Happy New Year
My Thai wanderings have included Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pai (ah, Pai!), and Kanchanaburi. The concept of prequels has worked well for George Lucas, and at some point I may decide to go back in time and describe these journeys. Still, for now I'll speak from the present.
First, an acknowledgement of this region's recent disaster. I was inland and north on December 26th, too far away to feel the tsunami's impact. My exposure to the event is probably similar to yours; images from the media and conversations with other people.
In Bangkok, where I am posting this, there are relief stations collecting money and clothing. A blood drive for Rh negative is underway. Official New Year celebrations were canceled last night as a symbol of national mourning.
I won't comment on the images and statistics. You've seen and know what I do. But I will offer a few words not of information but of personal sharing.
The scope of this event is so large that it really doesn't sink in for me. The current death toll is 115,00, but it's still climbing. While this is sobering, I do not find myself overwhelmed by something so abstract as a number.
What drives it home for me, are the individual stories; women left without husbands and children, children left without parents.... Villages where generations of families and neighbors lived together, literally wiped off the planet.
Knowing how many, many of these dramas are being lived out; this is what impacts me. This is what gives me a sense of shared humanity with the victims and with humankind as a whole.
O.k., the present. It is the first of January, and tonight at 6 pm a bus will pick me up at my guest house. Sometime in the early morning hours I will transfer to a ferry, and at 10 tomorrow morning (in theory) I will arrive on the island of Ko Samui, ready to begin my six-week TEFL course (teaching english as a foreign language).
I will keep you posted.
Happy New Year!!!
