Their mother has no money to send them to school. The family I met was extremely poor, they had almost nothing: no plates, no walls, no water, nothing. I, as a rich foreigner, felt very bad being there, feeling guilty about all my possessions and opportunities that they will never have. The world is so unfair. Around 7.00pm we left the village and I started receiving countless text messages and phone calls from my friends and family in Belgium (in the village itself, my phone had no network, which made many friends even more worried). "Leen, we heared about the earthquake, are you alive???? Please call us!", or "Leen, I saw the tsunami on the news and I am very worried about you. What happened?". I had absolutely no clue what they were talking about. I even was a little upset because I was surprised that my friends didn't know I was more than 1000 km away from the sea. Didn't they know how big Thailand is? But then when we got back home, I saw the horrible news on Thai television. Now I understood why people in Belgium were worried even if they knew I wasn't near the sea. I went to a cybercafe to read the news in my own language, because Thai television showed me a lot but I had no idea what they were saying, how big this tsunami was. I read some articles but I am sure that the first days of the Tsunami my friends and relatives at home knew more about it than myself, even if they were at the other side of the world and I was quite close. When you stay in Thailand for a while, you soon find out 2 basic rules: never mess with Buddhism, nor with the king and his family. The tsunami gave me an extreme example of that: I couldn't believe that many collegues and Thai friends (in the northeast of Thailand) of mine were actually more upset about the death of the princess' than about the countless other victims.

I was meant to be travelling to a school in Krabi Province on January 1st to work there during the second period of my stay in Thailand. Some friends, teachers and, of course, my host family in Isan didn't want me to go to the south because they were worried. They wanted to protect me from the misery and were afraid of the possible epidemies, after-shocks, but the danger had passed and I decided to go anyway. I taught for 3 weeks in Kao Phanom district, which was not very close to the sea. It was amazing how life just kept going on as if nothing had ever happened over there. Somethimes you heard a sad story. For example one of my collegues had to go to a funeral in Phuket because a friend of his was found. But people didn't really talk about it very often anymore. They went back to normal live with their own smaller problems. Meanwhile, at home, my relatives had started to collect money for the tsunami victims, and asked me to find a place where they could be sure the money was used in a proper way and could go directly to the victims. That was a part of the reason I went with 3 Openmind staff members and one other volunteer to the damaged places in Phuket, Kao Lak, Nam Kaem and many other small villages that were destroyed. When you see the houses, cars, shops and beaches that have been destroyed, you realise that so many people are still missing, you see the faces of desperate inhabitants who lost their houses and relatives, and, even worse than that, you smell the dead bodies who haven't been found yet. It just takes your breath away, turns over your stomach and makes you feel so small and helpless against the power of nature. No words needed to be added, because only being there makes you realize how horrible this disaster must have been. The only thing that stayed the same along the coastline is the palm trees. Their leaves are still waving in the wind and shining in the sun, as if nothing ever happened. They seem to be much stronger than most of the things built by humans. For 2 days we visited schools in the damaged area. Some schools had totally disappeared and will have to be rebuilt, and the schools that are still there now have many orphans, homeless and even dead or missing students. We also visited a big refugee camp. Every day, we tried to catch the principal of the institution or organisation to ask him in which way Openmind Projects and their volunteers could help them in the future: not only now, but also in long term.

One day, I went with a group of well-known writers in Thailand (www.writer-fund-tsunami.all.at) to Pak Tream. Pak Tream is, or was, a village near the sea which has totally disappeared: it is now mainly under water. Therefore, after 2 weeks, the 100 inhabitants had to move away from that place. The people now live in igloo tents, they lost everything. There is 1 kitchen, 1 toilet and 1 road. In the tsunami, they lost 2 babies, many animals and all their possessions: the men of the village are burning some forest down to build their new village there, but there is one problem. There is no money. My relatives have collected 150,000 Baht and I decided to give it to this village. With the money they are able to repair some of their long tail boats so the men can go fishing again and the village has an income. There was also a Portuguese girl with us who went to buy provisions with some of the inhabitants. 65,000 Baht was enough to give Pak Tream water and food for the next week, as well as some paint for the boats and other fishing materials. I have been in this village for about 4 hours. Thanks to the Thai writers who could translate for me, I talked with the inhabitants. There was an old woman who held my arm and wouldn't let me go. She told me she had been in the hospital for 6 days after the tsunami. She lost her cat, who was named Nami: she laughed really hard about her own Tsunami/Nami joke, but you saw the pain in her eyes and I had difficulties putting a smile on my face. Another woman came to sit next to me. She has 6 children and no husband. And then there were all these children. So many of them. They were excited about their new 'home' , the moving and the tent, because it is so new for them. But they are traumatized and they will soon realize that living in a tent is not nice at all."

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