A week helping in Thailand

[proud2BlibKansan]

The builder's tale

When a 43-year-old from Kent heard about the Asian tsunami, he dropped everything to go to Thailand - even though he didn't know where it was, let alone how he could help rebuild the devastated country. Ian Archer recalls his traumatic but uplifting week

Friday January 14, 2005
The Guardian

I felt like a complete plonker when I arrived in Phuket a week ago. I had no plan, didn't know where I was, didn't know where the disaster had struck, nothing. All I had was a big, green bag full of clothes that my kids wanted to donate. We'd all felt so terrible when we saw what the tsunami had done, especially after we had had such a great Christmas with lots of presents and food. I didn't have any work on for a few weeks, so, after a bit of umming and aahing, I thought, "Sod it, it's time to do something." I bought a ticket on January 2 and flew off the next morning.

I thought I could just turn up and muck in. I was completely naive. That first day, I felt like a total waste of space and I take up a lot of that - I'm so big that my kids call me Shrek. I wandered around and asked people where I should go to help, but everyone was too busy to point me in the right direction. When I turned up at the hotel, I stupidly asked the owner where I could buy some shovels and a wheelbarrow. Of course, he didn't have a clue. Then I went to Kamala beach, where I saw the devastation for the first time. But what could I do? There was no one around. Should I just start shovelling?

But after a couple of days, I was taken to Ban Muang refugee camp, about 50 miles north of Phuket. Here, I was able to do exactly what I I had come to do. The first day, I helped to build accommodation blocks and handed out hundreds of sleeping bags. The shelters we made weren't great - rough timber frames and breeze-block walls - but they have electricity, a proper door and they're bigger and better than the tents. When I got back to my hotel that first evening, I felt elated. I had actually achieved something.

The only real irritation has been the American Christian volunteers. They go on about God all the time and give really horrible looks when I say "Jesus!" or "Christ!". And they seem to think that they are the world's landlords. The other day, I was doing some painting when one of them asked me how long I planned to stay. I told him that I hadn't yet decided. "Oh, I guess you'll be around until George Bush stops paying for the paint," he said. At times like that, I have to bite my tongue.

http://www.notthistimegeorge.org/framer.cfm?liid=1493

[Menshevik]

1. ugh

"Oh, I guess you'll be around until George Bush stops paying for the paint?"

freakin ridiculous. :eyes:

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Yep, the main reason I posted that

was for that paragraph about the Americans. How embarrassing.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. That is one telling article. American "Christians" have made being

an American an embarrassment.

[Wendigo]

4. Remember the killing grounds that Pat Robertson built in Guatemala

Evangelical Christian housing tracts ("model villages") that were run by the selfsame army which had driven villagers off their traditional lands...