| Hometown
Heroes
When the tsunami hit south Asia, area residents put
their lives on hold and headed to Thailand to help.
By Cindy Crane
Editor’s Note: Shortly after the tsunami ravaged
south Asia, Dr. Usa Bunnag, a Bethesda dentist and Thai-American,
decided she wanted to help victims in Thailand. With
the help of WJLA-TV in Washington, which broadcast a
report Jan. 5 on her efforts, Bunnag recruited area
medical professionals and other volunteers to accompany
her on a mission to Thailand under the auspices of “Smile
On Wings.” Bunnag founded the organization last
year to provide dental care to remote Thai villages.
Just one week after the report aired, a group of 10
Washington area residents, including seven from the
Bethesda area, arrived in Khao Lak, a hard-hit beach
resort, in Phang Nga province, about an hour north of
Phuket. Over the next 10 days, Bunnag and her Smile
on Wings team treated hundreds of tsunami victims and
touched the lives of hundreds more in ways large and
small. The team also witnessed daily the scale and depth
of the destruction and horror, and the unimaginable
emotional and physical pain suffered by tens of thousands
of people in the area. Here is the story of the Smile
On Wings mission, as written by Cindy Crane, one of
the team members.
Day 1
9 a.m., Dulles Airport: We are all nervous. Most of
us have never met one another and have no idea what
to expect. We introduce ourselves, check in, take pictures
and say goodbye to our families. It’s hard for
me to say goodbye to my husband, Tony, and my kids,
Jesse, 11, and Nick, 9. They tell me they are glad I
am going to help the orphans but will miss me so much.
I heard about the tsunami medical relief mission in
an e-mail from my friend, Georgia Jaitly, a nurse at
Suburban Hospital. Although I have no medical training,
I signed on as an aide, grunt and publicist (my real-life
job). Among other things, I will be coordinating with
the journalists from WJLA who will be accompanying us.
WJLA is sending its lead anchor Leon Harris, reporter
Suzanne Kennedy and cameraman Richard Guastadisegni
to shadow part of our mission.
In one week, Smile On Wings team members collected
nearly $20,000 from friends, family, associates, colleges,
businesses and hospitals for our mission. We promised
that 100 percent of the donations would be used to directly
help the tsunami victims in Phuket. We packed 15 huge
duffle bags filled with over 600 pounds of donated medical
supplies from Suburban and Holy Cross hospitals, medicines
from private doctors and over-the-counter drugs from
Safeway.
After a grueling 22-hour flight through Tokyo, we landed
in Bangkok at midnight. We spent the night at an airport
hotel before heading out the next morning for Phuket,
where the Thai government says more than 5,000 people
were killed and 3,000 are still missing.
Day 2
8 a.m. We fly an hour to Phuket, sharing our plane with
70 barefoot monks. They’re joining many other
monk sects to pray for the souls lost to the tsunami.
Our Thai translator, Wason Lawankul, meets us at the
airport. He is 28 years old, gracious, funny and eternally
upbeat. Wason amuses us the entire trip and we’re
grateful for the comic relief. He used to be a tour-boat
guide, but his company’s boat was lost during
the terrible wave, as was the coral life and the nearby
island beaches. This is his first paying job since that
day.
Dr. Usa Bunnag has been able to coordinate this Smile
On Wings mission through a couple of important channels.
Her Buddhist adviser, Arry Barrigan, put her in touch
with several contacts at the Thai Ministry of Health.
Usa’s last name, Bunnag, will serve us well. Her
husband’s great-great-great grandfather was the
adviser to Thailand’s King Mongkut (as in “The
King and I”). The Bunnag name is well known in
Thailand, and its cachet opens doors that make our mission
possible. Usa is able to get our team much needed in-country
support from the Thai Ministry of Health and the Phuket
Provincial Health Service Center — and help find
us translators, guides, drivers, accommodations, clean
water and a place to store our medical supplies until
we know where we will end up serving.
Usa was born in Thailand in 1962. She moved to Silver
Spring when she was 14 to live with her father. She
attended Blair High School, Montgomery College and Howard
University School of Dentistry. At 21, she married Aurachun
Bunnag, and they have two children, ages 19 and 16.
