Tsunami Donation Totals

Okay, first and foremost the window for making donations to tsunami victims through Fiona and I is now closed. We’re leaving the island tomorrow, so no more donations will be accepted. We wound up staying an extra day, but we absolutely have to be in Bangkok on May 1st to start our CELTA class. I wish we could stay longer, but we simply cannot.

When I sent out the email about Tong, Koh Lanta, and the tsunami, I did it hoping that we'd be able to raise enough to buy Tong some lights and cushions for his bar. My highest expectation was that we'd end up with somewhere around $500, and we'd leave the island knowing that we'd helped out in some small way.

However, less than 24 hours after I'd clicked "Send" it was obvious that we were in the middle of something much bigger than either Fiona or I had anticipated. We sat in the internet café with our mouths open as we waded through email after email pledging donations. The lady who worked there laughed at how we whooped and hollered after we'd tallied up the day's total of $815.

Obviously, we couldn't wait to tell Tong. We hadn't even mentioned the initial letter to him because we didn't want to get his hopes up. We printed out the emails (minus the spicy bits - some of you guys are really sick), and ran down the road to Family Bungalows.

When we got there we went right up to Tong and I laid it on him all serious-like. "Tong," I said, "Do you have a second? We need to talk to you about something important."

We took him out to a table by the beach. Fiona and I sat on one side and he sat opposite us. He eyed the papers in my hand nervously as he fired up a cigarette.

"I just want to let you know," I started, "Yesterday I sent out an email about you and Family Bungalows." I laid the five page email on the table in front of him and began summarizing it. When I got to the end I said that I'd sent it to friends and family back home telling them that if they wanted to give money to help then I would give 100% of it directly to the people hurt by the tsunami.

I paused for a moment and gave him a few seconds to digest what I'd told him. He smiled a broad smile and thanked me. It's all a bit of a blur, but I think he said something along the lines of "It's very nice of you to do that."

That's when I really let him have it.

I whipped all the emails you sent out of my bag and slapped them down on the table in front of Tong. “Today I went to check my mail,” I said as I pointed to the first letter on the page, “And this is what I found.”

"This is from someone I used to work with. She says 'Good luck, Tong' and gives you fifty dollars." I pointed to the next one. "My friend from university gives you $25." I started going down the line one after the other. "This one is from my Grandmother. This one is from my brother. My friend who has no job gives you $20. Here's $100 from my cousin. Another friend gives you $50 and says he's happy he can help."

As I read them off in rapid-fire succession, I heard him say "Oh my God," in the quietest voice I'd ever heard. I looked up at him and he had his hands on his cheeks with his eyes wide open in a surreal Macaulay Culkin impression that I'll never forget for as long as I live.

When I got to the end of the emails I hit him with the grand finale. I showed him the last letter on the page and said "This one is from somebody who works with somebody I know. Obviously he doesn't know you, but he doesn't even know me, and he wants to give you $200."

I sat back with what must have been an absurdly large smile and waited for Tong to react. His face looked like he’d just had one of those throwup burps.

After a few seconds he jumped up excitedly. "This is amazing!" he half-yelled, "Nobody else can help me like this. No waiting for money from government. We can get cushions now!"

"You can get whatever you want," I said, "It's your money."

"No!" he shouted, "We can go get cushions NOW”

Me and Fiona exchanged looks. Fi shrugged her shoulders and said “OK. Let’s go!”

So we all excitedly piled into Tong’s pickup truck. Fiona and I sat in the back and Tong sat in the front with his driver (not that he needs a driver, but it’s an excuse to give somebody a job). We pulled out of the driveway and made our way down the bumpy, dusty road.

After 20 minutes of being bounced around, we pulled up to the market and we all got out of the truck. Tong took one look at Fiona and I and burst out laughing. We were both covered from head to toe with dust from the road. After we’d all had a good laugh Tong told us that he was sorry he’d brought us all the way to the market.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I get too excited,” he said, “I forget that we have no electricity in bar! Have to call electrician tomorrow. But today we can buy a CD case!”

So we marched into the market and bought one of the ugliest, cheapest CD cases I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It was the only one they had, and it’s baby blue with puffy white clouds and cuddly brontosaurii on the cover along with, coincidentally enough, the words “Thank You” in the upper right hand corner. Product designers in China must have access to a wide assortment of incredibly powerful psychedelic drugs.

But hideous as it may have been, it was worth every baht just to have something tangible for Tong to hold in his hands.

The next morning we went to the bank and I wired about $750 USD into Family Bungalow’s bank account. Not only did we hook Tong up with lights, cushions, electricity, and a stereo for his bar, we also gave him enough money to buy a good computer and a table to put it on. He’ll use it to sell internet time to guests, and he’ll also be able to provide services like CD burning and digital picture transfers.

Needless to say, Tong was ecstatic. In one day we managed to raise enough money to give him and everyone who works at Family Bungalow a fighting chance at staying open. That night the beer flowed like wine, and we sat around grinning at each other like a bunch of idiots.

