• Struggling for survival |
REMEMBRANCE One day at a time She was pregnant when the tsunami made her a widow. A year on, Saowaree Nopparit has managed to find a job but she still has no home of her own and only gets to see her child once a week. The reality is grim, but not a single tear has been shed - in public, anyway. This morning is just like any other for Saowaree Nopparit, a 21-year-old woman who lost her husband exactly a year ago today (note to sub: the article will appear on Dec 26). It's a quarter to seven and Joy - a rather ironic nickname, given her situation - is on the way to her office at Rajaprajanugroh 35 School in the Phangnga sub-district of Bang Muang. She doesn't teach there, not having the necessary degree, but Joy says she's grateful for the job she does have - as a site clerk with a construction company doing work at the school. For the last three months, she's been working with a large crew of Burmese and Thai workers, keeping track of their time-sheets, handing out tools each morning and making sure that they're returned to the warehouse at the end of the day, plus any other chores the bosses may come up with. Riding a motorbike past a housing estate built for tsunami victims, Joy mentions how her application for a house has been repeatedly turned down. She doesn't understand why she wasn't entitled to similar help, she says - for wasn't her husband killed in the same catastrophe? For the past year, Joy has been moving from one relative's house to another. She has had to leave her six-month-old baby in the care of her mother, who lives in another province. ''Out of my salary of 5,000 baht, I send 2,000 to my mother to cover the cost of milk and so on,'' she explains in a matter-of-fact tone. ''The rest goes to cover my contribution to the utilities bills for the family I'm staying with.'' At the school, two different worlds seem to be operating side-by-side. On the front lawn, young boys and girls in student uniforms gather in groups, chatting, playing games and laughing. At the rear of the compound, where rows of makeshift huts stand, the construction workers are finishing up their breakfast and getting ready for work. A teacher's voice blares out over a loudspeaker warning students about the risks of straying too near the building site, where falling timber and protruding nails are not uncommon: ''Any student who wants to stay alive, get away from the construction site. NOW!'' A Burmese woman, her toddler son strapped to her waist, walks by, having just clocked in for her shift. Joy relates how, following her husband's disappearance, she had to learn how to fend for herself and her little boy, Thitipong. ''At this stage, I have no expectation of anyone coming to help me,'' she remarks. ''So far, I've only received missing persons' compensation worth 45,000 baht and I had to share that with my mother-in-law. ''As for my son? Well, the Children's Village School [a non-profit organisation] is giving me 2,000 baht a month. I've received nothing further from the government. At the beginning, the district [office] said I'd have to wait until I'd delivered the baby before applying for any aid. Now, they say I must wait until he's old enough to go to school.'' At least, the child is still with her - technically speaking, anyway. Joy can no longer stay with her in-laws - her own parents have long been separated - because she and they had a falling-out: The in-laws wanted her to give Thitipong up for adoption by another relative (Joy and her husband hadn't officially registered their marriage). Once a week she hops on her motorcycle and drives the 60km to her mother's house. There will be a brief reunion - a mere night - of mother and child before Joy has to race back to Phangnga for work on Monday morning. Her situation is sadly typical of the women who lost husbands in the tsunami. The phenomenon could, perhaps, be dubbed as the emergence of ''two-time orphans'': Of the thousands of children who lost either a father or a mother in the Boxing Day disaster, many have been unable to continue living with their surviving parent. Chortip Chaicharn of the Foundation For Women (FFW) reckons that some of these widows have left areas devastated by the tsunami to look for jobs elsewhere, although no statistics are available to map the extent of this migration. Neither is there data on ''the new poor'' - the people who have been shoved into sudden poverty by the killer waves. Even those lucky enough not to have lost either family or property have had their way of life severely disrupted. ''The tsunami has not only wiped out houses, fishing boats and human lives,'' Ms Chortip said. ''It has also wiped out the entire local economy - and it'll be a long, long time before we're able to put things back together again.'' The FFW's Weaving New Lives with Andaman Women and Children Project is a small attempt to replant the seeds of hope - and not only for direct victims of the tragedy. Chortip said her organisation particularly wants to help those marginalised during the earlier distribution of hu-manitarian aid. (At the opposite end of the scale are the people who always seem to be in the know about where and when to go for donations from Thai and foreign charities, the so-called ''professional victims''.) Panupong Hirunrat from the Raks Thai Foundation agrees. A social worker who has spent time in the area, he said that certain villages have been flooded with relief while others got none, and that he had witnessed aid being distributed exclusively to those with good connections to local officials. Kullwadee Sumalnop, regional communications officer with Save the Children (UK), noted that some forms of assistance turned out to be less than practical, one instance being replacement boats given to fishermen which proved totally unsuitable for the purpose. It is for reasons like these that a growing number of local women have been pushing for a greater role in managing the relief funds, said Ms Chortip of the FFW. ''They'd like to be included in the making of decisions about how budgets are spent and about what long-term rehabilitation strategies to adopt for their communities. The locals are the ones who can tell the genuine victims from the fake ones. Besides, there have been cases of husbands squandering the compensation money in karaoke bars and restaurants and this has led to a rise in domestic violence.'' Both Ms Chortip and Mr Panupong said that their respective organisations have been focussing on restoring financial security as the very first step in rebuilding lives turned upside-down by the tsunami. The FFW, for example, has been holding a series of workshops to train local women in management, marketing, auditing, group-building and networking. In Ms Chortip's opinion, ''Differences in religious and ethnic background haven't had that much impact on how the women coped with the crisis. It has more to do with how they'd led their lives before the tsunami. Those who were used to earning their own keep have tended to get back on their feet more quickly than the typical housewife. ''But through our guidance, encouragement -and financial support, both groups are learning to look ahead: Deciding what kind of jobs they'd like to do, finding out how to locate markets [for their goods and services] and paying back the loans to the group so that other members can borrow and start their own enterprises too.'' Ms Chortip underlined the importance of being patient, however; given the magnitude of the damage caused, she said the rehabilitation process will take a considerable amount of time. A woman may decide to open a sweet shop in her village, say, but as long as her community is still mired in economic difficulties, she will have problems attracting enough customers. Thus, Ms Chortip continued, one shouldn't look at a victim's situation as an individual case in isolation from that of his or her family and community. As important, and probably as complex, as the restoration of financial stability is the mental rehabilitation process. Ms Kullwadee of Save the Children said one of her organisation's first priorities was to ensure that youngsters would be able to resume their normal daily lives - to go back to school, rejoin their friends and play with them - as soon as possible. The UK-based charity has been supporting and working with a coalition of ''partner organisations'' to organise art therapy and other educational programmes for schoolchildren and other youngsters who, for whatever reason, are not currently enrolled in the school system. ''Art really does allow the children to release their feelings,'' Ms Kullwadee said. ''There was one child who kept drawing pictures of the tsunami swallowing up her parents and the boat they were on. When we asked her why, she said that by doing this she felt she could keep the memory of her parents alive and thus be able to reconnect with them again.'' Indeed, the FFW's Ms Chortip noted how the disaster seems to have had a more lasting effect on the older children, those aged between seven and 15, than on the very young ones. Clearly, the older one is, the more memories one has to cherish - or lament. Back at Rajaprajanugroh 35, the national anthem has just ended. Young boys and girls are filing into their classrooms. A concrete example of His Majesty the King's generous response to the plight of tsunami victims, the new school was built to give children of all backgrounds the chance of a brighter future. At the moment, though, Joy says that all she can do is live one day at a time. Raising her voice to compete with the noise of hammers, power saws and labourers shouting to each other, she explains that once the construction work is finished, the school will be able to accept hundreds of boarders, from grades one to 12. She doesn't know if Thitipong will be able to study there when he reaches school-entry age, nor can she predict for how long she'll be able to fund his education. After all, there's a more urgent task at hand, Joy quickly adds: To reclaim her husband's body from the Victim Identification Centre and to hold a proper funeral. The identification process has been particularly lengthy in this case because Joy had to wait for her son to get old enough to give a DNA sample for comparison purposes. After almost a year, the authorities have finally told her that a positive match has been made. But nobody can tell what kind of future lies in store for Joy and Thitipong. |
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