Usa and her family live in Kensington.
In Phuket we meet up with another member of our team,
Surachai Sutthisasanakul, a 20-year-old audio engineer/musician
from Bethesda. He graduated from Walt Whitman High School
and is Thai-American. He too learned of this mission
from the WJLA-TV news report. He’d been planning
to go to Bangkok to visit family before the tsunami
hit. When he heard about this mission he decided to
abort his plans and come help us instead. We are initially
struck by his multiple piercings, tattoos and good looks.
But we soon learn he is a hardworking, sincere, confident
and fun-loving young man. Though his Thai is rusty,
he and Wason become tight friends and his translation
skills become immeasurably helpful.
Phuket’s landscape is mountainous and lush. The
temperature is in the 90s and the humidity is high.
Ornate prayer temples perched on posts pepper nearly
every home and structure for good luck. We see monkeys,
lemurs and lizards. Fruits like watermelon and small
bananas are available in abundance. They grow in the
hills and were therefore safe from the tsunami’s
path of destruction.
Our guides take us to the hard-hit province of Phang
Nga, an hour north of Phuket. We’re here to see
the destruction and to determine where our team might
be most useful. As we near Khao Lak, we start to grasp
the extent of this disaster. Entire resorts, houses
and shops are wiped out on both sides of the main road.
Enormous holes are shot through existing buildings;
trees are torn down. The grass and all shrubs or plants
of any kind are gone. Muddy brush and debris are jumbled
together with piles of broken concrete and twisted metal.
Huge controlled fires burn. Clothing is piled in mountains
everywhere. We see amazing, out-of-place things: a military
ship in the jungle — a mile from the ocean, a
colorful fishing boat jammed through the roof of a house
in the middle of a tiny fishing village, a car thrown
upside down on the second story of a destroyed building.
We visit a school where all of the children have lost
friends and family. The principal tells us that many
students are living at the school. We donate money,
helping them buy food and other staples.
As we bump along in our guided van down the main resort
road, I notice the smell. It’s a burning, rotting,
muddy smell. I don’t want to think about it. I
go into observation mode and make a concerted decision
to concentrate only on the information given by our
guides, not on how I feel. This approach helps me cope
the whole time I am here. Most shocking, and entirely
unexpected for all of us, is what’s not here.
It appears that everyone is either dead, severely injured
and getting treatment in Bangkok hospitals, or perhaps
tucked away in the many area refugee camps, which we
have not yet seen. Expansive wide-open spaces are spread
out before us for miles on either side of the road where
there is simply nothing remaining but earth and debris.
It’s so quiet. No one is around, save the occasional
cleanup crew or person sifting through rubble, presumably
looking for any remaining symbol of his or her life
pre-tsunami. There are only a small handful of construction
vehicles. They have just arrived in the past few days.
The few storefronts still standing are closed.
We visit two morgues set up at temples. Volunteer experts
are attempting to identify corpses, assign them death
certificates, and return them to their families for
burial. The first morgue is small and appears to be
understaffed. The next, called Wat Yarn Yao, is the
biggest tsunami makeshift morgue in Phang Nga. It is
well staffed by volunteer medics from around the world,
but entirely unorganized. The morgue’s head pathologist
is about 50, has a bright red mohawk and tight black
jeans. We are told she became a celebrity in Thailand
after using DNA evidence to solve a major crime, and
now, between photo ops and tours for dignitaries, she’s
signing a book she’s written. She gives us a brief
overview of the morgue’s activities and needs:
There are more than 1,000 bodies still to identify.
They’re being stacked in unrefrigerated storage
containers and have become badly decomposed. The morgue
is staffed with volunteer medical professionals from
the United States, Norway, Sweden and, of course, Thailand.
However, it is woefully short on forensics and DNA specialists.
Usa is considering whether she can handle helping them
with dental identification in a few days. For now, she
wants to focus on helping the survivors. The group concurs.
