A global responsibility

Many have come to tsunami ravished regions to accompany the people in an effort to restore lost livelihoods and broken spirits

By Sr. Fernande Barnabe, M.O.
March 2005

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On December 27, my last day in Singapore after a brief visit, I passed a newspaper stand where I saw horrific front-page images. They revealed the devastation from the tsunami that hit this region of the world.

The next week, Sr. Supaporn at the Good Shepherd Sisters' Fountain of Life Center where I work in Pattaya, Thailand, invited a group of Center staff to go and help at a relief camp in Phang Nga in the south of Thailand.

After a day's travel, we reached Surat Thani about three hours from our destination and received a briefing from a Sister. She assigned us to a camp where there were people from the Morgan tribe.

At the first camp we came to along the way, I saw many organizations at work. There were priests, sisters, seminarians, social workers, medical teams, cooks, electricians, and soldiers - all trying to respond to the many needs.

The people were living in makeshift tents and there were soldiers building more temporary shelters. Still traumatized by what had happened to them, people sat in their tents telling their experience to any listening ears.

We continued on to our assigned camp and found the people looking depressed, as if the life had gone out of them. Their faces reflected the trauma of lost loved ones. Fishermen's nets hung from a tree, marking a livelihood laid waste and replaced with a fear of the sea. The people's whole demeanor reminded me of the last words Jesus said on the cross, "My God, my God, why did you abandon me?" (Mark 15:34)

Throughout the day, we distributed packages of food, and gave a Jell-O treat to the children. Our Center staff did a great job singing action songs with the children after they returned from school. I played the role of grandmother, taking children on my lap and keeping time to the rhythm.

At night a group of seminarians played the drums and sang. At first only the children joined our staff in dancing along to the music. Wanting the adults to take part, Lek, a young woman from our Center, said to a little girl, "Go and get your parents." Lek was unprepared for the child's answer.

"I lost my Mom and Dad," the little girl said.

After a moment, Lek drew the child close and asked, "Do you have a brother or a sister?" The little girl then hopped away to get her sister.

Painful stories

The people welcomed our presence and shared many painful stories with us that day. Many parents who had lost a child felt guilty, blaming themselves for the child's death. A mother said she never left her baby. Yet, on the day the tsunami hit, she had left her infant with the grandmother. Thinking her baby was safe, she looked after an older child. When the wave came, the undercurrent took the baby out to sea and the wave pushed the grandmother towards the land. The grandmother was safe, but later learned that her son swallowed so much mud that he was in the hospital.

Another mother tried to hold onto her two children, but had to let one go. What a choice to make. I heard many stories of a child slipping from a parent's grasp because of the slippery mud.

The next day our group drove to nearby Kuk-Kak. It was a sight I will never forget: people still searching for the missing; the temple where bodies still lie; the bulletin board with pictures of those found and not yet claimed or identified. What was once a beautiful resort was completely destroyed. I saw many vehicles wrecked, hotels and residences razed. It is hard to imagine the magnitude of a wave that could cause such destruction.

I rolled down the window to take a picture, but the stench of death and rot was overpowering. I quickly rolled the window up again. Imagine people living here day after day, sitting hopelessly in the rubble.

The tsunami hit 11 countries but left the entire international community in mourning. Restoration has become a global responsibility. It would be wrong for us to exclaim, "What a tragedy! What a disaster! So sad for these people!" and carry on with our lives without trying to help.

The leading nations talk of freezing the debts of these countries, but I believe this is not going far enough. It is time to show our solidarity with our brothers and sisters, and our concern for their loss of life and livelihood. People in the North have so much in comparison: Why not completely write off the debts of the tsunami countries?

Thailand's Cardinal Kitbunchu held a meeting to discuss establishing an orphanage for the approximately 400 children in the South orphaned by the tsunami, and help for the country's poor who have no access to the aid that the tsunami victims are receiving.

My experience of visiting the camps and witnessing the devastation left me with praise for the people's courage and fortitude. A month after my visit, I returned to find the people getting on with their lives, rebuilding, and making fishing nets to return to the sea.

I also praise the dedication and compassion of the volunteers who have come from near and far to find the suffering Christ.

My nephew, Daniel, wrote to tell me that his friend was coming from Canada to help out. I think this is the spirit of many. God has not abandoned the people because you are the hands of Christ; you are the heart and compassion of Christ who carries the love and concern of God to our crucified brothers and sisters in their sorrow and great loss. Through you, there will be an Easter for these people.

Fernande Barnabe, a Missionary Oblate Sister, has served in Thailand with Scarboro Missions since 2001.

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