asked.
Blood excites people. Sitting there in a blood-soaked T-shirt and looking at the awe in their expressions, I remembered my reaction to the first sight of real blood in Vietnam that gave rise to my sense of doing my job as a medic if I could get it stopped.
A few of my co-workers said I should probably have my head examined, but since I've heard that phrase before, I ignored it and returned to the rafters after lunch to continue another course of roof tiles.
_______
I'm not the only one to have taken a hit. One of the girls fell from her bungalow balcony and broke her back. Another girl who they said 'was asking for it,' broke her collar bone in a motorbike accident. Three others were injured after a drunken spilling of the motorcycle they were riding had gone a mere ten yards.
A number of volunteers are walking around with gauze bandages on a variety of injuries, the most common being the 'Thai Tattoo' muffler burn sported on the inside calf of the right leg, including Digger, whose half-dollar-sized wound is almost closed and healed, a challenge in this spongy tropical heat that lends to open sores and infection.
Aside from the bike accidents, the injuries sustained on the job may be a direct result of a number of us, if not the majority, performing tasks we are unqualified to do. We sat listening to an intoxicated man from Australia complain bitterly that his highly skilled and over-qualified 12-man construction crew was spending their week digging holes the Thai could have dug.
Somewhere between the fifth and six re-telling of his story, I interrupted by telling him, "Yeah. I used to be a tightrope walker, and they've got me working on the ground!"
Then there was the 'face-plant', according to Tilo, of the sweet little thing from Sweden, following her motorbike accident that left a huge scab on her chin, two vertical scars down both sides of her jaw, and the emergency removal of several teeth, they said, that will no doubt appall her parents and permanently serve as record of her trip to Thailand.
"Team Sweden took a big hit," said Tilo, a laid-back site director from Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
Eileen's injuries were of a different nature. A 40 year-old woman from Scotland, she suffered three broken bones in her arm following her pouring a beer over my head at a barbeque dinner prepared by our Thai hosts who own the resort at which the volunteer center is headquartered, and attacking Andy with a beer bottle after he brought to her attention his observation that her act was 'a terribly rude thing to do', whereupon after falling in her pursuit of Andy, she overturned the table of our Thai hosts, and in her attempt to regain her feet, alledgedly overturned the brick barbeque grille before the police were called to remove her from the premises. Word was, she was deported from the country upon her release from the hospital in Phuket.
No one is exactly sure how she suffered three compound fractures of her arm, but many people surmised that it very well could have occurred at the hands of the Thai police, as several of us had previous knowledge of her belligerant and hostile nature.
With the beer-pouring effecting my immediate departure for the evening, I received the news first-hand, relatively from the horse's mouth, with it being related by Andy, a black man from England with a keen sense of propriety. I was repeatedly told by many people that she hated Americans in particular, pretty blond Canadians, and Aussies and Brits and the rest of the world in general.
Earlier that evening she had proudly told me that her father was a toolmaker, one of the best in Scotland, to which I had replied, "That doesn't mean you know how to use them. My father was a barber, but that doesn't mean I know how to cut hair."
Maybe it was that comment, or maybe the whiskey that set her off. I heard that they make a pretty good whiskey in Scotland, but that doesn't mean they know how to hold it.
_______
Now Survivors Die
The cement truck was a reminder of the rules of the road. You can swing out into an occupied oncoming lane, as long as you signal your intentions, not like the car that clipped the cyclist out in front of the road that leads to our bungalow. The next day, you would never have known a fatality had occured there.
Arriving at the boat house project site around ten o'clock in two oversized, double-decker, scenic-liner, air-conditioned tour buses and wearing their blue and white school uniforms, seventy Taiwanese schoolgirls showed up for volunteer work, took photos, and hung out in small groups in the shade of coconut palms until their permanent departure shortly after lunch.
They all seemed terribly frightened of conversation or something else, and clearly didn't appear dressed for work at a construction site, with their tall white socks and all. Our project manager, Scott, had them scour the surrounding grounds, gathering coconuts, downed deadened palm fronds and tsunami trash into several large piles.
We supposed they wanted to say they took part in the relief effort. Like everyone else on this site, other projects, and the planet, they were here, and then they were gone.