7 p.m. We set off for our hotel, a two-hour drive from
this beach resort area. We are unclear about where we
will be of most service. Usa is discouraged and confides
that she fears we may have come all this way and they
won’t need our help. We check into the Phunga
Hotel, a small and grubby looking structure. At dinner
we discuss what we’ve seen and how we’ll
cope as a team. Usa says if any of it gets too hard,
we can rotate where we are focused. Tomorrow we will
visit a refugee camp where we hope we can help.
Day 3
8 a.m. We arrive at the Bang Muang Refugee Camp in Khao
Lak. It’s the region’s largest camp, though
there are at least four more in the immediate area.
Over 4,000 refugees from neighboring fishing villages
are living here with more people coming in every day.
Ninety-seven of the 400 children are orphans. As luck
would have it, we learn that the camp’s current
team of Japanese doctors are leaving tomorrow. We agree
to take over for them and we get briefed on the medical
needs of the camp. The medical tent, which the Japanese
docs have just donated, is large and well appointed
with electricity, fans, five cots and a small pharmacy
manned daily by two Thai pharmacists. There is a steady
flow of patients, mostly for wounds caused during the
tsunami, as well as seemingly harmless stuff like colds,
coughs and stomachaches. The big concern is that dysentery
or cholera could break out.
The camp is well organized and clean, considering.
There are hundreds of small tents, as well as rows of
recently constructed long bunkers housing 15 families
each. Each family, lucky enough to move from their tiny
pup tent into the bunkers, sets up house in a 10-by-10-foot
stall. Each stall has a front door, a large hinged window
and a back door. Additional tents and bunkers appear
daily. The camp has abandoned trying to keep track of
actual names, but this little community is self-sufficient.
There is a big, well-stocked mess kitchen. The toilets
(porcelain holes in the ground) and showers are private
and well placed, far away from the food. Children are
everywhere, but well attended by adults. The refugees
tell us their stories, like the ones below, freely and
with a dignity and strength I cannot express —
and could never muster myself:
- A man still suffering from a bad leg wound incurred
during the tsunami saw the first wave coming (we hear
often that there were two waves about five minutes
apart). He grabbed his 2-year-old son, with his wife
running behind him and was just about to drive off
on his motorcycle with his child when the wave hit,
tearing his boy out of his arms and pulling his wife
under their home. He couldn’t reach them. When
he saw the next wave coming he ran up into the hills.
He never found their bodies so he goes back every
couple of days to look for them. Later today he is
going to his mother’s funeral. Both of his parents
and all of his five brothers and sisters are dead.
- An old woman sits in front of her tent working
her fingers over a small stone. She is 70 with black
worn-down teeth. She was vacationing that day from
Bangkok with her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren.
They were all killed. She survived by holding onto
an oil barrel floating by. She is waiting for her
nephew to take her back to Bangkok.
- A young mother was at her home with her two
daughters, ages 8 and 5, and nephew, 5. They couldn’t
swim. She tried to save them, but they all died. They
have only found one of her two daughters’ bodies.
She shows us their pictures: One is wearing a princess
dress. The other is dancing in a recital with her
nephew. They’re beautiful.
I can’t help crying sometimes. Everyone here
needs money. They have no plans, no homes and no jobs.
Many of the refugees will be living here for years.
We hand out candy and stuffed animals to the children
and Thai currency, bahts (pronounced “bots”)
to the adults; 1,000 here and 1,000 there, the equivalent
of about $26, but it goes a long way. They always hold
their hands together, prayer-like in front of their
faces, a gesture that says “thank you,”
before accepting any gift.
We meet an American developer and carpenter, Kieran
O’Brian, who has come from West Palm Beach, Fla.,
to help build housing here at the camp. In a few days
he is already a camp hero. Armed with his own power
tools, Neil Diamond and Johnny Cash CDs, a good sound
system and cigarettes, he is helping the Thais build
their structures more efficiently. He tells us there
is a nice, clean hotel, the Merlin, only 20 minutes
away. Although the expansive resort lost 70 percent
of its structures, the main building, unbelievably,
is still standing and has rooms available. After the
tsunami first hit, it served as a short-term morgue,
but now houses victim identification and relief volunteers,
as well as Thai soldiers. Usa, a Buddhist, like 99 percent
of the Thai people, initially is against our staying
there. She fears that it is bad karma and disrespectful
to the dead to stay in a place where so many lives were
lost. The alternative, however, is to travel nearly
two hours in both directions, limiting our time and
effectiveness at the camp. She meditates on it and decides
it is in the best interest of the mission to stay closer
to camp. We will move into the Khao Lak Merlin Resort
tomorrow.
