Harrowing 1st Hand Account of Tsunami - Expat gets no help from Embassy

[Indie Media Magazine]

author: expat in Thailand

snip.....

In Bangkok most people got help pretty quick. The Swedes, Germans and English had charted flights for their citizens to get home. The Thai government gave free hotel rooms to survivors and there were lists of places to get food. EXCEPT the Americans. I went in to find out what help I could get - I was able to get a replacement passport, a toothbrush and a paperback book. They said it was not their policy to arrange flights home. I was cut up, still covered in a pretty good layer of mud, I had no home, no money, no clothing (except some borrowed off Keith) nothing at all, and they could do nothing to help. They did offer to let me borrow money, but they would have to find three people in America who would vouch for me, and that process should take less than a week. In the mean time I was fucked. I was destitute and rejected by the embassy.

HARROWING 1ST HAND ACCOUNT OF TSUNAMI

[Califooyah Operative]

1. I just read this and was looking to see if it was posted here yet.....

amazing.

[NJCher]

2. read it and the posts at Daily Kos, too

Thanks for posting this Indie Media Magazine. It was engrossing...fascinating. Captured me from beginning to end. If you scroll to the bottom, you'll see a link to the discussion on it at Daily Kos where you can scroll down and see the pictures of the author and his wife.

In these posts are links to other accounts and stories--quite an interesting thread if you want to know about the tsunami.

Some of the posts gave first hand accounts of how unhelpful the American embassy is to its citizens. In this situation the writer was unable to get help from the American embassy--but the Japanese helped him.


Cher