________
We were wishing we'd been wearing hard hats and more than flip flops on the project when that 400 lb. 2x8 coconut catwalk plank that Gee, from France, and I were transfering between overhead trusses, balanced on two pieces of scrap 2x4s, came crashing down in spectacular fashion, splitting open my scalp and causing the crew to finally turn down the Simon and Garfunkle on the portable boom box and momentarily shut down the power tools.
I remember Gee saying, "It's too short," as we had both ends in the air, a fatal error in our estimation of the distance between the support beams.
"That's quite an eggshell," said Gita, the fourth-year pre-med student from California, inspecting the laceration and swelling above my right ear.
"Don't you mean, 'goose egg'? I asked.
Blood excites people. Sitting there in a blood-soaked T-shirt and looking at the awe in their expressions, I remembered my reaction to the first sight of real blood in Vietnam that gave rise to my sense of doing my job as a medic if I could get it stopped.
A few of my co-workers said I should probably have my head examined, but since I've heard that phrase before, I ignored it and returned to the rafters after lunch to continue another course of roof tiles.
_______
I'm not the only one to have taken a hit. One of the girls fell from her bungalow balcony and broke her back. Another girl who they said 'was asking for it,' broke her collar bone in a motorbike accident. Three others were injured after a drunken spilling of the motorcycle they were riding had gone a mere ten yards.
A number of volunteers are walking around with gauze bandages on a variety of injuries, the most common being the 'Thai Tattoo' muffler burn sported on the inside calf of the right leg, including Digger, whose half-dollar-sized wound is almost closed and healed, a challenge in this spongy tropical heat that lends to open sores and infection.
Aside from the bike accidents, the injuries sustained on the job may be a direct result of a number of us, if not the majority, performing tasks we are unqualified to do. We sat listening to an intoxicated man from Australia complain bitterly that his highly skilled and over-qualified 12-man construction crew was spending their week digging holes the Thai could have dug.
Somewhere between the fifth and six re-telling of his story, I interrupted by telling him, "Yeah. I used to be a tightrope walker, and they've got me working on the ground!"
Then there was the 'face-plant', according to Tilo, of the sweet little thing from Sweden, following her motorbike accident that left a huge scab on her chin, two vertical scars down both sides of her jaw, and the emergency removal of several teeth, they said, that will no doubt appall her parents and permanently serve as record of her trip to Thailand.
"Team Sweden took a big hit," said Tilo, a laid-back site director from Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
Eileen's injuries were of a different nature. A 40 year-old woman from Scotland, she suffered three broken bones in her arm following her pouring a beer over my head at a barbeque dinner prepared by our Thai hosts who own the resort at which the volunteer center is headquartered, and attacking Andy with a beer bottle after he brought to her attention his observation that her act was 'a terribly rude thing to do', whereupon after falling in her pursuit of Andy, she overturned the table of our Thai hosts, and in her attempt to regain her feet, alledgedly overturned the brick barbeque grille before the police were called to remove her from the premises. Word was, she was deported from the country upon her release from the hospital in Phuket.
No one is exactly sure how she suffered three compound fractures of her arm, but many people surmised that it very well could have occurred at the hands of the Thai police, as several of us had previous knowledge of her belligerant and hostile nature.
With the beer-pouring effecting my immediate departure for the evening, I received the news first-hand, relatively from the horse's mouth, with it being related by Andy, a black man from England with a keen sense of propriety. I was repeatedly told by many people that she hated Americans in particular, pretty blond Canadians, and Aussies and Brits and the rest of the world in general.
Earlier that evening she had proudly told me that her father was a toolmaker, one of the best in Scotland, to which I had replied, "That doesn't mean you know how to use them. My father was a barber, but that doesn't mean I know how to cut hair."
Maybe it was that comment, or maybe the whiskey that set her off. I heard that they make a pretty good whiskey in Scotland, but that doesn't mean they know how to hold it.
_______
Now Survivors Die
The cement truck was a reminder of the rules of the road. You can swing out into an occupied oncoming lane, as long as you signal your intentions, not like the car that clipped the cyclist out in front of the road that leads to our bungalow. The next day, you would never have known a fatality had occured there.
The family held a week-long wake, feeding family, friends, and everyone who came by under tables and chairs set under a number of tents. I didn't know him, but they made me sit and eat.
- end
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)