6 p.m. We are thirsty on our long trek back to Phunga
Hotel and are amazed to pull up to a clean, modern and
entirely unharmed 7-11 convenience store. This part
of the road inland about 2 miles from the beach was
untouched by the tsunami. We buy our drinks, a couple
of snacks and Wason picks up the Thairath, Thailand’s
national newspaper. To our collective horror, he immediately
notices that there, on the front page, above the fold,
is a large color picture of Kristie Nowak, an internist
at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, and me taking
a photograph of the military ship lodged up in the jungle
we visited yesterday on our tour of the region. The
caption, we are told, says: “Tourists are already
taking photographs of our destruction.” Usa is
furious. She had contacted the paper telling them we
were coming and they never responded. Back at the hotel,
we have dinner and pack our belongings. After dinner,
I wander out in front of our hotel to take a look around.
A Thai woman in her 20s immediately calls me over and
offers me a Thai massage and sex. I take a pass and
go to my room and crash. I can’t wait to change
hotels.
Day 4
8 a.m. It’s our second day of duty at the Bang
Muang Camp Medic Tent. Most of the team stays here for
the day, while Usa, plastic surgeon Vinh Lan Vien, and
nurse practitioner Genell Hilton visit a remote village
island, Kohkhao, to assess the needs of the people there.
They return telling us that the village has been demolished
and the 35 families now living in temporary housing
at the village school need our care, financial aid and
help to rebuild their homes and boats. Usa’s husband,
Aurachun, is starting to make plans to return with Usa
next month to oversee these construction projects. Back
at camp we see a steady stream of 200-300 patients per
day. We also do “house calls” among the
crowded small tents. Our translators help us encourage
sick or injured refugees to come to our tent for treatment.
Many are a little afraid of doctors, especially foreigners,
but slowly through word of mouth they grow to trust
us and start coming in. Pediatric resident Leah Kern,
who lives in Cleveland Park, visits with the mothers
and babies. Tall, blond and with a gentle spirit, Leah,
29, is a Harvard Medical School graduate and currently
a resident at Children’s National Medical Center.
She was in the Peace Corps for two years and is quick
to pick up on the nuances of this gentle culture. Soon
the mothers are handing over their babies and children
for her to examine and treat as necessary.
I join Georgia, my roomie here, on her tent rounds.
Georgia is a strong, capable nurse used to working long
shifts, as are all the other members of the team. We
knew each other only slightly through our kids, Nick
(mine) and Krishna (hers), both fourth-graders at Bradley
Hills Elementary School in Bethesda. Georgia is now
my dear friend and I know this shared experience will
create a lifelong bond between us.
We return from our rounds to see Usa being carried
in for treatment. She has collapsed and is dizzy and
nauseous. She hasn’t slept in days and has eaten
little. For days she’s been setting up this trip
— coordinating scouting tours and meetings, ensuring
we have drivers, food, lodging and translators. The
grueling schedule has finally taken its toll. Kristie
quickly gets IV fluids into her, and she is made to
rest the remainder of the day.
5:30 p.m. We’re done for the day and are on our
way to the Khao Lak Merlin Resort. Although I thought
I was prepared to see the surrounding destruction, I
was stunned. Driving through the once grand entrance
we are instantly enveloped by total destruction. All
the hotel’s lower buildings and 12 beachfront
cottages are demolished or gone. Military vehicles are
slowly moving over the once pristine lawns. Two elephants
are clearing debris across the street. A Thai military
command base is established just within the gates of
the entrance and soldiers in fatigues walk the grounds
and throughout the buildings.
We pull up to the main hotel. Sitting 30 feet above
the sea, the main hotel is virtually, impossibly untouched.