The following day we went back to check our mail and we found that we’d raised another mind-boggling amount. We were up to almost $1500, and Tong had already said that he didn’t need any more donations. Fiona and I hadn’t expected anything like the response we were getting and we started to freak out.

We asked Tong what to do, but he didn’t have any ideas. He said he’s originally from the mainland and it wasn’t directly affected by the tsunami so he didn’t know anybody who needed help. We toyed with the idea of going to a school and asking the principal to point us in the direction of a needy family, but then we found out that the schools are closed for two months for the Thai New Year, and besides the government had already sent financial assistance to the schools, so they didn’t really need any help.

At around noon on the day before we were supposed to leave Fiona and I sat by the beach trying to come up with an idea as donations continued to come in. Time was running out, and we knew there had to be people on the island who needed help, but we just didn’t know how to find them. We had never dreamed that our one email would snowball into something so big in four short days.

As we sat on the beach teetering on the verge of panic, a somewhat serious-looking white guy carrying a clipboard came walking up to us.

“Is the owner of this bungalow operation here?” he asked.

We told him that the owner wasn’t here, but that the manager would be back shortly. He sat down with us to wait and we got to chatting. He told us his name was Steve and that he was working for a Non-Governmental Organization studying the allocation of financial aid to small bungalow owners in the aftermath of the tsunami.

The multiverse is a strange place, my friends. Just when Fiona and I were about to spiral into philanthropically-induced insanity, who should come strolling along the beach but the one guy on the island who knows more about the situation than possibly anyone else in Thailand.

Coincidence? You decide.

After Steve had finished interviewing Tong he told us that he couldn’t tell us the best way to put your money to good use, but that he would get us in touch with someone who could. We walked five minutes down the beach with him and he introduced us to Jaew, the owner of Where Else? bungalows.

She, in turn, told us that the best person to talk to was not her but her brother Wit. I wondered who had flipped the switch on the Infinite Improbability Drive as she explained to us that Wit was the person on Koh Lanta who had helped the fishermen who’d lost their boats fill out the paperwork to receive compensation from the Thai government. He knew exactly how much (if any) each family had gotten in the months after the tsunami had struck, and therefore who was in most dire need of help.

Jaew called her brother and he came to meet with us immediately. In less than 15 minutes he’d told us the names of three different families who had lost their boats and had their houses destroyed by the waves. None of the three families had gotten any help at all from the government or aid agencies because, as Wit put it, “they didn’t have the right friends.”

According to Steve, the average annual salary of a fisherman on Koh Lanta is around 20,000 baht, so we were dealing with relatively massive sums of money. After a few hours of chatting and trying to determine the fairest and most equitable way to divide the funds, we had worked out how to split up the remaining money.

First was Mr. Saksit, a Thai fisherman married to a sea gypsy. Both his house and his boat had been destroyed by the tsunami. He, his wife and his two year old son were living with another family because they couldn’t afford to fix his boat, and, being a fisherman, therefore couldn’t afford to make any money to fix his house. We decided to give Mr. Saksit 10,000 baht ($250 USD), which Jaew suggested could be used to travel to the mainland to look for work.

Secondly was Mr. Yabeh, who owned two boats before the tsunami came. He has six children, and until the tsunami five of the children were living at home with him, but now they’ve had to go to the mainland to try and find work as day laborers. His oldest son, Somnuk, has had to come live with Mr. Yabeh in his small house because his son’s house and boat were both destroyed. There are now 12 people living in Mr. Yabeh’s house, and it’s about the size of a two car garage.

Somnuk is a 32 year old fisherman with a wife and two children, ages 8 and 2. We went to see what’s left of his home, and I couldn’t believe it. The trunk of a palm tree had come crashing through his front wall and completely demolished everything inside. He had lost everything he owned.

We gave Mr. Yabeh and his son Somnuk 46,000 baht ($1250 USD). They said it will probably be enough to get one of their boats fixed, and from that point they can begin earning money for themselves.

Altogether we raised $2,655 (USD) or roughly 98,235 Baht. We directly helped Tong, the seven employees of Family Bungalows, Mr. Saksit and his wife and son, Mr. Yabeh and his wife and five children, and Mr. Somnuk and his wife and two kids. This doesn’t take into account all the ripples this cash infusion will have on the small economy of Koh Lanta either. For example, Tong bought his stereo from another bungalow operator on this island, so that 16,000 baht is now slowly making it’s way around the island. There is no way to measure the countless ripples that will be felt from your generosity and kindness.

All of us have done a really good thing here, and I’d like to thank you for taking this leap of faith with Fiona and I. Getting involved with this spontaneous exercise demanded a lot of trust on your part, and we’re honored that you think so highly of us. As thanks I promise to post pictures and more precise donation totals this website as soon as I get to Bangkok.

Posted by flow Frazao on April 27, 2005 at 10:36 AM in Southeast Asia | Permalink