One hundred sixty-five rooms remain here; 209 existed
fewer than three weeks ago. It is beautiful and Zen-like.
Guest rooms are spacious and beautifully appointed.
There are several pools, a spa, restaurants and a gym.
You can see how magnificent it was. Now its only guests
are soldiers and tsunami relief volunteers like us.
We learn that 18 guests died that day. All were trapped
in their luxurious beachfront cottages. It could have
been so many more people, but an employee saw the wave
coming and hit the fire alarm, giving most guests and
employees enough time to flee to the hills across the
street. No staff members were lost, but the bodies of
200 guests from neighboring hotels were thrown onto
the hotel’s property. The Merlin’s lobby
served as a morgue.
After a group dinner, Kristie and I go to the gorgeous
bar for a glass of wine. She tells me she’s always
wanted to do humanitarian health care and live abroad,
but the cost of student loans and medical malpractice
insurance have been too great for her to seriously consider
it. She was able to attend this Smile On Wings mission
only by using all her vacation days for the year. She
considers it a privilege to be here.
Day 5
7:15 a.m. Driving to camp we are constantly reminded
of the power of the tsunami. Hundreds of mud-caked motorcycles
are piled in front of a house. Mountains of mangled
metal scraps and concrete chunks are scattered around.
We are relieved to see that more construction equipment
has been brought in since our arrival. I marvel at a
single-file line of 50 barefoot monks who silently walk
by. They are not allowed to ask for food, but will walk
until villagers donate it to them. The monks are here
to pray for the dead and support the survivors.
Two new rows of bunkers are going up near our tent.
A hundred or more additional tents have gone up overnight.
We hear as many as 5,000 more villagers from the south
are expected to enter next week. I have no idea where
they are going to put them all. The mess kitchen is
serving up the usual hard-boiled eggs, chicken and rice,
as well as other simple and spicy Thai dishes. There
is plenty of food and water to go around for now. Children
in the children’s area are being led in song and
doing various art projects. They’ve made beautiful
batik handkerchiefs and are selling them for 50 bahts
each, about $1.25. A barbershop tent is offering free
haircuts. There are prayer services and religious study
activities taking place. The Thai military drive kids
to a nearby temporary school. Younger children stay
back at camp and are entertained in the child-care tent
or stay with their mothers. In addition to our medical
tent, a much-needed new psychiatric tent has gone up,
although, so far, no one is there to see patients. A
Phuket radio station has brought an enormous van and
is blasting tunes and offering free karaoke. The refugees
are visited often by various Thai dignitaries, politicians
and other more exotic guests: Ricky Martin is visiting
today with a TV crew from the “Oprah” show;
Michael Douglas is supposed to be visiting tomorrow.
A tourist from Ireland whose family lost their boat
during the tsunami wanders into our tent and asks if
she can sit down to rest. She still seems a little shell-shocked,
but she wants to tell her story:
She and her husband were sitting in an Internet
café just before the tsunami hit. The café
was on a spit of land off Khao Lak attached by a strip
of sand. The boat, on which they have been living
and traveling the world, was anchored in a small bay.
Their 16-year-old daughter was rock climbing on the
mainland a half-mile away. Suddenly they saw everyone
running. At first she and her husband thought there
had been a terrorist attack. They went outside; that’s
when they realized an enormous tsunami wave was coming.
Frantically, they ran several hundred yards across
the mainland searching for their daughter. As they
ran with everyone else toward the hills, the water
suddenly and violently receded a half-mile out to
sea. They could see the fish and snorkelers exposed
flat on the bottom of the bay. There was no water
remaining. It took them several awful minutes to find
their daughter and they all ran to a hilltop with
300 or 400 others, waiting until it was safe to come
down again. Everyone was terrified. People were screaming
and crying for their children or husband or wife as
they waited until they felt it was safe to come down.
There were many local Thai villagers, as well as tourists
from Germany, Norway and Finland. Finally around 6
p.m. the group decided it was safe to come down. The
Irish woman’s family began searching for their
boat. They found it, but it was in pieces. Bizarrely
though, their dinghy was floating unharmed in the
middle of the Internet café in which they had
been sitting. She tells us they aren’t sure
what they are going to do now or where they will go.
They home-school their daughter and had planned to
travel for at least a couple of years.
In the afternoon we take the WJLA news crew over to
the morgue for a site tour. They’re not doing
a story here; they just want to understand how the body
identification is organized. Security won’t let
us in, but a 60-ish American medic I met this morning,
simply known as Sandy, gets us in. I am nervous about
what I may see or smell and get into my “information
take-in mode.” Sandy takes us to the forensic
ID tent area where his job is to develop dental X-rays.
We are standing behind stacks of simple plywood coffins
arranged as a makeshift blockade, gathered about 15
feet from where the forensics, doctors and medics are
working. We have rubbed the Thai’s equivalent
of Vicks VapoRub below our noses and are wearing surgical
masks, but the sweet smell of rotting bodies is intense.
Waves of nausea plague me. I feel like the mask is absorbing
the smell and I have to take it off and just breathe
through my mouth.
The corpses are being investigated in several steps.
In the first tent, the forensics experts are looking
for body markings: a tattoo, scar, ear or body piercing.
The skin is so decayed they peel it off hands to get
fingerprints. In the next tent, bone experts examine
the bodies. To sample DNA, they cut out a small piece
of rib if it is an adult or a thighbone if it is a child.
Next, the corpses are moved to a third examination tent
where their abdomens are opened. The forensic experts
look for signs of prior surgeries, such as appendectomies
and hysterectomies.
At the fourth tent the jawbone is removed for dental
identification and/or specific teeth are removed for
examination. The technicians look at and note all dental
work: fillings, root canals, teeth implants, etc. They
take X-rays and return the jaw to its owner. The bodies
are returned to an unrefrigerated storage container
until the results of the examinations confirm identification.
Once identified, the bodies are issued a death certificate,
and finally are returned to their families for burial.
Out in front of the morgue at the death certificate
tent there is a wall of horrors. Grotesque, monster-like
photographs of bloated and ruined bodies are posted
by the hundreds, organized in groups of “female,”
“male” and “children.” In some
of the photos there is a close-up of a piece of jewelry
or a tattoo, but I can’t imagine anyone being
able to recognize their loved one from these hideous
pictures. This wall, thankfully, is down by the next
time I am here, a couple of days later. It was decided
that this visual ID process is unproductive and that
forensic/DNA identification will be the sole method
of body identification.
Day 6
8 a.m. We start another day at the medical tent. More
refugees have moved from tents into the newly built
bunkers and are setting up house. They hang pots, place
floor mats, and arrange their few belongings and the
occasional television — all donated by relief
organizations. Some of the rows of bunkers now have
concrete pavers running between them creating a sidewalk.
There are even potted flowers and plants cropping up
in front of doorways. I am impressed by the efforts
these survivors are making in an attempt to bring a
small piece of their prior lives into their new post-tsunami
life.
Kristie and Vinh performed veterinary surgery today
when they amputated a camp puppy’s mangled toe.
He was brought to the camp by one of the refugees who
found him wandering around her demolished home. His
name, of course, is “Tsunami.” Usa, Georgia,
Leah, Ricardo Gutierrez and I take the ferry to our
island fishing village to deliver 18 new bicycles to
the children and money to the adults. Kohkhao is approximately
5 miles in diameter and home to 35 fishing families.
Miraculously, not one person died here. They held onto
and climbed trees. But they have lost everything they
own. The area 200 yards from the beach that was once
their home is a barren wasteland. No trees. No debris.
No wood or any indication that their homes ever existed.
We pull up to the village school, now their collective
home, to see the children quietly awaiting our arrival.
They love the bikes. There are not enough for each of
them, but they are content to share them with one another.
They thank us with their adorable prayer-like “thank
you” bows. Usa is working on plans to have Smile
On Wings help the Thai military rebuild their village.
6:30 p.m. Usa has invited a Thai soldier to join us
tonight for dinner. He gave us a lift in the back of
his pickup this morning when our van didn’t show.
He tells us that the Thai military expects to keep their
tsunami recovery and reconstruction headquarters running
here for at least two years while they complete construction
of permanent structures. Initially they did body recovery
work. He says elephants came in first to clear out enough
debris around the hotel to get to the bodies. Then the
elephants scooped up the corpses on their tusks and
carried them out to flatbed trucks. The soldier says
they found no survivors.
However, hotel assistant manager, Mr. “Tom Cat,”
who was on duty that day, tells a different story. It’s
a miracle story that I think of when I wake up with
nightmares in the middle of the night:
A family of Germans, two parents and three kids,
ages 9, 7 and 1 1/2, were staying in one of the beach
cottages. When the tsunami hit, the ocean water level
immediately shot up over the cottage roofs and up
to the hotel’s main pool — about 30 feet
high and 80 yards back from the beach. Mr. Tom Cat
and the staff searched for survivors after the second
wave hit and they felt it was safe enough to go and
look. He went out to the edge of the pool and there
he saw a crying baby floating on its back in the swirl
of water still rushing in — the German 1 1/2-year-old.
He plucked him out of the water and saved his life.
The rest of the German family perished. A hotel employee
took care of the baby for three days until they could
get him to the German Embassy.
Kieran, our carpenter buddy from camp, is also staying
here. He’s 37, single and good-looking in a tough-guy
way. He hangs out with us for drinks at the bar and
we trade the gossip we’ve heard that day. We all
discuss the reasons we’ve come here and what we’ve
experienced so far. He tells us 2,000 more bodies south
of Khao Lak have just been found. I think he and Kristie,
35 and single, are becoming interested in each other.
Day 7
8 a.m. We open the medical tent and set up shop. In
addition to the physical problems, we’re now starting
to see signs of depression: adults not sleeping, not
eating, not drinking, dehydration. The Smile On Wings
team is not sure what we can do for them, so we continue
to treat their medical concerns. As we feared, post-traumatic
distress is starting to set in and we are not equipped
to give them the psychiatric care they so desperately
require. So far, there are still no psychiatric professionals
here to help them. Kieran tells us he’s moving
over to the morgue today to start rebuilding body carts.
The carts are poorly designed and corpses keep falling
off. He reports that the Thai government and the Thai
police are now arguing over who is in charge at the
morgue; they’re both fighting with the red-mohawked
pathologist. There is talk that Wat Bang Muang and all
the other temple morgues will close in two weeks; all
unidentified bodies will be moved by the military to
a centralized location in Phuket.
7 p.m. Back to the hotel for dinner. Kieran asks Kristie
out for a date tomorrow to ride elephants. Kristie has
been treating most of the patients and working incredibly
long hours. Kieran confides to us that he is starting
to be overwhelmed by the sights at the morgue in particular.
We’re all starting to feel the effects of the
stress of our work here.
Day 8
7 a.m. At breakfast the team discusses yesterday’s
cases and prepares to head over to the medical tent.
Overnight, there are even more changes underfoot at
the camp. There is definitely a stronger Thai military
presence here. There is now a long ditch with a sewage
pipe being laid the length of the camp. More bunkers
have gone up. There’s a new toilet area. An entire
area of brush and trees has been cleared.
At the hotel this morning I talk with a heavily tattooed
Brit, named Steve, who asks if I can assist him with
security today at the morgue. He’s serving there
as head security guard. The prime ministers from Thailand
and Norway are visiting separately and they’re
expecting a lot of press. They’ve had reporters
with zoom lenses trying to get shots of the bodies.
There’s plenty of coverage at the medical tent
today so I agree to help him. Kristie and I met Steve
the other night at the hotel. He was limping badly,
complaining of swollen ankles and feet. He had terribly
infected mosquito bites and Kristie treated him in the
lobby. In real life, Steve’s a psychiatric nurse
from Essex, UK. Like so many volunteers I’ve met,
he just got up, reached into his own pockets to pay
his way, and came here alone to help. He thought he’d
be doing counseling, but instead he’s been assigned
this job. He’s been here 10 days so far.
The morgue setup is entirely different today and there
appears to be new organization. There are Thai guards
everywhere. Barricades are up. Security is very tight.
Volunteers now wait together in a specific area awaiting
their assignments: body carriers, cleaning crew, DNA
evidence handlers, etc. We sign in, get security badges,
and are suited up: white paper hazmat (hazardous material)
jumpsuits over our clothes, knee-high rubber boots,
rubber gloves taped around our wrists and face masks
firmly affixed to our nose and mouth. We dip our boots
in a bucket of water and disinfectant and are sprayed
down with more of the same. The smell of rotting bodies
is not as strong today because they’ve shut the
body containers and hosed down all public areas in preparation
for the dignitaries’ arrival. Steve and I patrol
the perimeter of the temple grounds, which is roughly
the size of two football fields. There are about 40
body containers in the front, with another 40 or so
on the side. The smell is strong around the containers.
I am handling it much better today. I doubt, however,
that I could do this day in and day out like Steve and
the other volunteers here. The temple morgue’s
back entrance faces a small village street. They are
bringing newly found bodies each night through this
back gate where there are fewer cameras. Kids ride tricycles
in front of their small homes. Laundry is hanging out
to dry. Food is cooking. We find a photographer trying
to get a shot of the bodies. He is holding a camera
up to a hole in the fence. We swoop in and tell him
to bugger off. We enter through the back gate, seal
up the hole and again dip our boots and get sprayed
before going into the heart of the morgue.
We move to the front of the morgue where reporters
have just jostled DNA evidence in the testing area trying
to get a shot of the Thai prime minister. We’re
placed on post here for a while before resuming our
patrol for the next couple of hours. Steve confesses
that this morgue security job is starting to give him
terrible nightmares. He tells me that he wants to leave
the morgue. Now. We quickly move through the disinfection-spraying
for the last time and remove our gear. He talks with
one of the other volunteers who will take over for him,
and we’re out the front entrance so suddenly I
am a little disoriented. Steve unnecessarily apologizes
to me. He says that he has seen a pattern among the
volunteers at the morgue: After about five days the
stress of working with so many dead bodies becomes too
much and people have to leave. He has hit his wall.
5 p.m. When we arrive back at the medical tent the
Thai doctors are there with some military personnel.
They politely but firmly inform us that they are taking
over for us starting tomorrow afternoon. Apparently,
Smile On Wings is going home.
Day 9
8 a.m. We arrive at camp with heavy hearts knowing this
is our last day. We brief the Thai doctors on our cases,
make sure they know where all our supplies are. We disburse
more money to refugees, to the camp kitchen for food
supplies and to the Thai military posted there for necessities
not covered by the government. Hardest of all, we say
our goodbyes to the volunteer and refugee friends we
have made and will never forget.
3 p.m. We are exhausted and still unbelieving that
this is really over. We return to our hotel, pack and
head to the Phuket airport. We tearfully say goodbye
to Kieran, the carpenter, and our dear friend and translator,
Wason. He made the long days go by more quickly. He
made me laugh when I wanted to cry. I will miss Wason
tremendously. We get through airport security —
and there is Kieran. He has come to meet Kristie. After
10 long, steaming hot days laboring at the Bang Muang
refugee camp and morgue, he too, is ending his mission
here for now. If Kristie will have him, he’d like
to join us for our last day in Bangkok and then —
who knows?
Day 10
10:30 p.m. After a night of rest at a Bangkok airport
hotel, we spend the day touring the culturally rich
city, shopping and visiting the famed Emerald Buddha.
We are tired. We are proud of our work. And each of
us feels deeply moved by our short time in beautiful
Khao Lak helping the tsunami victims.
My first night back home, after I put my children to
bed, I lie awake. I’m thinking of how my life
has changed by going on this tsunami mission, and of
all that still needs to be done there. My husband is
handy with tools. I can cook and clean, do community
relations. My kids would love to play with the refugee
kids. And I make a decision: I’m going back.
Cindy Crane lives in Bethesda with her husband,
Tony, and two children, Jesse and Nick. She is planning
on returning for another Smile on Wings mission later
this year. For more information on Smile on Wings, go
to www.smileonwings.org.
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